My research investigates the premise that fear, anxiety and uncertainty in reason, impact on the essence of the desire to believe in structures, our categorisation of ideology, myself, my approach to artwork and creativity in this contemporary era. / This thesis is divided into three different chapters based on the motif “Rational Irregularity”. The first chapter is about the “idea” of antinomy in reason in philosophy and psychoanalysis drawing on Kant, Lacan and neuroscience (nerve science). The second chapter considers the position of art and the artist through Derrida and Danto’s discourses. It further explores the mechanism of art and creativity in the contemporary era using my own interpretation of Lacan’s method of psychoanalysis. The third chapter considers my artworks which are based on the psychological symptom of Sleep Paralysis and the fasting experience through the form of video installation. / The reason I focused on the discourses of contemporary philosophy is that I feel the knowledge of theories in any time affects the mechanism of human civilisation in that era. That in turn influences people, the subject and the phenomena of art. This discourse is fluid and the possibility of further discourse emerges from this understanding. Philosophy influenced my way of perceiving phenomena in the world. The understanding of these ideas and the expressions of my artworks became more complex because of those theories and related readings, I entered a problematic realm through this new knowledge. This paper seeks to extrapolate the chaos of these complex thoughts and ideas so I can better understand the mechanism of my art.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-64). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Some of Jiří Kylián’s later works reveal a distinct detectable baroque influence. They also manifest a baroque quality that resists precise explanation. This partly derives from extensive references to the baroque style and period. However, not all references are the same, and some are more easily recognisable than others. Costumes, music and props openly reference the Baroque, whereas less obvious allusions can be found in lighting design or in the way a performance ‘addresses’ the audience. This thesis thus sets out to offer a terminology to describe these phenomena and provide a framework for analysing Kylián’s reworking of baroque sources. The analysis first addresses what is understood by ‘baroque’, then moves to describe various referencing practices, before applying the newly found framework to three of Kylián’s works that take the Baroque as a source of inspiration. Central to my discussion of the Baroque and its contemporary reappearance is the work of cultural theorists and art critics Omar Calabrese and Mieke Bal. Particularly important to my argument is Bal’s emphasis on the tendency in baroque art to involve the viewer’s physical presence in the experience of art. My discussion of referencing is, on the other hand, centred on ideas developed by the literary theorists Gérard Genette, Andreas Böhn, Irina Rajewski and Werner Wolf. Genette’s intertextual model is expanded to include a more precise understanding of the nature of quotation as developed by Böhn. The plurimedial nature of dance, or the co-presence in dance of more than one medium, is addressed by introducing Rajewski’s and Wolf’s notion of Intermediality. As well as analysing how referencing functions in dance and how it participates in meaning-making, this thesis also highlights the evolution of Kylián’s referencing practice over time and explains the function of the Baroque in Kylián’s oeuvre.

My thesis investigates some of the conceptual ideas related to my studio work, both in terms of theory and contemporary practice. This thesis focuses how the visual images formally operate, as well as the larger framework of discourse that surrounds my practice. In my work, the habitual, incessant process of cutting and extraction and the subsequent meticulous reconfiguring use the strategies of repetition and labor. These sustained, ongoing acts have the possibility to be generative or transformative rather than simply repetitive. This thesis also explores the found object, complicating the classification and knowledge systems of the source image with odd juxtapositions and reconfigurements. This body of work presents and develops several contradictions: the gimmick or lure of the initial appearance versus the underlying reality; the paradox between the promise of beauty or pleasure, and the sense of antagonism or disruption embedded in these images.

This body of work explores the emotional aspects of my life through the metaphor of landscape. It is a contemplation of the genre of landscape in the contemporary art dialog. By exploring the materiality of paint and the physicality of working large I discovered the question of contemporary relevancy is no longer my primary reason for this investigation. My growth as an artist has come from exploring historical and contemporary influences and how they have affected my processes and visual aesthetic. Thus, a large series of work has emerged from an unexplainable desire to connect and share the crucial moments of my life through paint.

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https://vimeo.com/142533096</p Every time I am on an elevator or an airplane there is always someone right behind me, or beside me, that is coughing or sneezing. That is implied in the film with the use of, among other sounds, a sneeze, that speaks about the uncontrollable. So there are definitely contradictions with these railings, as they are an idea of a support structure that in practice doesn’t really work. And this recurs in the video work where you’re trying to clean a piece of acrylic glass which, in itself, is an impossible task. As soon as you try to clean it you get marks on it. It’s an unprotected surface as soon as you pull off the plastic film and even if you leave it on when the pane is scratched marks build up under it. / SIX MINUTES OF FRESHNESS

In the Midst of Life is a highly-virtuosic concertino for solo guitarist and chamber orchestra. The piece explores variations of makamic intervallic structures—complex melody types and modes in traditional Middle Eastern Music—and builds the formal architecture and the pitch material upon makamic textural and melodic relations. / text

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Since the 1970s, the soundtrack in Hollywood has come of age as a complex and sophisticated site of cinematic art. Greater combinations of sounds expressing a wider spectrum of tones, textures and volumes can be heard at the movies more than ever before, while behind the scenes, the number of personnel producing them has grown considerably. Moreover, this era has witnessed a proliferation of different artistic and professional approaches to sound. This thesis provides a detailed and wide-ranging picture of these developments and how they were ultimately affected by changes within the American film industry. Drawing on a range of accounts by contemporary sound practitioners and critics, the thesis explores sound production practices, focusing on the sound designer and composer, their creative choices, collaborative relationships - or “sound relations” - and the technologies they employ. The soundtrack is also examined in terms of “sonic style”: the ways in which sound effects, music and the voice function variously in the service of contemporary film narration and genre. It is argued that Hollywood sound production practices and styles have diversified to a high degree, particularly during the last three decades. Industrial realignments on the “New Hollywood” landscape in the 1970s and the integration of the independent and major sectors throughout the 1990s have introduced greater flexibility to mainstream filmmaking norms. These events have played key roles in the expansion of its different sonic styles and working practices in contemporary Hollywood. I take George Lucas and David Lynch, their respective sound design partners Ben Burtt and Alan Splet and composers John Williams and Angelo Badalamenti, and identify distinctions between their professional modus operandi and sonic styles to illustrate the growing diversification within the industry. Most importantly, these examples are used to demonstrate both the intricacy and variety that characterises the styles and crafts of the contemporary Hollywood soundtrack.