The nature of art held by archives, known collectively as “documentary art,” exists across Canada, but what is meant by documentary art has not been discussed. In this thesis, both theoretical and practical definitions and their application to the collections will be explored. This will be done by examining three broad dimensions: the limited theoretical writing that tries to define art in archives; the broader base of art theory over the past centuries as well as writings about art within the Canadian context; and the historical evolution, practices, and personal ideas of archivists who work with art, and comparing these to the ideas and understanding about documentary art held by professionals in the art gallery world.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / The growing concern about the role of ethics in western society has also touched documentary film-making. Yet, since the emergence in the late 1980s of the first journal articles discussing documentary ethics, the theoretical exploration of the key arguments in this field has been fitful. Debates amongst filmmakers about ethics are often immersed in topical discussions of production issues or issues relating to a few controversial films. With the exception of a few insightful works, there is little new analysis or examination devoted to exploring ethics in this discipline. This dissertation adds to the available body of work by examining in depth the ethics encountered in the production of a documentary film, Tagged, with young people, especially the ethics encoded in the aesthetic and discursive elements of the film. Theoretical discussions about ethics range from the analytical focus on the ethics of representation, through the use of subjective modes of expressivity and filmic techniques to epistemological analyses of specific issues such as privacy and the nature of consent that draw on legal and medical models. A study of relevant documentary films reveals the variety of approaches to the moral values reflected in their discourses and visual representations, and a range of authorial voices, heavily influenced by the relationship between filmmakers and subjects and by the production circumstances of each film. In Australia, broadcasters, funding bodies and production companies dominate the documentary film-making environment and their codes, editorial policies and protocols influence the whole sector of documentary filmmaking. By categorizing documentary within the broad scope of factual programming, they reflect an institutional gaze that fails to acknowledge those individuals including children and youth, who participate in its production. Through my examination of ethics in both the theory and practice, I address the relevant question of whether there should be a code of practice for documentary film-making. In focussing on my own ethical position and its translation into practice through the making of Tagged, I explore the ways in which the ethical stance that I established is pivotal to the documentary and represented both in the text and in the pragmatic choices of production. This led me to conclude that the development of an ethical position specific to a current project is an effective focus on the potential ethical conflicts in a production. From this I argue that while a broad code of conduct can provide valuable guidelines, it cannot replace the filmmakers’ investigation of their ethical practice and their establishment of an ethical statement and stance for their films thus creating a platform from which ethical conflicts can be understood and either avoided or resolved.

Ever since the camera was invented people have been using it as a tool to reflect and record the world around them. Photographic images have great potential to investigate different social practices and phenomena in the world. Photography, in its own right, is an extremely large area of study. Despite its relatively short history, photography has undergone a broad and complex evolution since it was invented in 1840. This paper does not aim to cover the comprehensive history of the development of photography in its many facets, it aims however to concentrate on a specific area of what has come to be termed visual sociology and the potential of the still photographic image as a primary tool within the field. Visual sociology is a marginal, experimental area of sociology, it is a field which has not been given due consideration by many sociologists due to its unscientific nature and one which remains unfamiliar to many social documentary photographers. This paper traces the history of visual sociology and explores its roots and links with social documentary photography. It explores the established methods of visual data collection that are utilised within the field of visual sociology. It also explores a further sub-discipline, urban sociology and the role of the image in investigation of urban phenomena. The resulting practical component of this research is an extensive urban photographic investigation shot over the period of one month in the city of Tokyo. The resulting series of images exist as a type of photographic visual map of ‘city creatures’ ubiquitous in the urban environment. The series aims to constitute as a visual, cultural survey about an aspect of social life within the Japanese urban context.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / The growing concern about the role of ethics in western society has also touched documentary film-making. Yet, since the emergence in the late 1980s of the first journal articles discussing documentary ethics, the theoretical exploration of the key arguments in this field has been fitful. Debates amongst filmmakers about ethics are often immersed in topical discussions of production issues or issues relating to a few controversial films. With the exception of a few insightful works, there is little new analysis or examination devoted to exploring ethics in this discipline. This dissertation adds to the available body of work by examining in depth the ethics encountered in the production of a documentary film, Tagged, with young people, especially the ethics encoded in the aesthetic and discursive elements of the film. Theoretical discussions about ethics range from the analytical focus on the ethics of representation, through the use of subjective modes of expressivity and filmic techniques to epistemological analyses of specific issues such as privacy and the nature of consent that draw on legal and medical models. A study of relevant documentary films reveals the variety of approaches to the moral values reflected in their discourses and visual representations, and a range of authorial voices, heavily influenced by the relationship between filmmakers and subjects and by the production circumstances of each film. In Australia, broadcasters, funding bodies and production companies dominate the documentary film-making environment and their codes, editorial policies and protocols influence the whole sector of documentary filmmaking. By categorizing documentary within the broad scope of factual programming, they reflect an institutional gaze that fails to acknowledge those individuals including children and youth, who participate in its production. Through my examination of ethics in both the theory and practice, I address the relevant question of whether there should be a code of practice for documentary film-making. In focussing on my own ethical position and its translation into practice through the making of Tagged, I explore the ways in which the ethical stance that I established is pivotal to the documentary and represented both in the text and in the pragmatic choices of production. This led me to conclude that the development of an ethical position specific to a current project is an effective focus on the potential ethical conflicts in a production. From this I argue that while a broad code of conduct can provide valuable guidelines, it cannot replace the filmmakers’ investigation of their ethical practice and their establishment of an ethical statement and stance for their films thus creating a platform from which ethical conflicts can be understood and either avoided or resolved.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1991. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 29).

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2008. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ronald Tobias. Sealed Off is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-35).

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ruprecht-Karl-Universität zu Heidelberg.