This study documents and analyses the first established record of taxi hand signs and their respective destinations in South Africa. It demonstrates how taxi hand signification developed into a useful language over time, out of a desperate need for transport amongst black, multi-cultural and multi-lingual people living in South Africa. Its central objective is to recognise taxi hand signs as metaphors for processes of history in pre- and post-apartheid South Africa. This is a study that crosses disciplinary boundaries and marries fine art, anthropology and philosophy in exploring new meanings and understandings of taxi hand signs. In this way, it demonstrates the extent to which art informs other disciplines in extraordinary ways, adding to the value of inter-disciplinary research. The research indicates that taxi signs are part of an evolving, well-functioning, gestural language for sighted commuters. It goes further to probe the question of how blind commuters might have access to the signs, thereby enhancing their independence and movement. The study responds to this question through the design of a new, tactile shape-language of taxi hand signs for blind people. Qualitative research techniques were employed throughout the three phases of the research, namely: preliminary research, research design, and social and fine art responses. The methodologies utilised in the phases were sampling, semistructured interviews and participant observation. These were each employed at specific times to meet specific needs of different phases. I, along with some coresearchers, applied these in taxi ranks, taxi associations and on the streets of Gauteng. The methods used attest to the fact that when new knowledge was sought with key informants in the taxi industry, the different methodologies could be used to verify and corroborate the informants’ information, which in turn become the keystones of knowledge distribution in the thesis. With limited documentation on the emergence of taxi hand signs in the industry, the informants furnished unexplored background information, which I have interpreted in my artworks, films, books, stamps, maps and the blind shape-language. 16 The anthropological research also probed the function of signification through literary criticism. This involved an investigation of the components of the process of signification into its constituent parts in order to conceptualise and contextualise taxi hand signing and its particular relations and narrative content within the greater field of gestural signification. The response of art and artists to anthropological, historical and current approaches was also explored, again to provide context to my art that evolved out of the research. These involved conceptual and graphic art interpretations probing movement, time, space and signification, which led to an art exhibition at the Wits Art Museum (henceforth referred to as WAM) from 12 June to 14 July 2013. Taxi hand signs are continually evolving as new destinations and narratives arise. Together with the art responses document, this thesis records and promotes the established body of the current taxi hand signs, destinations and narratives, for both sighted and blind people, by providing written, visual and sensory evidence of a cultural phenomenon that was previously uncharted.

Orientador: Francirosy Campos Barbosa Ferreira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Esstadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T16:36:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Giordano_TatianaMolero_M.pdf: 2711977 bytes, checksum: eaf26fe9b225a6fb177f0c873c059abc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Esta dissertação investiga por meio da observação participante as oficinas de artes aplicadas às adolescentes que cumprem medidas socioeducativas nas unidades de internação femininas da Fundação C.A.S.A. denominado Complexo "Chiquinha Gonzaga", no período de 2011 a 2012. Analisa este cenário como "drama social" utilizando o instrumental da Antropologia da Performance como metodologia de pesquisa focando principalmente nas etapas propostas por Victor Turner (1987) para compreensão do cenário socioeducativo e do processo dramático percorrido pelo adolescente. A pesquisa etnográfica com jovens infratoras, permitiu observar, descrever, documentar de forma audiovisual e analisar a postura, a capacidade de comunicação, expressão cênica e fluência dos movimentos corporais levando em consideração a noção de "performance", os "seis pontos de contato" e o conceito de "comportamento restaurado" propostos por Richard Schechner (1985). A performance dessas adolescentes é investigada tanto na preparação durante as oficinas de teatro, passando pelos ensaios e participações em apresentações públicas, quanto nos momentos posteriores dentro e fora das unidades, seus gestos e posturas ritualizados no corpo. Posteriormente a análise desse processo sugere um "roteiro" de trabalho artístico que permite reler, construir e desconstruir personagens, utilizando suas histórias de vida como suporte para criação de narrativas e improvisação cênica / Abstract: This thesis investigates through participant observation applied arts workshops for young offenders in the fulfillment of socio educative measures - a special education context - at female units at Foundation CASA (HOUSE) Complex called "Chiquinha Gonzaga" in the period from 2011 to 2012. Analyze this scenario as "social drama" using tools of Anthropology of Performance as a research methodology focusing mainly on the steps proposed by Victor Turner (1987) for understanding the childcare setting and dramatic process driven by the teenager. Ethnographic research with young offenders, allowed to observe, describe, document and analyze audiovisual form of the aesthetic attitude, communication skills, fluency and expression scenic body movement considering the notion of "performance", the "six points of contact "and the concept of "restored behavior" proposed by Richard Schechner (1985). The performance of these adolescents is investigated both in preparation for the theater workshops, through the trainings and participation in public performances, as in later times in and out of the units, their gestures and postures in the ritualized body. Later analysis of this process suggests a "script" of artistic work allowing reread, construct and deconstruct characters, using their life stories as support for creation of narratives and scenic improvisation / Mestrado / Artes Cenicas / Mestra em Artes