A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts Johnnesburg 1976 / Current art critical practice in South Africa has not been investigated previously. Statements have been made with regard to the low standards of art criticism in this country (see the introduction to this dissertation) However, such statements have not been motivated by an analysis is of examples of work contributed by South. This fact partly determined the decision to African art critics investigate current art critical practice in this country .

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of philosophy. March 2016. / The use of found objects is evident in a range of contemporary artmaking practices. The use of found objects can, however, no longer be understood as a rupture from tradition as they were in the early decades of the twentieth century when they were first used by Picasso and later by Duchamp, because found objects have become part of a longer genealogy in art making. A new approach is needed in order to understand the significance of the use of found objects in contemporary art. This study explores the significance of the use of found objects in selected contemporary South African artworks in order to move beyond an understanding of the use of found objects as the anti-art gestures like those of the historical and neo-avant-gardes. I propose that a shift in focus, from the idea of the found objects as anti-art, to an exploration of the changing ontological status of the found object as it moves through different social fields is one such new approach. Chapter one introduces the study, while chapter two outlines the research methods and theoretical frameworks used. Chapter three explores the meanings that objects accrue in everyday practices, while chapter four focussed on the difference between artworks and more quotidian objects. Pursuing the question of the manner in which the ontological status of the object shifts as it enters into and becomes part of the field of exhibition, chapter five considers the ways in which meanings are constructed for objects in the field of exhibition through the conventions of display. I explore the ways in which artists make use of or invert these conventions as a means of challenging the field of exhibition. Acknowledging that the objects are also active agents within this process, in chapter six I explore the manner in which the materiality of found objects contributes to the meaning of the artworks, and by extension, I consider what new possibilities of meaning a focus on the materiality yields. In the final chapter, I use the concept of the everyday to draw the themes that have emerged throughout this study together. I conclude by situating the contemporary South African art practices within the genealogy of the avant-garde.

While theatricality is a medium with a long and extensive history the study of digital games is relatively new, yet there are many parallels between the two that are both inherent and fundamental. This research aims to produce a theoretical synthesis between the two media by providing an analysis of the ontology and process of meaning making in both media. The role of the player in a digital game is a complex and ambiguous one where they perform a dual function as both audience and performer. The creation of narrative and meaning for the game’s player and the theatrical audience is often similar, relying on the creation of fully established and functioning fictional worlds to engage with. Primarily this is done through design and mise-en-scene strategies. Drawing from existing texts as examples, this research aims to explore the extent to which games adopt and have evolved from theatrical conventions of storytelling and aesthetics.

BIbliography: p. 151-154a.

In this thesis, I explore my personal family history in relation to the difficulties and challenges raised when representing a trauma in the past. My focus was the Blaaukraantz Bridge railway disaster of 1911, where my great great grandfather, Paul Tarr, was among the 29 victims. The links between my personal family history and the disaster are explored in my art practice. In the mini thesis, I unpack theoretical concerns surrounding memory, loss, and representation of past trauma by examining selected works by Christian Boltanski, Rachel Whiteread and Doris Salcedo. I do not endeavour to provide new insights about early twentieth-century history but instead to engage with different ways of forming narratives about the past. Memory as an alternative form of history writing is the key concept in this thesis in that personal memory and testimony provides an integral perception of the past and important details that would not appear in history texts or other factual forms of writing the past. In this thesis I unpack this issue in relation to my own art practice.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the "rumblings in the belly of Leviathan from which we are able to diagnose his disease" (Comfort). Adopting a cyclical idea of art, it aims to point out that South African art has degenerated to a state where the much publicised so-called leaders of art are simply using charm techniques to woo the consent of a society whose metaphysics are derived from twentieth century collective materialism. The South African situation is examined, as is the Romantic principle underlying all genuine artistic activity. It is proposed that the cure lies in a reinstatement of this principle and in a readjustment of the concepts of reality and unreality. Finally, the Grahamstown Group is propounded as an embodiment of the Romantic principle with its implicit concept of artistic reality.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-107). / My project is one of memorialisation, expressed as a creative process. A core theme throughout my work concerns the notions of absence and presence, as the project is founded on a personal loss and inspired by a desire to sustain the memories of my late brother. My investigation involves the exploration and preservation of the memories of my brother. The body of work manifests as the residue of my reflections on grief and memory that I have chosen to exhibit in a commemorative manner. In turn, my practice has functioned as a source of comfort in the course of my mourning.

This study examines the means by which Clive van den Berg (b.1956) presents and explores the South African landscape and recent past, and in so doing examines the evolution of van den Berg's process of looking and interpretation. Seminal to such an investigation is a Critical examination of what history, memory and landscape are or might be perceived to be. Chapter.One centres on an evaluation of these terms and comprises a discussion of their perceived meanings particularfy as they relate to the visual arts, and especially in terms of South African art history. The investigation is facilitated by an examination of key works produced by van den Berg between 1983, which marks the commencement of the Views from the Oasis Series, and 1998, the year in which van den Berg produced the sculptural piece that comprises his contribution to the !Xoe Site Specific Project. In addition, it was in 1998 that van den Berg added the medium of video to his range of materials. Selected examples of van den Berg's earlier works, those executed in the1980s, are examined in Chapter Two. The works that are discussed here are: selected works from the Views from the Oasis Series (1983), the Large Oasis Series (1985) and the Sacred Site Series (1985). Reference is also made in this chapter to selected images from van den Berg's series of Invocations (1987). These images are examined primarily in terms of the challenge they present to conventional definitions of landscape and history. In subsequent v.urks of the 1980s van den Berg has presented the landscape more overtly as a symbol of self and personal experience. Central Park: Durban (1987) serves as an early example of work of this type and is. discussed here as it well illustrates a transition in terms of van den Berg's approach to the landscape. In Chapter Three selected vvorks produced by van den Berg in the 1990s are discussed. The works under review here are: the drawings that form part of van den Berg's Mine Dump Project (1994), his installation Men Loving (1996) executed for the Faultlines Project and the sculptural piece created for the !Xoe Site-Specific Project (1988). With these works van den Berg explores not only the marks left on the land by South African recent and colonial history or memory, but also those aspects of South Africa's past which remain hidden- and are unrecoverable. Van den Berg's more recent use of video is also referred to in Chapter Three as his use of, and approach to, this medium may be seen to add a further dimension to his investigations into history. Special attention is paid to the significance of the medium, or kinds of materials used in the creation of these 'HOrks, and condusions are drawn in terms of van den Berg's selection of subject and approach to medium in the period under study. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64). / As a South African artist I am in power to influence some manner of change, through my art, to the structure of national thought and hence national identity. Through my live art installation TOTANDERKUNTUlT, I offered South Africans the opportunity to engage in the cathartic process of resolution and reconciliation through dialogue. The aim of this dialogue is to engender a new method of practice for a non-racialised approach to the development of an integrated cultural identity that South Africans can work towards. I am not proclaiming to have this identity defined. I am positing saamtrekking as a method of practice for an identity that can be practiced by all race, colours and creeds of South Africans. Saamtrekking is a coming together, it is the acknowledged acceptance of some manner of change towards transformation. It requires acknowledgement in order to be practiced, the subject must practice acts of transformative behaviour in order to transform.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-82). / Growing up, I used to have a book called The Unexplained, and inside it was a picture of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch's paintings were full of weird and wonderful animals coupled with hundreds of naked men and women in what looked like a garden party of the most exotic kind. To imagine such a place was arousing; to imagine a place full of fruit and naked people should turn everyone on, regardless of sexual preference.