No description available.

This thesis presents a system by which 3D images of human faces can be constructed using a natural language interface. The driving force behind the project was the need to create a system whereby a machine could produce artistic images from verbal or composed descriptions. This research is the first to look at constructing and modifying facial image artwork using a natural language interface. Specialised modules have been developed to control geometry of 3D polygonal head models in a commercial modeller from natural language descriptions. These modules were produced from research on human physiognomy, 3D modelling techniques and tools, facial modelling and natural language processing.

From my beginnings as an artist, my work has always been created with the goal of evoking strong emotional responses from those who experience it. I wanted to wrap my work around the viewers have it encompass them completely. When virtual reality came along, 1 knew I had found my true medium. I could design the space, bring people inside and see what they did there. I was always excited to see what the work would mean to them, what they brought to it, what I added, and what they took away.

No description available.

This thesis is an exploration of the phenomenon of energy healing told from the inner world of a healer. Briefly, this complementary and alternate medicine (CAM) modality involves the manipulation of subtle energy fields to affect health, something that I have known for over 15 years. Because energy healing is experienced differently by different people I chose to use autoethnography to capture and share my own personal understanding of this phenomenon. This methodology allowed me to delve into my intimate stories and experiences and through the writing process, I learnt more about energy healing than I had initially expected. In finding my personal voice and investigating the silence that has accompanied my relationship with this much maligned healing practice, I was able to explore the stories that had remained in the shadows: tales that had been influencing my relationship with this phenomenon for many years. This thesis also includes conversations that I had with my teachers and fellow healers. As I reflected on our discussions, I followed themes that appeared when we spoke and I discovered not only a deeper personal understanding of the phenomenon of energy healing, but a new profound awareness of myself. In the final presentation of this thesis, I have shared my discoveries as stories and anecdotes and I have surrounded these tales with my artwork. It is my hope that the colour and movement of my paint brush will help translate the emotions and sensations that I have known in places where words have trouble traversing. The experiential sense of knowing that speaks from my intimate perspective of this alternate healing modality comes from a private journey that is imbued with awe and wonder, stumbling and doubt, and an inspiring sense of connection - a perspective that is absent in the academic literature on energy healing. In sharing this inner world with my readers, I hope that my writing and my artwork have captured a small fragment of the elusive and esoteric nature of this phenomenon, something that for me exists in a place where there are no words.

Thesis based on the submission of orchestral compositions relating the music pieces to visual works. The compositions are also discussed in terms of where they fit within a contemporary, orchestral context.

This study investigates and records the production of a digital media artwork blackBOX: Painting A Digital Picture of Documented Memory, generated through the media technologies of interactive multimedia, exploiting the creative potentials of digitally produced music, sound, image and text relationships in a disc based and online (Internet) environment. The artwork evolves from an imaginary electronic landscape that can be uniquely explored/ played in a non-sequential manner. The artwork/ ‘game’ is a search for the protagonist Nina’s hybrid cultural identity. This is mirrored in the exploration of random, fragmentary and non-linear experiences designed for the player engaged with the artwork. The subjective intervention of the player/ participant in the electronic artwork is metaphoric of the improvisational tendencies that have evolved in the Greek Blues (Rembetika), Jazz, and Hindustani musical and performative dance forms. The protagonist Nina’s discovery of these musical forms reveal her cultural/ spiritual origins. As a musical composer arranges notes, melodies and harmonies, and sections of instruments, so too, the multimedia producer designs a ensemble of audio-visual fragments to be navigated. Dance also becomes a driving metaphor, analogous to the players movement in and through these passages of image/ sound/ text and as a movement between theories and ideas explored in the content of the program. The central concern is to playfully reverse, obscure, distort the look of the dominating/colonialist gaze, in the production of an interactive ‘game’ and allow the girl to picture herself. One of my objectives is to explore the ways in which social research can be undertaken by the creation of an interactive program in the computer environment utilising interactive digital media technologies. The study reveals that, through the subjective intervention of the (player) user4 with the digital artefact, a unique experience and responsiveness is produced with the open ended text. The work is comprised of a website http://www.strangecities.net; an interactive CD-ROM; a gallery installation; digital photomedia images; and a written thesis documenting and theorising the production. 4 The term user, while widely debated has been in usage from the 1980s to refer to the unique human interaction with the digital artefact, electronic screen work, and computer interface.

This study investigates and records the production of a digital media artwork blackBOX: Painting A Digital Picture of Documented Memory, generated through the media technologies of interactive multimedia, exploiting the creative potentials of digitally produced music, sound, image and text relationships in a disc based and online (Internet) environment. The artwork evolves from an imaginary electronic landscape that can be uniquely explored/ played in a non-sequential manner. The artwork/ ‘game’ is a search for the protagonist Nina’s hybrid cultural identity. This is mirrored in the exploration of random, fragmentary and non-linear experiences designed for the player engaged with the artwork. The subjective intervention of the player/ participant in the electronic artwork is metaphoric of the improvisational tendencies that have evolved in the Greek Blues (Rembetika), Jazz, and Hindustani musical and performative dance forms. The protagonist Nina’s discovery of these musical forms reveal her cultural/ spiritual origins. As a musical composer arranges notes, melodies and harmonies, and sections of instruments, so too, the multimedia producer designs a ensemble of audio-visual fragments to be navigated. Dance also becomes a driving metaphor, analogous to the players movement in and through these passages of image/ sound/ text and as a movement between theories and ideas explored in the content of the program. The central concern is to playfully reverse, obscure, distort the look of the dominating/colonialist gaze, in the production of an interactive ‘game’ and allow the girl to picture herself. One of my objectives is to explore the ways in which social research can be undertaken by the creation of an interactive program in the computer environment utilising interactive digital media technologies. The study reveals that, through the subjective intervention of the (player) user4 with the digital artefact, a unique experience and responsiveness is produced with the open ended text. The work is comprised of a website http://www.strangecities.net; an interactive CD-ROM; a gallery installation; digital photomedia images; and a written thesis documenting and theorising the production. 4 The term user, while widely debated has been in usage from the 1980s to refer to the unique human interaction with the digital artefact, electronic screen work, and computer interface.

No description available.

No description available.