This dissertation considers the aesthetic strategies and ethical implications of contemporary earth art. Drawing from feminist and ecological critiques of phenomenology, it posits that an ethical preoccupation with the earth is identifiable in works that stage the artist's inability to condense natural phenomena into an intelligible art object thereby evidencing the earth's excess beyond the field of perception. Contemporary earth art has the paradoxical goal of evoking the sensorial plenitude of the earth without representing it as such. The first chapter analyzes Robert Smithson's monumental sculpture, the Spiral Jetty (1970), and suggests that the artist deploys the emblem of the whirlpool to express the artwork's constitutive rupture from the earth, a loss that the artwork subsequently discloses in its textual modes, including an essay and a film that document the construction of the sculpture. Chapter two examines the recurrence of the whirlpool motif and other anagrammatic shapes such as black holes, tornadoes, shells and nests, in earth art from the last three decades. In contemporary practices the whirlpool allegorizes an ethical attentiveness to the earth's alterity; not only does it thematize the artwork's separation from perpetual natural regeneration, it signals the artist's withdrawal from the attempt to construct a totalizing perspective of the site. Chapter three addresses performance and installation works that feature the contact between the artist's body and the earth, and in particular, the body's role in delineating the point of friction between the earth's sensorial plenitude and its resistance to representation. Earth artists thereby assert the body as a surface that separates itself out from the earth and receives sensation of it as other. The conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the previous chapters through a discussion of a three-part installation by Chris Drury entitled Whorls (2005).

Looking at John Duncan's 1980 art performance, BLIND DATE, and its morally controversial content, I propose to investigate the nature of art's relationship to morality. My research consists of determining whether "immorality" represents an obstacle to the ontological identity of art and to artistic value. To question the authority of ethical criticism in art, I review a contemporary philosophical debate, which opposes two main schools, one in support of the validity of ethical criticism in art and the other against it. Following up on the second position, I elaborate a definition of art and a system of evaluation that aims to determine artistic value, both of which allow space for the potential artistic legitimacy of immoral art.

Exegesis (Hon--Art and Design) -- AUT University, 2006. / Print copy is accompanied by CD. Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (49 leaves : ill. ; 21 x 30 cm. + CD) in City Campus Theses Collection (T 709.93 LEE )

Objetivando a compreensão das relações entre a ética e a estética na fotografia, mais propriamente com relação à representação do corpo, procura-se compreender o processo de significação da imagem. Devido à característica indicial da imagem gerada por um processo mecânico e por isso singular nas representações visuais, a fotografia se destaca com relação a sua representação da realidade codificada visualmente. Aplicando metodologias de diferentes autores na avaliação e análise do discurso ético e da construção estética, foram combinadas duas possibilidades de percepção da imagem, produzindo uma metodologia própria e direcionada para a discussão dos conflitos causados pela representação do imoral como belo.A partir da compreensão dos mecanismos da comunicação visual pelas teorias de Peirce, Bazin, Barthes, Sontag e Dubois; das relações entre a arte e a ética de Keiran e Gaut; de estudos sobre as estéticas fenomenológica e analítica e da pesquisa de metodologias e da aplicação em avaliações de imagens fotográficas produzidas a partir do início do século XX, foi possível obter dados relevantes para a análise da construção formal e do posicionamento moral da obra resultante. Esse enfoque teve como resultado a proposta de uma metodologia de avaliação ético-estética que permita ao espectador compreender, analisar e avaliar a obra de arte fotográfica. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2016-01-27T12:48:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Gustavo Luiz Pozza.pdf: 1745021 bytes, checksum: 9244fec4a46c38233779d4859d1cab4e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-27T12:48:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Gustavo Luiz Pozza.pdf: 1745021 bytes, checksum: 9244fec4a46c38233779d4859d1cab4e (MD5) / Having as objective the understanding of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in photography, more specifically regarding the representation of the body, this research seeks to understand the process of signification of the image. Due to its indexical characteristic as an image generated by a mechanical process, and so singular in the visual representations, the photographic image stands out with respect to its representation of visually coded reality. Applying methodologies of different authors in the evaluation and analysis of ethical discourse and aesthetic construction, were combined two ways of perception of the image, producing its own methodology, directed to the discussion of the conflicts caused by the representation of immoral as beautiful. Through the understanding of the mechanisms of visual communication by the theories of Peirce, Bazin, Barthes, Sontag e Dubois; the relations between art and ethics from Keiran and Gaut; of studies on the phenomenological and analytical aesthetic and research of methodologies and its application to evaluation of photographic images produced since the early twentieth century, it was possible to obtain relevant data for the analysis of formal construction and moral positioning of the resulting work. This approach has resulted in the proposal of a methodology of ethical and aesthetic evaluation that allows the spectator to understand, analyze and evaluate the photographic work of art.

Objetivando a compreensão das relações entre a ética e a estética na fotografia, mais propriamente com relação à representação do corpo, procura-se compreender o processo de significação da imagem. Devido à característica indicial da imagem gerada por um processo mecânico e por isso singular nas representações visuais, a fotografia se destaca com relação a sua representação da realidade codificada visualmente. Aplicando metodologias de diferentes autores na avaliação e análise do discurso ético e da construção estética, foram combinadas duas possibilidades de percepção da imagem, produzindo uma metodologia própria e direcionada para a discussão dos conflitos causados pela representação do imoral como belo.A partir da compreensão dos mecanismos da comunicação visual pelas teorias de Peirce, Bazin, Barthes, Sontag e Dubois; das relações entre a arte e a ética de Keiran e Gaut; de estudos sobre as estéticas fenomenológica e analítica e da pesquisa de metodologias e da aplicação em avaliações de imagens fotográficas produzidas a partir do início do século XX, foi possível obter dados relevantes para a análise da construção formal e do posicionamento moral da obra resultante. Esse enfoque teve como resultado a proposta de uma metodologia de avaliação ético-estética que permita ao espectador compreender, analisar e avaliar a obra de arte fotográfica. / Having as objective the understanding of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in photography, more specifically regarding the representation of the body, this research seeks to understand the process of signification of the image. Due to its indexical characteristic as an image generated by a mechanical process, and so singular in the visual representations, the photographic image stands out with respect to its representation of visually coded reality. Applying methodologies of different authors in the evaluation and analysis of ethical discourse and aesthetic construction, were combined two ways of perception of the image, producing its own methodology, directed to the discussion of the conflicts caused by the representation of immoral as beautiful. Through the understanding of the mechanisms of visual communication by the theories of Peirce, Bazin, Barthes, Sontag e Dubois; the relations between art and ethics from Keiran and Gaut; of studies on the phenomenological and analytical aesthetic and research of methodologies and its application to evaluation of photographic images produced since the early twentieth century, it was possible to obtain relevant data for the analysis of formal construction and moral positioning of the resulting work. This approach has resulted in the proposal of a methodology of ethical and aesthetic evaluation that allows the spectator to understand, analyze and evaluate the photographic work of art.

The aim of the thesis was to explore two focus questions using the phenomenological approach. Firstly, what it meant to be an artist for three particular artists; a painter, a writer and a playwright. Secondly, what a general explicitation (after Van Kaam, 1958) of the three subjects' artistic creative experience and working processes revealed in essence. The taped data of the three artists were reduced and explored through a number of phenomenological strategies. This led to the formulation of four essential descriptions for each artist, which were based structurally on Van den Berg's experiential categories in A Different Existence. Thus, the essential descriptions reflect each artist's relationship with his/her world, body, fellow people and time. The final step was the achievement of a general extended description. The major conclusion arising from the phenomenological explication is that art affords a way through which artists are able to live an authentic existence. That is, the body and world of the artist are in harmony and the artist's art roots him in the past, is manifest in the present and indicates the future direction of his work. Another conclusion is that the artist is Janus-faced and this enables him/her to balance subjectivity and objectivity in the Lebenswelt and to communicate what he/she sees to others in a healthy way through art. The artist's relationship with world, body, fellow people and with time, is postulated as being qualitatively richer than that of the nonartist. The two focus questions were successfully answered through the research explication and were validated by two independent judges. The viability of the phenomenological approach in the field of artistic creativity was therefore demonstrated. Suggestions for future research were made, one of which was that more phenomenological research aimed at eliciting specific information on the creation of art works might render more information on the artistic creative process.

This research investigates how power dynamics function in three cases of participatory art, each created by a different artist. Participatory art (PA) is understood as art whose physical or visual properties are shaped or altered by the viewers’ engagement. The study responds to the fact that discourses on PA often refer to the emancipation of participants. Rooted in concepts from Foucauldian biopolitics, the research also assumes that PA inevitably involves a distribution of power among artists and participants, which often vacillates between cultivation and instrumentalization. Data for this qualitative, multi-case study were collected through interviews with the three artists and with three viewers of each studied work. The researcher’s memories of her participatory experiences in the studied artworks, captured in a journal, were also considered as data. Detailed narrative findings illustrate how artists’ and viewers’ positions in relation to particular works are never detached from the art systems that frame them. Yet, these positions are not necessarily static and can shift in significant ways. Therefore, the balance between cultivation and instrumentalization can change from work to work, from participant to participant, and from situation to situation. The study shines a light on the potential of critical reflection, enacted once artists and viewers “step out” of the work, for realizing, questioning, and critiquing the conditions of participatory artworks. The researcher suggests that it is in such reflective spaces that awareness of one’s power within a work, and the emancipation that follows, are more likely to occur.

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The underlying problem of the thesis is elucidating the relationship between the art object and philosophy. The thesis is organized into an introduction and four chapters. The introduction poses the need for a philosophical approach to the art object, and the phenomological method is briefly described. The first chapter defines and describes two basic structures found in the art object. The second chapter probes into the ontological structure of the art object in terms of form and media. The third chapter focuses on the relation of form and media evident in personal art works. The fourth chapter summarizes the content of preceding chapters and describes the relationship between the art object and the phenomological method, and discusses the significance of this relationship to philosophy and mankind.