Historically, women have been largely discounted from the public comedic arena, typically serving as the butt of the joke or other various comedic fodder. As a female comedian, I became interested in how gender played into the performance of comedy, particularly in clown work. This case study follows an all female clown troupe called Clowns Ex Machina, based in New York, and investigates the impact of generating clown work in an all-female environment by all-female performers. The work that they do not only validates female participation in clown, but it also shows that the female experience is a human experience, and that gender lines do not have to prevent empathic identification.

Orientador: Antonio Fernando da Conceição Passos / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-09T01:13:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Barone_LucianaPaulaCastilho_D.pdf: 6268679 bytes, checksum: ab101a1fa5dc6f09ed55963f93a88aea (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Este trabalho desdobra-se sobre a obra do encenador canadense Robert Lepage, refletindo sobre o modo pelo qual ele traz à cena teatral ou cinematográfica determinados elementos, criando, através do jogo entre eles, uma poética singular e híbrida. Partindo do processo criativo da autora na encenação de Ofélia em Off e das memórias de sua experiência como espectadora da cena lepagiana, o trabalho apresenta, através das memórias de Robert Lepage, passagens de sua trajetória pessoal, relacionando suas possíveis repercussões sobre o processo de criação do encenador. Através de sete espetáculos criados e dirigidos por Robert Lepage (Vinci, Trilogia dos Dragões, Agulhas e Ópio, Os Sete Afluentes do Rio Ota, Elsinore, Geometria dos Milagres e A Face Oculta da Lua), é analisado o modo singular pelo qual o encenador faz uso de sete elementos recorrentes em sua arte: o idioma, os objetos, as imagens, o espaço, a palavra, a memória e o jogo. Apresentando a obra cinematográfica de Lepage, através da sinopse dos filmes Lê Polygraphe, Nô, Le Confessional e La Face Cachée de la Lune, relaciona sua criação teatral à cinematográfica, confluindo para a singularidade de sua poética multidisciplinar e híbrida. Nas conclusões, o trabalho apresenta as ressonâncias da pesquisa sobre a prática e o pensar artístico da autora, relacionando ainda a harmônica interdisciplinaridade da poética lepagiana e sua abertura à recepção criativa do público a uma visão contemporânea de mundo que parece apontar para a a integração dos opostos como elementos complementares, na dissolução de dualidades, correntemente tidas como irreconciliáveis . / Abstract: This dissertation discusses the work of the Canadian director Robert Lepage. It proposes to reflect on his method of bringing specific elements to theater or cinema, creating, through the dialectics between them, a singular and hybrid poetics. A director herself, the dissertation.s author uses as a foundation her own creative process (in the play Ofélia em Off) and her experience as a spectator of Lepage.s works. She then examines Lepage.s memoirs and parts of his personal trajectory, relating their possible repercussions on his work. Focusing on seven theatrical pieces created and directed by Robert Lepage (The Dragon.s Trilogy, Vinci, , Needles and Opium, The Seven Streams Of the River Ota, Elsinore, Geometry of Miracles and The Far side of the Moon), the author analyses Lepage.s unique methods in treating seven elements: language, objects, images, space, words, memory, and games. Examining Lepage.s cinematographic work, via his films Le Polygraphe, Nô, Le Confessional and The Far side of the Moon, the author relates Lepage.s theater to his cinema, bringing together the singularity of his multidisciplinary and hybrid poetics. In her conclusions, the author shows how researching Lepage.s work has resonated in her own artistic praxis and thought, relating Lepage.s harmonic, interdisciplinary poetics and his openness to the audience.s creative participation to a contemporary vision of the world, one that seems to point to the integration of opposites as complementary, dissolving dualities normally seen as irreconcilable. / Doutorado / Multimeios / Doutor em Multimeios

With this study, the authors wish to highlight the way artificial intelligence, as a new form of media technology, seems to be ascribed gender, both in fiction and reality. These, by humans artificially developed beings, would not need to be gendered, but still are. Given these beings are human made and new phenomenas, an opportunity of preventing boundaries considering gender, class and etnicity to be reproduced would be possible and in favour. By analysing the Alex Garland 2015 film Ex Machina, the authors wish to discuss how and why the artificial intelligence becomes gendered, particularly feminised, and what this means from a wider perspective concerning the way we look at this new technlology not yet fully introduced in real life. By using post- and transhuman theory mixed with feminist theories such as Judith Butlers theory of perfomativity, Donna Haraways posthuman feminist theory and Laura Mulveys theory of The Male Gaze, this study results in a qualitative text analysis. The methodic tools used in this study contains elements from visual text methods and therefor also semiotics.   The authors reach to the conclusion that the depiction of artificial intelligence in the film Ex Machina (2015) reproduces stereotypic feminine gender acts and even intensifies these. When these ways of presenting new and futuristic technology seems to appear in ficiton, an assumption can be made that they origin from existing and deep gender acts in the western society. Researchers, such as Donna Haraway, wishes for these strong boundaries in gender, class and etnicity to not be reproduced in new technology, but in the fictional case of the film Ex Machina (2015), this wish has unfortunately not been fullfilled. If society would be able to rethink the sharp boundaries between nature and technology and succeed with this ontological change in the way we look at humanity, it would hopefully be easier to approach the new technology with an open mind. Perhaps then the reproduction of gender stereotypes in this new technology would cease in fiction, but also in reality.

This essay examines visions of the future in Alex Garlands 2015 film Ex Machinausing critical futures studies and posthumanist theories. The aim is to make visible howfutures are constructed and how artificial bodies are coded based on ideas of the future.Through an image and discourse analysis, the essay shows how “Western” society isstructured and how it is expected to be structured in the future. While the previous researchmainly focuses on phenomenology and gender, this essay shows that intersectional methodscan be helpful in making visible how power structures influence how we construct and viewbodies. In addition, the analysis shows how images of the future are multifaceted andcomplex, while at the same time they reproduce hegemonic visions of the past, present andfuture. In summary, this essay shows how the visions of the future in Ex Machina areprimarily based on a “Western” scientific tradition that reproduces colonial and patriarchalideals, though they are consistently challenged by the existence and actions of the cyborgs.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Cette thèse est consacrée à l’exploration des enjeux philosophiques, religieux et littéraires d’un motif qui apparaît dans trois œuvres majeures de la latinité : celui de la révélation finale. Le dernier livre du De republica de Cicéron avec le « Songe de Scipion », le dernier livre des Métamorphoses d’Ovide avec le discours de Pythagore, et le dernier livre XI des Métamorphoses d’Apulée avec le dévoilement d’Isis, présentent en effet tous trois la particularité de mettre en scène une expérience de révélation. Il s’agit alors non seulement d’étudier la façon dont Cicéron, Ovide et Apulée élaborent une écriture de la révélation à partir de matériaux philosophiques et religieux qu’on aura préalablement replacés dans leur contexte historique ainsi que dans l’économie générale des œuvres et des interrogations respectives de ces trois auteurs, mais aussi de déterminer les effets produits par la place de ces révélations en ce lieu traditionnel de polarisation du sens qu’est la fin d’une œuvre : quel dialogue ces trois révélations entretiennent-elles avec la structure qui les précède ? dans quelle mesure ces révélations finales dans les textes sont-elles aussi des révélations finales des textes eux-mêmes, auxquels elles apportent une élucidation rétrospective ? et quelle Weltanschauung, quelle conception de la quête de la vérité cette dynamique traduit-elle dans chacun des cas ? Cette enquête sera précédée d’un chapitre préliminaire où l’on établira les outils conceptuels nécessaires à l’étude de ce motif et où l’on analysera les antécédents grecs de celui-ci, à savoir le deus ex machina dans la tragédie et le mythe eschatologique final chez Platon. / This doctoral thesis is devoted to the investigation of the philosophical, religious, and formal aspects of a motif which appears in three major works of Latin literature : that of final revelation. The last book of Cicero’s De republica with its “Dream of Scipio”, the last book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses with its discourse of Pythagoras, and the last book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses with its unveiling of Isis, all share, indeed, the specificity of representing a revelatory experience. The aim of this research is then : on the one hand, to study the way Cicero, Ovid and Apuleius dream up a pattern of revelation on the basis of philosophical and religious material that we shall first replace in each case in its historical context and in the frame of the respective literary output and pervasive themes of thinking of our three writers ; on the other hand, to determine the effects given off by the setting of these revelations at the place that traditionally focuses meaning, the ending of the work : what kind of dialogue is set up between these three revelations and the preceding structure ? to what extent do those final revelations in the texts function at the same time as final revelations of the texts themselves, on which they cast retrospective lighting ? and what worldview, what conception of the search for truth does this dynamics convey in the three cases ? This investigation will be preceded by a preliminary chapter where we shall establish the conceptual tools required for the study of this motif and analyze its Greek antecedents, i.e. the deus ex machina in tragedy and the final eschatological myth in Plato.

The present study focuses on a theatrical principle known as a Latin calque Deus ex machina meaning "God from the Machine". Although this plot device used to resolve a seemingly unsolvable problem is already mentioned in the Aristotle's Poetics, its application and understanding keeps developing. Moreover, the status of Deus ex machina among other theatrical constraints changes as well. The aim of this M.A thesis is to describe the evolution of this particular theatrical device in terms of aesthetics and dramaturgy of the 17th Century French Tragedy. The first part of the study is dedicated to a theoretical analysis of Deus ex machina. Therefore, we introduce the opinions of three French classicist theorists, namely Jean Chapelain, abbé d'Aubignac and Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de La Mesnardière. In each of these theoretical works the theatrical device is analysed in the context of individual dramaturgical doctrines as well as in a close correlation with other theatrical rules. In the second part of the work we study the practical integration of Deus ex machina in six selected tragedies dealing with the legends on Iphigenia and Medea. In the entire work Deus ex machina is described mainly in the context of other "irrational" elements of the plot as they represent an inevitable part of a tragic action. Powered by...

Abstrakt Denna uppsatsen är en jämförande studie med två gestaltningar av skådespelerskan Alicia Vikander. Jämförelsen är föranledd av forskning som menar att sammansmältningen mellan sexualitet och teknik i samtida action/thriller och science fictionfilmer är pervers. Kvinnokroppen fetischeras i samband med att den är hoplänkad med tekniska prylar och med hjälp av reklamfilmsestetik. Estetiken gör således att prylarna försöker säljas genom att sexualisera kvinnokroppen. Den här studien försöker finna utvägar för fetischeringen genom att framhäva skådespelerskans insats och hur hon kan förändra bilden som sammanlänkningen strävar efter. Filmerna jag använder för att undersöka detta är Ex Machina och Jason Bourne där Vikander figurerar i två biroller. Jag undersöker hennes roll för att titta noggrannare på fetischeringens utsträckning och vad som krävs av henne samt estetiken inom de filmerna för att möjliggöra andra synvinklar inom action/thriller och science fiction genren. / Abstract This paper compares two of Alicia Vikander's roles and treats research that says sexuality and technology are interlinked and fetishized about in contemporary action/thriller and science fiction movies. The two films the paper talks about are Jason Bourne and Ex Machina where Alicia plays an important figure. The female body is beeing fetishized in connection to technology that the characters use and that support the movie. Toghether with advertising aestetics such films are beeing selled through the sexualisation of the female body. This study is trying to find expedients from the fetischizing elements by highlighting the actress performance and how she can change the image that the interlinked elements strive to feature. My objective is to study how far the fetischizing have gone and how or if Alicia can break the perversion that the advertisment aestetics and interlinked elements of such film highlight. Also what features within such film, in that genre, require us to see beyond those fetishizing elements.

No description available.

Due to the recent growth in popularity of hard magic in fantasy literature, the aim of the present study is to analyze how Brandon Sanderson utilizes his Laws of Magic to construct conflict that can be resolved using hard magic systems in Mistborn: The Final Empire. The pursuit of the study is to fill a gap in the field, as prior research on Sanderson’s writing and the function of hard magic is limited. In addition to the Laws of Magic, the study applies narratological theories about plot and conflict to determine whether Sanderson successfully avoids deus ex machina through clear definitions of magical limitations and foreshadowing of exceptions. The study concludes that Sanderson effectively ties the reader’s process of understanding the magic to the relationship of the two protagonists, where the more experienced magic user acts as a mentor for the less experienced one. By only conveying to the reader what characters know, Sanderson leaves room for twists where it is revealed that the characters were operating with an incomplete understanding of their own magic, allowing for unforeseeable, yet foreshadowed, new uses of their magic at the story’s climax. The discoveries of the study provide useful insight into how Sanderson works with his own Laws of Magic, which can be applied by writers that wish to use magic as a similar tool to construct and solve conflict in their own stories.