This thesis centres on the 48 hour performance of Lad Broke in Liverpool on the 20th April 2012. This written component addresses a range of ideas that have emerged in relation to the event of durational performance including modes of inscription, the performing body and its position within a network of performance art and writing practice. By examining Lad Broke within the fields of art and wider cultural practices I am able to draw on ideas of duration that include narrative time, boredom and the effects of duration on the performing body and its spectators. I discuss duration within the context of music by examining rhythm, tempo and time signatures alongside the punk movement, where boredom and a need to act/react immediately remain significant factors in my performance and writing practice. I explore inscription as a physical act of writing, mark making and labour in order to position performance and writing as a combined practical and critical enquiry that intersects in the event of Lad Broke. I also examine notions of the inscribed body in relation to the writings of Michel De Certeau, where he describes the body as written by authority and the law. I refer to experimental writing in order to demonstrate how writing can reveal the materiality of duration and time passing, while also discussing the temporal structure of Lad Broke as a continuous present, displacing traditional narrative structures and emphasising the act of 'doing' rather than the production of a complete and finished object. The performing body is considered in a number of contexts that emerge in the performance of Lad Broke. Ideas around the labouring body are especially useful, where I draw on a lineage of labour practices that have informed my performance works. I look at ideas of labour in relation to wider cultural practice, raising questions around displaced masculinity and the role of the artist as cultural worker. I return to punk where alternative labouring practices position the body as a site of resistance and dissidence. This leads to a discussion of networks and the systems of dissemination that allow post sub-cultural groups to express themselves while evading a capitalist economy. I look at the zine as an art form that successfully provides a model of dissemination and autonomy which relates back to the formation of performance art networks, where the sharing of work displaces monetary exchange and subsumption into a capitalist economy. The event of Lad Broke is examined through a series of viewpoints including the performer, the writer and responsive representatives of the performance art network. The event is then offered to I a wider readership in the form of a zine, where the materials and leftovers of Lad Broke are reconfigured as a material response. The content and structure of this thesis discusses and argues for the performing body to be considered as a site of inscription resistant to the commodification of cultural practice. Yet, throughout this work, it is the immediacy of the live event which remains vital, an event which refuses to be recuperated through these written responses.

This thesis is a practice-based inquiry into contemporary Reportage Drawing in the UK. The role of the practice in present day, its various forms and purposes and how digital media has influenced both the working process and reception of such work, is discussed through comparisons of visual work and theoretical engagement from practitioners. Verbal and visual contributions from current artists about their methods, means and motivations are included to present a clear picture of the varied forms of documentary drawing. This research is structured around questions and issues raised about the process of Reportage Drawing from original reportage drawings made observing everyday life in Kisumu, western Kenya. It begins with a brief historical overview of Reportage Drawing and develops with chapters visually engaging with the drawings from Kisumu and other artist's contirbutions. The main body of drawings is designed to be viewed as a visual display as specific groups of drawings create a dialogue about the various issues raised. At the heart of this research is the investigation into observational drawing, the presence of the reportage artist as a documenter of the every day and the question of the importance of this specific field of art. Attention is paid to the practical aspects of making work as this often influences artists' choice in engaging in this form of drawing while reasons behind the commissioning of reportage artists are also elaborated on. This all contributes to the objectives of this thesis, which is to create the start of a database of contemporary reportage artists, present a clear picture of the nature of reportage drawing in' present day, including its limitations, and reflect on my own work in the light of others' while championing this practice.

This practice led doctoral thesis explores the meaning of spirituality and its manifestation in figUrative art in the wider historical, religious and artistic contexts of Pakistan, alongside the presentation of a new body of artistic work which explores the contemporary possibilities of materialising spirituality in a predominately Muslim culture. The illustrated thesis engages with these two interconnected but distinct forms of research which underpin its two-part structure. The first part, Section A, comprises four chapters which investigate the various cultural and religious contexts of figurative art with particular reference to Muslim painting; Islamic attitudes to figurative art based upon the study of Islamic law and the various interpretations of the Qur'an and the hadith. It assesses the impact of colonial and postcolonial politics on the arts produced in the Indo Pak Sub-continent and the specific area that later came to constitute Pakistan (a pre-dominantly Muslim country) after the Partition of 1947. The section concludes with im exploration of Islamic spiritual ideals of truth and beauty, through Sufi thought, including the significance of for Allah and the concept of Tauhid. or His Oneness. The three chapters in the second part, Section B, represent a critical reflection on ongoing artistic practice as a female figurative artist in contemporary Pakistan. Drawing upon autobiographical material and fieldwork conducted at Sufi shrines as part this research, I discuss the series of more than twenty five paintings, drawings and siœtcnes which aim to materialise the spiritual. These are supported by a thirty minute documentation of the shrine culture with a voice over along with a video installation film on a DVD exploring the concept of fana or 'spiritual annihilation', which is the key aspect of the shrine culture. In conclusion the vital concern of finding means to materialise the concept of spirituality by creating a body of art work is an effort to fill the gap in Pakistani painting the impact of Sufi philosophy on artistic endeavours is yet to be fully explored in contemporary painting in Pakistan.

The core of this research are the paintings and cultural context of Alan Cuthbert, a hitherto un-researched figure who trained in the English art school of the late 1950s under the Constructionists Kenneth and Mary Martin and subsequently became the Head of the Foundation course at Wimbledon School of Art from 1963-1979. Cuthbert produced a substantial body of over a hundred geometric abstract paintings, lecture papers and writing and played a significant role in training future generations of artists and designers from the 1960s onwards. This thesis proposes that Cuthbert is part of a broader tendency in British art schools and that practice and teaching is intimately connected to the reorganisation of the art schools and the introduction of the Foundation course in the early 196Ös. I put forward the argument that through a study of Cuthbert and the shifts in art schools one can map a much under-researched aspect of British art. This research encompasses the three fields of art history, art education and art practice and centres on an artist-lecturer, a subject of study largely ignored by the majority of art historical writing, which is dominated by the modernist model of monographs, movements/groupings, and periods. In placing the case study of an artist-lecturer in a critical and historical context, this study maps British art through organicism, Constructivism and the Bauhaus art school pedagogy and colour as they pertain to basic design and the changes in art school teaching between 1955 and 1979. Through this case study of a colourist and systems painter this thesis suggests a different, Continental orientation for British post-war geometric abstraction.

This thesis examines the mechanisms of site-specific installation in photography, drawing on contemporary architectural debates around relationships between image and space, as well as debates in fine art around participatory practices involving installation. The project has involved a synthesis of practical research, through the production of artwork, throughout the research period. I consider the outcomes of writing, photographing and photographic installation to be at parity with one another, in the spirit of what Jane Rendell calls 'critical spatial practice'. The focus and physical context for this inquiry is the former Lilian Baylis School, built in 1964 by the Architects' Co-Partnership (ACP) for the London County Council in the Borough of Lambeth. It served its function as a school up until 2005 after which it was used for community programmes. In 2011 the site, by then Grade II listed, was restored and converted into new flats. The concept of visual memory serves as a theoretical basis of my project. I take up architect Aldo Rossi's idea of acting as a way of tracing a process of transformation, and also using these traces as a form of site-specific intervention, as an action in relation to this transformation. These aspects of transformation inform the work of making visible the memory of a place through photography and its spatial installation, engaging viewers in this process.

The environmental impact of human behaviour on the design, construction and operation of buildings is often overlooked, frequently resulting in sub optimal performance over the lifecycle of the building (credibility gap and value-action gap). An over-reliance on technological and market solutions (false positivity) throughout the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings means changing user behaviour is not currently envisaged by all but the most sustainability-minded built environment professionals. This study aims to develop an understanding of the dynamic and complex systems by which responsible environmental, social and economic action (sustainable behaviour) emerges from the relationship between people and the built environment. The primary research question asks to what extent sustainable buildings encourage sustainable behaviour, with broader research objectives covering the need for sustainable buildings and their social, environmental and economic benefits; a clear definition of sustainable behaviour and sustainable buildings; identifying opportunities for behavioural change from current best practice and how behavioural change theory can be applied to the built environment to encourage and optimise sustainable behaviour. Literature review reveals existing theory and practice in the fields of sustainability, architecture, behavioural psychology and pedagogy applied generally to the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings. Five exemplar sustainable buildings with pedagogical functions are also investigated. The primary empirical research methodology uses grounded theory, ethnography and phenomenology through interview and survey data analysis, highlighting common best practices and innovative approaches, as well as revealing barriers to achieving sustainable built environments that encourage sustainable behaviour. The research reveals that there are numerous opportunities for behavioural interventions at critical stages throughout the lifecycle of buildings where ‘value-action’ gaps between our intentions to be more sustainable and our often sub-optimal actions or behaviours are identified. Strategies includes education, information provision, training, experiential learning, feedback, participation and regulation. The research contributes original knowledge by relating the way building mechanisms for change can be understood through the lens of behavioural psychology and the synthesis of the three disciplines of sustainability, architecture and pedagogy.

Conceived inside a chronological frame, which starts in 1948, the year the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London founded, and ends in 1963, when Gillo Dorfles wrote a crucial essay on industrial design, concluding more than a decade of discussions, the thesis aims to examine some artistic and cultural phenomena identified in Italy and Great Britain, and seen as the acknowledgement or as the reaction to modernity. Topics and fields taken in consideration within the thesis are technology, science (fact and fiction), vision of the future, the relationship between arts and the awareness of industrial design as a new discipline. All these aspects, that might seems unusual in relationship with visual arts, are perceived as the expression of a second phase of Modernism. The British personalities included in the thesis are Reyner Banham, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Eduardo Paolozzi, Alison and Peter Smithson, all members of the Independent Group. With the presence of architects, visual artists, photographers, critics and, in a broader sense, designers, the group encompassed a variety of popular interests, with the inclusion of mass‐produced goods. The Italian figures presented in the thesis – Gillo Dorfles, Bruno Munari, Ettore Sottsass and Giuseppe Pinot‐Gallizio – focused on industrial design objects, viewed as a new artistic branch, to promote, to plan or to question. Other recurring figures analysed in the thesis are Max Bill, Asger Jorn and Tomás Maldonado, who give international connections to the themes and British and Italian personalities examined. In order to provide a wider understanding of the 1950s and their crucial function in the story of post‐war Europe, the thesis aims to emphasise the role played at different level by British and Italian visual artists, designers and critics, and explain the reasons that, in the following decade, would push Italy in its industrial miracle and Great Britain at the peak for its popular culture, pop music and fashion creativity.

This thesis, an anthropological dialogue with design, seeks to explore the formation of the material world beyond objects. The work is situated within the fields of design studies and social anthropology, and contributes to the emerging interdisciplinary field of design anthropology. It draws on my education and perspective as a designer and engineer, my field dialogues with contemporary practitioners and the writings of the media philosopher Vilém Flusser, the social anthropologist Tim Ingold and the architect Kengo Kuma. I begin with a consideration of the material world as all matter which forms the earth, its atmospheres and the dwellings and features of many organisms. Such a notion of the material world is abundant with life, energy and potential and recognises human perception as entwined with lineages of materials, making and transformation. However design has evolved, I argue, to become a practice that tends to obscure the energetic and entangled conditions of the world, by way of presenting materials in the form of objects; discrete and enclosed material entities. This results in an impoverishment of environmental perception and a clotting of the ecological currency of materials. To understand how materials come to be formed into objects, I attend to a site of contemporary engineering practice where designers work with materials, tools and computational media in the formation of a product: in this case the royal relay baton for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Drawing on a period of sustained participant observation with one Glasgow-based company, I observe how lines of practice course through intention, gesture, conversation, writing, drawing, modelling and making, as materials are projected and presented in object form. I highlight the specific dispositions and activities of individual practitioners as they orient their perception towards different ways of knowing materials and specific practices of formation. Here, it becomes evident that design is, fundamentally, a social practice, constituted in an ongoing dialogue between people, matter and energy. Drawing the strands together, I argue that design is not so much a point-to-point procedural process, as an active matrix of social, material and energetic interchange, in which performance and form are intertwined in the transformation of people, materials and surrounds. Within this matrix of activity, the condition of the object is notably evident - and often dominating - but not absolute or inevitable, and there always exist possibilities for manifestations of form beyond objects. Following this prospect, the thesis rounds not to a closure, but to an opening: to the possibility of design as a practice of material performance led by the attentiveness, critique and imagination of an anthropological education.

Formed of: Zynthetik Theater ; Kryztal Operation. Plaztik Process and Manipulation : Agents Guide ; Outside the Zynthetik Theater and Kryztal Operation.

This thesis contributes to a growing literature on identity and the home. The study's findings enrich understandings of the way people organize the material culture of their homes, and the way objects and practices are drawn into their self-storying. The study reveals the agency in homemaking as a creative practice and highlights the particularity of homemaking experience. It expands the context for understanding the creative work of designing and producing the contemporary home. Home is a key site of intensive consumption and emotional investment in identity. Possessions in the home and in our interactions with them are integral to our experience and construction of who we are in the world. We make our interior landscape visible to ourselves and onlookers through our choice of objects, arrangements and practices. And yet insight into the lived experience of everyday homemaking is elusive. This calls for empirical research to engage directly with the subjective world of individuals. My thesis examines an archive of rich experiential data gathered in informal conversations conducted with homemakers in twenty-five middle-class London homes. Their narrations of subjective experience have been used to explore how people think and feel about their homes, and how and why they arrange certain things in certain ways within those homes. Identity is understood as a storied accomplishment and homemaking is formulated as a means of organizning experience. Material is part of self-representation and is regarded as a narrative resource. A reading of narratives and images in the light of this conceptualisation reveals the meaning in the object and the object in narrative. The theses demonstrates the endeavour of homemaking as a form of creative production that is empowered by individual agency and fuelled by storying interaction.