Landscape art reinvents itself throughout history, along with changes in relationships between humans and nature. During unprecedented processes of urbanization, industrialization, and globalization, the past two hundred years witnessed shifts in global landscapes. The idea of using art to cope with a sense of loss becomes the departure point for my art project. To contextualize my work, I will discuss art scenes in urbanizing Europe and contemporary China and explore the powerlessness of individuals under the formidable trend of development reflected in landscape art.

My thesis aims to map the art historical, religious and cultural influences in Chiho Aoshima’s work, particularly in her 2015 solo show Rebirth of the World at Seattle Asian Art Museum. I will start with an outline of the artist’s overall oeuvre, focusing specifically on her aesthetic development. This will set up an introduction of the main elements I see in her work (Shinto beliefs, yōkai/ukiyo-e aesthetic references, and references to A Cyborg Manifesto). The thesis will essentially be a case study of Rebirth of the World, using specific mediums as evidence for the presence of these influences in her work. My thesis is essentially Chiho Aoshima’s work is a seamless blend of the history and culture of Japan, while still grounding her practice in critical, contemporary theories of subversion. Her work is a gripping nod to the past but it is very much contemporary and critical, and it is easy to overlook all the threads woven into the fabric of her oeuvre.

This interdisciplinary research bridging geography and fine art (‘geo-aesthetics’) follows contemporary artwork journeys from the studio into the public domain to discover how notions of value shift as the artwork travels. It seeks transfigurative nodes and their catalysts to explore how art matters: firstly how it becomes matter in the studio, and then how it comes to matter beyond the studio door. Two case studies at key moments of revaluation, a buy-out and a buy-in, both reveal responses to uncertainty that stress different kinds of collectivity. The first case study follows artistic practice and process in four studios in a Johannesburg atelier to investigate intrinsic value and finds ‘artistic thinking’. The second case study follows the assemblage of a private art collection managed from Cape Town, initially as an art fund, to investigate extrinsic valuation and finds ‘structural thinking’. These different modalities in the production and consumption circuitry of the artworld have unexpected correlations including shared artists and three linking concepts, namely, uncertainty, mobility, and the web. These in turn inform three observations: nested capacity, derivative value, and art as a public good. Two key findings emerge: contemporary art is itself a vector of value that performs meaning as it moves; and public interest is a central characteristic from which other valuations flow. The research uses repeat interviews, site visits and visual methods, which are triangulated with artwork trajectories to surface linkages between space and imagination. It offers a performative theory of value that speaks to an expanded new materialism. Applying an ecological framework allows a final transfiguration for an artworld ecosystem that (re)values contemporary art as part of an undercommons.

This dissertation explores contemporary Argentine art that has responded to local environmental issues and global ecological crises. This text focuses on diverse works produced between the 1960s and the present by artists based in La Plata and Buenos Aires. The projects analyzed in this study reveal the complexity of the concepts of nature, earth, land, environment and ecological crisis in contemporary society. They expose a series of interrelated issues and layers through which these concepts are defined. In order to designate the major approaches to ecological crises adopted by these artists, this study is divided into three sections, which denote distinct artistic methods and values: raising awareness: fighting against urban degradation; recuperation; and exploration. An analysis of individual works in relation to their central methods and contexts reveals a series of convergences and divergences. I argue that my selection of artists’ works contended with the conflict caused by industrial development and neoliberal economic policies and/or reconsidered the concept of nature and individuals’ relationship to it, shifting the dialogue about the environment to questions of place, engagement and adaptability. Collectively these artists’ works present a multifaceted image of the environment and its relationship to people, which is shaped by both the nuances of a particular location and each site’s or artist’s connection to a broader international context. / acase@tulane.edu

My thesis is a series of 9 compositions. Pieces include the following solos: cello (Passage), piano, viola (Elegy), and flute (Stream Solo). The ensemble pieces are as follows: Vale - Flute, viola, cello, Piano; Stream Ensemble - Flute, Violin, Cello, Piano, Soprano; Around the Bend Percussion Trio - 3 snare drums, bass drum, floor tom, conga, crotales, wood block, cymbal; Steps - Clarinet and Piano; Pierrot Ensemble - clarinet, flute, piano, soprano, cello, violin / acase@tulane.edu

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As composers continue to explore new horizons of classical music, performers are asked to stretch and explore their abilities as well. However, there is little pedagogical material that prepares students to learn the style and structure of this contemporary music. Many students primarily study etudes written in the style of pre-1900 music, leaving them without the tools to learn most music written since 1900. The pedagogical literature that does include music from the twentieth century is often very advanced, and lacks an introduction for younger students. This thesis includes a method of teaching contemporary techniques to junior high and high school level students, along with sixty-four original etudes composed to teach the scales, rhythms, meters, styles, and extended techniques that are often used in contemporary music. The accompanying text provides a detailed explanation of the process and pedagogical philosophy behind the etudes, including examples from different systems of music education. The etudes are specifically composed to teach fundamental skills for bassoonists, such as technical facility, solid subdivision and comprehension of meter, an understanding of different styles of music, and extended techniques that require proper fundamentals of tone production. They may also be used as sight-reading pieces or for students who have a specific need to learn certain techniques. Each section of etudes also includes an introductory section that guides the student through the process of learning the skill and performing the etude correctly.

“Traces of Wind” is a through-composed work in three movements: "Wind Chimes", "Incantation" and "Meditation". It is scored for a Western sinfonietta ensemble with the addition of a traditional Chinese instrument, guzheng — a 21-stringed traditional Chinese zither, one of the most common instruments of the prominent Chinese musical tradition. In this work, guzheng's role alternates between that of a soloist and of an orchestral instrument. As the piece develops across movements, guzheng takes on a progressively soloistic role: its solo sections become longer and more frequent, with the final movement, "Meditation" being completely a work for guzheng and orchestra. Guzheng's unique sound and obvious reference to the Orient informs the material and orchestration of the work. One hears frequent use of pentatonic scales and imitation of guzheng through Western instruments, such as strings (pizzicati) and harp. Each movement bears an imprint of Chinese music. The opening movement, "Wind Chimes", is based on the idea of repeating pitches, imitating the effect of wind chimes - an attribute of Chinese Feng Shui culture - tossing and bouncing against each other. We hear randomly struck pitches, yet each pitch repeats with a certain regularity. Much of the material of the first movement is derived from an unrelated endeavor: computer programming. I became involved in writing mobile applications for iPhone and Android devices. One year prior to starting my work on "Wind Chimes", I wrote a unique iPhone app, “iSonics”. This app was an attempt to enable performers of electroacoustic music to interact with music physically: a performer prerecords a set of short sounds and taps the empty screen to manipulate these sounds by stretching them in time, pitch-shifting them (by tapping the screen in various locations) and applying various filters by means of tilting the device. I used a guzheng to pre-record a set of 8 different sounds and then improvised a composition. iSonics provided the ability to react to the generated musical material in real time and to inform myself where on the screen to tap next in order to create a convincing musical line. Tapping to the left of the screen rendered the same sound object played slower and at a lower pitch, thus I was able to create harmonies. The first minute of the resultant electroacoustic work is my improvisation of one and the same sound object, while the first minute of "Wind Chimes" is that minute orchestrated for the ensemble, minus the microtones (which are present in the original improvisation). Thus, guzheng being the “pre-recorded” sound serves as the generator of the material for this movement: the original sound object created with guzheng is the foundation of "Wind Chimes". Much of the subsequent material of "Wind Chimes" is derived from the same process of ii instantiating the sound object in different registers and pitch level. Consequently, “striking” this sound object creates complex melodic content, most notably used in the climactic section of the movement (m. 197). "Wind Chimes" flows directly into the second movement, “Incantation”, which is quite different in character, being more dark and dissonant. Spontaneous woodwind passages, which surface throughout, the movement are evocative of the style of singing one hears in a traditional Chinese opera. In the "Meditation", I call for a pair of back-up violins, if available, to perform the opening harmonics section of the movement. The violins are to be retuned to specific microtonal tunings. I carefully selected these tunings by experimenting with various combinations of frequencies with my own violin. Although optional, using microtonal tuning for the opening of the "Meditation" adds a dimension of exoticism to the already Asian-influenced sound world of the complete work.

The purpose of this dissertation is to provide vocal teachers and singers with a reference handbook of twenty-first century art songs for solo voice and piano accompaniment, written in English by composers from the United States. This handbook presents songs composed between the years of 2000-2015 by level of difficulty, from songs appropriate for high school students through collegiate students, and including professional singers. This handbook will familiarize teachers with over two hundred solo songs of seventeen composers, furthering the study and performance of contemporary art songs.

There are numerous challenges to singing contemporary classical vocal music including a number of harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and formal elements not commonly seen in the western Classical or Romantic era compositions. There are new notations, new sounds, new ideas, and new demands. Finding a way to train college-aged singers to perform standard classical repertoire alongside contemporary classical repertoire has been a personal goal for many years. This essay contains exercises and vocalises to help train singers to prepare their instrument to perform the demanding music presented in this body of repertoire. Musical concepts covered in this essay include large interval training, laughing drills, tone clusters, and a variety of others. Current scholarship on this subject does not address the pedagogical steps of teaching music classified as contemporary classical vocal music. This essay provides exercises, vocalises, and recommendations for the development of vocal techniques required to perform works from this repertoire with healthy and secure technique.