Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-37).

Thèse (M.A.Plas.) -- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2003. / Bibliogr.: f. 70-73. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-96).

Soviet-era Communism was a project of emergence that failed to realise its Utopian ambition. Nevertheless, it created an unprecedented simulacrum whose visual language was appropriated by a number of artists as a readymade. This artistic response to everyday reality shaped an unofficial narrative of the Communist epoch. Operating beyond the official realm these artists were subject to varying degrees of censorship, and their activities led to what became known as ‘non-official’ art. Non-official artists suffered from inferior materials, lack of exposure, and were forced to radicalize their methods of production. Without official support the everyday domestic realm and a diverse range of outdoor sites became sites of production. The primary arena, however, and the one that would become the most politicized, was the artist's body that often acted as one or both material and surface. On the one hand the thesis takes the Communist context as a common platform from which to discuss time-based art practices in Eastern Europe while, on the other, it proposes that such a general view is worthless since it does not pay sufficient attention to the particular conditions within each bloc country. While the former serves as a reference for artistic response in a wide view, the latter provokes a deeper, more contextualised, understanding of the social, political, and cultural conditions that ultimately shaped non-official art. To understand fully the effect of the Communist past also involves analysing it through the lens of the present day. A number of works produced pre- and post-1989 are analysed that offer insights into the past, its disintegration, and the transition period. The theoretical and critical thrust is shaped from primary research material gathered from artists, intellectuals, and critics throughout the region, so as to most clearly reflect its own contemporaneous and unfolding discourse. It builds on these key sources and underscores the difficulties faced when trying to locate the works within existing art history canons. Together with this written element, a further two curatorial strands complete the form of the thesis. A website has been created that reflects the thesis enquiry, three re-enactments of historical works are undertaken as a strategy that allows for a more experiential understanding of context, and three new performances devised by the author in response to the contexts researched complete the work. The thesis was written throughout Eastern Europe, and primarily in Poland where the author lives and works.

Thesis (M. S.)--Literature, Communication, and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Mazalek, Ali; Committee Member: Bolter, Jay David; Committee Member: Do, Ellen Yi-Luen; Committee Member: Nitsche, Michael; Committee Member: Winegarden, Claudia R.

When I began developing the video game concept for my thesis, I realized that I was one of the kids that grew up in a society where video games took prevalence over historical artistry. I, however, was unaware of the hidden secrets that resided in the art and how much they contribute to the video games I enjoy playing today. This thesis aims to provide the younger generations with an engaging and stimulating way to experience historical artistry, more specifically the Italian Renaissance, without having to consult a history book. I aim to provide enough detail on multiple aspects of the movement to bring it to life in the classroom via any video game platform. Students need to develop an awareness of the benefits our digital culture gained over the centuries from the Italian Renaissance; therefore, I aspire to provide present-day children and teenagers with the ability to learn about the movement by doing one of the things they love most: playing video games. Although the art is most intriguing in its natural form, one must stay up to date with the changing times and provide the next generation with the artistic knowledge on which they might rely in their future career.

The Dissertation titled Documentary Approaches in Contemporary Fine Art Moving Image focuses on the practical and theoretical research of documentary approaches to videos and films in the art field. It notices especially the self-reflexive strategies as a consequence of critical approach towards the medium itself and lack of belief in its ability to mediate reality or truth. Attempts to convey reality by audiovisual means are accompanied by the reflection of the way this happens. The Dissertation also reflects on the uncertain relation between the documentary and truth, which has been described in art by the artist and theoretician Hito Steyerl. The examined artworks were made in the period between the beginning of 21st century, when the documentary turn was reflected intensively, and the present time. The selection of examples was strongly influenced by the local study of Israeli art in The Video Archive of the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv. Motives of conflict, violence and trauma resonating in studied videos and films influenced further selection and analysis of the authors’ documentary methods from a different context. In the selected works I can see particularly various forms of alienation effects and self-reflexive approaches. Using these procedures the artists highlight the constructedness of the audiovisual work and the way it was produced. Recurring formal principles have been stated. Reenactment of real events, revealing the way the work was produced or the artist’s position in the production process; these strategies indicate the uncertain relationship between the documentary work and reality. In the frame of these tendencies also reevaluation of the observational documentary strategies as something seemingly opposite to self-reflexive strategies is reviewed. Theoretical outcomes are continuously accompanied by author’s own art projects concentrated around the form of documentary portrait and its (de)construction. They experiment with the formal principles analyzed on a theoretical level.

This thesis examines the philosophical notion of selfhood in visual representation. I introduce the self as a modern and postmodern concept and argue that there is a loss of selfhood in contemporary culture. Via Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gerhard Richter and the method of deconstruction of language, I theorise selfhood through the figurative and literal analysis of duration, the frame, and the mirror. In this approach, selfhood is understood as aesthetic-ontological relation and construction based on specific techniques of the self. In the first part of the study, I argue for a presentational rather than representational perspective concerning selfhood by translating the photograph Self in the Mirror (1964), the painting Las Meninas (1656), and the video Cornered (1988), into my conception of a cinematic theory of selfhood. Based on the presentation of selfhood in those works, the viewer establishes a cinematic relation to the visual self that extends and transgresses the boundaries of inside and outside, presence and absence, and here and there. In the second part, I interpret epistemic scenes of cinematic works as durational scenes in which selfhood is exposed with respect to the forces of time and space. My close readings of epistemic scenes of the films The Congress (2013), and Boyhood (2014) propose that cinema is a philosophical mirror collecting loss of selfhood over time for the viewer. Further, the cinematic concert A Trip to Japan, Revisited (2013), and the hyper-film Cool World (1992) disperse a spatial sense of selfhood for the viewer. In the third part, I examine moments of selfhood and the forces of death, survival, and love in the practice of contemporary cinematic portraiture in Joshua Oppenheimer’s, Michael Glawogger’s, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ work. While the force of death is interpreted in the portrait of perpetrators in The Act of Killing (2013), and The Look of Silence (2014), the force of survival in the longing for life is analysed in Megacities (1998), Workingman’s death (2005), and Whores’ Glory (2011). Lastly, Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), and The Lobster (2015) present the contemporary human condition as a lost intuition of relationality epitomised in love.

Les auteurs contemporains, des plasticiens aux réalisateurs de blockbusters, créent des images où le réel et le virtuel semblent de la même étoffe. Leurs films, vidéos et installations exposent un monde qui émerge de l’immatérialité des écrans.À la différence des images qui procèdent de l'imprégnation de la lumière réelle sur des surfaces photosensibles, les simulacres numériques résultent du langage binaire. Ils correspondent à du code informatique qui transforme l’image en une somme de données.Dès lors, ceux-ci entraînent-ils une mutation de notre rapport à l’image ? En quoi induisent-ils une nouvelle perception des représentations artistiques où prime l’apport d’une subjectivité ?Les simulacres numériques apparaissent après des millénaires d’images qui relèvent de l’ontologie et entretiennent un lien sensible avec le réel. Le spectateur ayant besoin de se projeter dans ce qui emprunte à sa nature et ce qui interroge ses aspirations, ses sentiments comme ses croyances, il attend de la simulation numérique la même capacité d’incarnation et de transfiguration que les autres moyens d’expression.Entrelaçant la tradition et le contemporain, cette recherche analyse l’éloquence sensible du simulacre numérique au défi du vivant dans le cinéma et les arts plastiques des années 2000-2010 selon les concepts de présence, représentation et simulation.Comment le numérique actualise-t-il des codes culturels et esthétiques hérités de l’histoire de l’art ? Cette recherche tente de comprendre la nature et le sens des simulacres numériques du vivant en tant qu’ils conjuguent l’incorporel synthétique à l’argument ontologique. / The contemporary authors, from visual artists to blockbusters’ directors, create images where the real and the virtual seem from the same cloth. Theirs movies, videos and installations show a world which emerges from the immateriality of the screens.Unlike images which are the result of the impregnation of the actual light on photosensitive surfaces, digital simulacra stem from binary language. They are made of pure computer code that can transform the image into a sum of data.Therefore, will the digital simulacra change our relationship to images? How do these digital sham images induce a new perception of artistic performances where subjectivity and its contributions are the prime factors?We are confronted with these digital simulacra of images after millennia of imagery that relate from ontology and that maintain a significant link with reality. The viewer, having the need to project himself into something that borrows from his nature and that questions his aspirations, his feelings as well as his beliefs, expects from the digital simulation the same capacity for incarnation and transfiguration that he experiences from others means of expression.Confronting and intertwining the traditional and the contemporary, this research analyses the sensitive eloquence of digital simulacra and how they face the challenge of real life, through film and in visual arts over the decade 2000-2010, based on the concepts of presence, representation and simulation.How do the various uses of digital technology force us to update the cultural and aesthetic codes that we inherited from Art history? Thus, this research attempts to understand the substance and the meaning of the digital pretence of life, which combines the synthetic intangible with an ontological argument.