This thesis works towards a theory of creative appropriation as critical praxis. Defining ‘appropriation’ as the re-use of already-authored cultural matter, I investigate how the ubiquity of aesthetically and commercially motivated appropriative practices has impacted concepts of creativity, originality, authorship and ownership. Throughout this thesis, appropriation is understood as bridging the artistic, political, economic, and scientific realms. As such, it strongly affects cultural and socio-political landscapes, and has become an ideal vehicle for effectively criticizing and, perhaps, radically changing dominant aesthetic, legal and ethical discourses regarding the (re)production, ownership and circulation of knowledge, artifacts, skills, resources, and cultural matter in general. Critical appropriation is thus posited as a political strategy that can draw together the different causes motivating appropriative processes across the globe, and organize them for the benefit of a multitude which values concepts of reusing, sharing and collectivity over concepts of the individually authored and the privately owned. My arguments regarding this critical potentiality are based on concrete practices emanating from several media (textual – visual – sonic – digital). The corpus includes Berlin Dadaist collage, ‘found footage’ filmmaking, audio sampling, and digital media art. It is critically contextualized in the fields of philosophy, law, and aesthetics, and paired with relevant examples from extra-aesthetic arenas (economics, industrial production and science). Following a trajectory from the analog to the digital, my thesis traces the emergence and tactical employment of critical appropriative practices in the context of different historical, philosophical, technological and economic circumstances. Focussing on conceptual and practical shifts from the analog to the digital furthermore enables me to draw connections between analytic perspectives founded in dialectic materialism and contemporary theories foregrounding issues of immaterial labor. The important qualitative changes that practices and perceptions of appropriation have undergone are argue to significantly amplify the critical potential of all appropriative practices. Ultimately, my comparative analyses thus establish appropriation as an ideal site for effectively challenging – both in terms of form and content – the ingrained, restrictive notions of original genius and naturalized authorship-qua-ownership on which present cultures and technologies of global capitalism are so heavily based.

This essay examines the relationships between the different elements in Lisa Jonasson’s collage Existentiell Progg #6 and her very detailed technique. The essay has as its aims to understand and analyze both the details and the wholeness of the artwork and to try to put the collage in an art historical context. The thesis finds that Existentiell Progg #6 has a connection to the imagery of Africa and other collage artist such as Hannah Höch and Nancy Spero, which also gives the paper a perspective of feminism in the arts. The paper continues to create an understanding for the collage work by putting it in to Theodor Adorno’s theories about nature, the human being and the animal kingdom. The paper then comes to the conclusion that many of the elements in Existentiell Progg #6 are a part of its underlying meaning and purpose.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Sciences appliquées : Metz : 1989. / 1989METZ011S.

"A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Fine Art." Title from PDF of title page (Georgia Southern University, viewed on February 10, 2010). Marc Moulton, committee chair; Bruce Little, Julie McGuire, Gary Dartt, committee members. Electronic version approved: December 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-121).

Collection understanding shifts the traditional focus of retrieval in large collections from locating specific artifacts to gaining a comprehensive view of the collection. Visualization tools are critical to the process of efficient collection understanding. By presenting simple visual interfaces and intuitive methods of interacting with a collection, users come to understand the essence of the collection by focusing on the artifacts. This thesis discusses a practical approach for enhancing collection understanding in image collections.

Pastaruosius du dešimtmečius Lietuvoje ir kitose šalyse aukštojo mokslo kokybei skiriamas vis didesnis dėmesys, tačiau Lietuvoje nėra atlikta sisteminių tyrimų apie kolegijų veiklos kokybės išorinio institucinio vertinimo patirtį ir rezultatus, dar daugiau – vertinimo procedūrų ir turinio tobulinimas vyksta epizodiškai ir iš dalies pagrįstai. Tyrimo objektas – kolegijų veiklos kokybės išorinio institucinio vertinimo sandara, akcentuojant išorinio vertinimo procedūras. Tyrimo tikslas - teoriškai pagrįsti ir empiriškai patikrinti kolegijų veiklos kokybės išorinio institucinio vertinimo proceso (analizuojant tik taikomas vertinimo procedūras) modelį ir nurodyti studijų kokybės vertinimo proceso tobulinimo kryptis. Magistro darbe yra apibrėžiamos kolegijų išorinio institucinio vertinimo ir įvertinimo sampratos, analizuojant kolegijų paskirtį; kolegijų veiklos kokybės koncepcijas; vertinimo ir įvertinimo procesus; vertinimo tipus; institucinio vertinimo vietą ir reikšmę aukštojo mokslo vertinimo sistemoje; sąsajas tarp vidinio ir išorinio vertinimo bei vertinimo principus. Šiame darbe aptariamos Europos aukštojo mokslo kokybės užtikrinimo nuostatos, kurios jau yra pradėtos diegti daugelyje Europos šalių, tame tarpe ir Lietuvoje. Analizuojamos aukštųjų mokyklų išorinio kokybės vertinimo sistemos Europos šalyse, atpažįstami šiose sistemose taikomi bendrieji Europos aukštojo mokslo kokybės užtikrinimo principai. Apibendrinama kolegijų išorinio institucinio vertinimo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Attention to the quality of higher education has considerably increased in Lithuania and other countries during the last two decades. The systematic research on the experience of external institutional quality assessment of colleges still has not been executed in Lithuania. Furthermore the improvement of the procedures and the content of assessment is episodic and poorly based. The master theses define the conception of external institutional quality assessment of colleges and the decisions taken after their assessment; the conceptions of colleges’ quality, the processes of evaluation and assessment, the types of assessment, the place and the meaning of institutional assessment in the context of higher education assessment system, the links between internal and external assessment; the fundamentals of assessment. The master theses deal with the discussion of the European Standards for quality assurance in higher education. These standards in a number of European countries including Lithuania are under development and the common principles of European quality assurance in higher education have been analyzed. The experience in external institutional quality assessment of colleges have been summarized and the model of the process of external quality assessment of colleges have been provided. The model that has been analyzed consists of 5 main stages: 1) preparation for external assessment; 2) analysis and evaluation of self-assessment documents; 3) visit to the institution... [to full text]

In this thesis I argue against the conventionally held belief that collage as a form is defined through the mutual differences existing between the inserted material fragment and those signifiers that surround it. Examining works by Pablo Picasso and then turning my attention to Ezra Pound's Cantos, I seek to establish, within the related frameworks of visual and verbal collage respectively, a structural model of these and other such works predicated upon the continuity, not the distinctiveness, of fragment and host-text. Collage, I hope to show, is necessarily organic in structure due to the unstable nature of the linguistic sign, a phenomenon of language that informs the thesis from beginning to end. Ultimately, I aim to present this model as a metaphor for perception generally, as both a delineation and demonstration of the way in which one comes to know the world.

There is no abstract available for this thesis. / Department of Art

A pesquisa intitulada Acumular tesouros: um olhar sobre os cadernos de desenho analisa um conjunto de cadernos de desenho, elaborados por mim, entre 2006 e 2015. O objetivo desse estudo é investigar de que modo a utilização frequente dos cadernos de desenho constitui uma poética e de que forma os cadernos são abordados na história da arte. A metodologia, de ordem qualitativa, possui por principal ação a continuidade da produção prática, assim como as relações estabelecidas entre os meus cadernos e os de outros artistas. Neste estudo, evidencio o aspecto heterogêneo dos cadernos, já que estes comportam e agregam grande quantidade de elementos gráficos, além dos desenhos, tais como colagens e escritos. É explorada a hipótese de que os cadernos não são apenas instrumentos para obras futuras; mas que são, principalmente, veículos que possibilitam experimentações artísticas das mais variadas naturezas. São abordados os conceitos de hupomnêmata a partir de Michel Foucault (2004; 2010; 2011); colagem por Antoine Compagnon (1996); e desenho a partir de John Berger (2010). / The present research entitled Accumulating treasures: a look upon sketchbooks analyzes a set of sketchbooks, created by myself between 2006 and 2015. The main objective of this research is to investigate in what way the frequent use of sketchbooks constitutes a poetics and how sketchbooks are addressed in Art History and in contemporary artistic production. The methodology – which follows a qualitative approach – has as main procedure the continuity of practical production as well as the establishment of relations among my sketchbooks and other artists’. I emphasize, in this study, the heterogeneous aspect of the sketchbooks, considering that they contain and aggregate a considerable amount of graphic elements besides the drawings, as well as collages and writings. The hypothesis explored is that the sketchbooks are not just an instrument to future works, but they are mainly means that allow artistic experiments of several kinds to be carried out. The concepts of hupomnêmata by Michel Foucault (2004; 2010; 2011); and collages by Antoine Compagnon (1996) are addressed along with the concept of drawing according to John Berger (2010).

Our social world is increasingly chaotic. Perhaps there has always been chaos; but our increasingly globalized landscape and information economy seems to place chaos on the frontlines—as videos of military strikes in Iraq, or mundane narratives about making it through another day are available for consumption at any time. Our social world produces. The question: What to do with it all? This dissertation explores the concept of affect, using a collage methodology. To conduct an exploration of affect, which “transpires within and across the subtlest of shuttling intensities” (Seigworth and Gregg 2), this dissertation both explores and performs collage; taking collage as both an artifact for investigation using affect theory, as well as a methodological approach participating in the creation of affect theory. As a result of this commitment, the reader is invited to enter this document in any order they wish—reading directly through, or skipping around chapters as it suits them. As a method, collage operates through placing at least two different things next to each other, and then looking for similarities and differences. Each chapter explores differences by juxtaposing artifacts selected because of a similarity that they shared. Spatial (Harvey Butchart and the Havasupai Native Americans), methodological (the It Gets Better project and Ray Johnson), temporal (September 11, 2001 and September 11, 1973), or praxis-based (Chelsea Manning and Aaron Swartz) similarities guided the juxtaposition of artifacts within each chapter. In addition, each chapter explores a distinct version of affect theory to add to the collage created within and throughout this dissertation. Each chapter is a canyon, collected within the grand canyon of the dissertation as a whole. Ultimately, this dissertation is guided by both academic and artistic impulses. I seek to explore and produce affect theory through deploying the methodology of collage. Drawn to moments that often escape rational interrogation, this dissertation invokes echoes as evidence in order to mobilize a system of resonance through juxtaposition that realizes the power of collage: Establishing interpretive frames that refuse to be finished or fixed. Through the performance of collage methodology, this dissertation seeks to implicitly argue for rhizomatic knowledge systems as a method of resistance to structures of oppression via an aesthetic mobilization of collage.