The sea changes in many ways and on many levels. These changes are complex and highly connected and as a result are hard to predict. Connected, changing systems of different scale are found in many areas of life. As well as physical systems such as the sea, they are apparent in emerging and collapsing ecological systems (Gunderson, Holling 2002), in systems of human ideas such as the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and, as I argue, in arts practice. Although attempts to know the sea are inherently difficult, they also offer opportunities. For example, if we were better able to perceive the changes of the sea, we might better approach other pressing problems that categorise our current age, such as climate change and the threat of collapse within other socio-ecological systems. A sea-centred form of ecological thinking could promote awareness of change and connection on different scales in varied realms. I demonstrate how forms of change, initially familiar through the movements of the sea, can be understood through arts practice. I refer to this sea-centred, ecological perception as ‘thalassocentric', (from the Greek thalassa, sea). This term denotes an outlook that (in some way) originates within the sea, even if it then addresses land, social arrangements or human imagination. Although thalassocentric understanding is derived from the movement of waves, I show that the concept can be developed as a useful tool for understanding changes beyond the oceans. Having analysed a number of key creative practices that engage with the contexts described, I develop an arts-centred use of the term 'apparatus'. I show that art apparatuses can be considered to move and change in ways that are also thalassocentric. This model is tested and applied through a series of creative projects which suggest that changes within art apparatuses can help us understand changes elsewhere. It therefore offers a valuable model that can contribute to our knowledge and understanding of other complex systems.

This practice-based research explores the nature of the feral, as manifested in an object-based installation practice of contemporary art that scavenges - physically, socially and metaphorically - in the gap between defined spaces. My conception of the feral draws out the political promise of this indeterminacy: the state of being partly wild and partly civilised. The page is also constructed materially, as a space where heterogeneous elements meet: different voices expressed through the writing and images of my practice. In claiming the feral as a critical concept, I reject its more common, derogatory, usage. In particular, during the 2011 London riots, the former British Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke labelled the rioters a “feral underclass”, seeking to fix them in this uncivilised, abject position. I unfix this separation, through a feral interpretation of my objects, as they interpenetrate domestic, institutional, and civilised public spheres. Mother’s milk solidifies as plaster-filled condom bombs, at once phallic and breast-like, poised to ignite a pyre of social theory texts in a gallery project space, a former factory; haphazard conglomerations of plant matter and urban debris are strung together in bunting on an inner-city community hall. The feral becomes here a rival concept to Julia Kristeva’s formulation of abjection, as the seeping bodily organs evoked by my objects are not defined in terms of the individual, but reflected on through the formless mass of the social body, the displaced undercommons of Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, the wild of Jack Halberstam, the rioters of Joshua Clover. The feral has an antagonistic quality, but it cannot fit the relational models of art put forward by Chantal Mouffe and Claire Bishop that seek to civilise this antagonism. Neither can the positivity of Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman new materialism extract the hybridity of materials I use from the precariousness of the social conditions from which they are drawn. My practice, like the feral, resists these separations.

The thinking approaches of dyslexic visual artists in their creative production have been little analysed, either in isolation or in comparison with non-dyslexic artists. This research investigates the nature of visual dyslexic cognition and tests for cognitive differences between dyslexic and non-dyslexic artists. It does so by systematically exploring their respective thinking approaches to creative visual production. The socio-cultural framework of investigation further argues the value of a distinctively dyslexic mode of visual thinking to mainstream education and society. The fieldwork included a purposive sampling of 44 artists with data collected and interpreted through mixed methods, using a range of tools. The research is positioned within cognitive and social constructivist perspectives, recognising that independent thinking is an integrated cognitive process of conceptualising inner, outer environments and complex social interactions. Thus the research methodology is both ethnographic and phenomenological. Dyslexic visual thinking within a sociocultural context is explored to give context to the concept of creativity, visual language and the value of arts education as enabling processes of thinking and conceptual development. The research focus emerged during the first stage of the fieldwork; the investigation of dyslexic artists indicated that their visual creative practice is produced through the skill of thinking within a multi-dimensional context. Through three stages of fieldwork, the research evidenced a dyslexic cognitive culture positioned within the dynamic of the 'outsider'. A triangulation of methods was used within the data collection and analysis to reach conclusive findings. The main research findings are: the dyslexic capacity for creative non-linear or 'flowed' visual cognition within a multi-dimensional conceptual framework; that this ability is so taken for granted that the dyslexic artists did not consider this to be different or of any greater value. The research found that dyslexic artists can have certain cognitive strategies, which may be underdeveloped in non-dyslexic artists yet these cognitive strategies can be taught to non-dyslexics. The research draws conclusions from these findings by further discussing the benefit of this thinking to education, the workplace and, also, to a technological and increasingly entrepreneurial society where divergent thinking contributes to creative production.

This research aims to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of a situated and embodied artist-teacher practice by testing multiple models of teacher demonstration and exemplification. The intention was to find out the ways in which the classroom art demonstration can be construed as the basis for a participatory, dialogic, pedagogical art practice, using co-learning and experiential learning based approaches to school art making. By using the model of the classroom art demonstration, a tried and tested aspect of my teaching practice, and amplifying and expanding that into art practice, I proposed to investigate the ways in which the demonstration functions as an effective link between teaching and art practice. The research was a professional self-study carried out within the context of the author's art and teaching practice in a middle school classroom with students from age 9 to 13. As an artist, teacher, researcher and participant, I used a reiterative procedure, based on Shön's (1983) 'reflection-on-action', to design four case studies. Evidence was collected through the making and documentation of artefacts made during, and in relation to, demonstrations and modelling, including journals, sketchbooks, artworks, visual presentations, lesson plans, questionnaires, exhibitions in schools and other settings. A framework, based on Hetland et al.'s (2013) approach to 'habits of mind' was used to evaluate the outcomes, and this was used to construct a taxonomy of different purposes and functions for the demonstration which is dispersed throughout the case studies. The contribution to knowledge lies in the nuanced study of the uses of the art demonstration as exemplification, interpretation, collaboration and instantiation of art making and thinking in the classroom, exploring methods, means and ends. The demonstration examples, made as part of the practice-based research process, studied means of communication, sharing and thinking about art making in concert with students. The demonstration artworks also led to an understanding of the changing dynamics of the artist-teacher role over a significant period as the research progressed. Using the case studies, I argue that the processes of thinking and making, with students, artists and on my own behalf, helps to locate the classroom art demonstration in a new theoretical framework and taxonomy within an expanded field of socially engaged, dialogic and material-based art practice.

This practice-led study explores the experiences of four poets in relation to specific landscapes and its inspiration on the creative practitioner. The research study focuses on tactile perception and its influence on the artistic process as both experiential and interpretative tool. It utilizes the idea of the ‘haptic intuitive’ (Di Giovine, 2015), specifically the finger pads, for a qualitative phenomenological study framed by fieldwork in nature and expressed in a 3D poetic canvas. The Flaneur methodology was applied to the approach made in the field and developed. This poetic style of walking which is historically associated with Baudelaire is chiefly applied to research in urban settings (Frisby, 1998) However, in this research study, the concept of a “Forest Flaneur” was developed as the scope of the fieldwork involved rural settings and encouraged movement (walking) in random directions primarily linked to tactile attraction in natural landscapes. The methodology developed focused on case studies of four walking poets’ inspirational landscapes (Wordsworth, Whitman, Machado and Snyder). The notion of the “Forest Flaneur” which has been developed in this study is a poetic walking style in nature, highlighting tactile memories, in rural settings. The contribution to knowledge focuses on a method of revisiting the experiences of poets in relation to their specific inspirational landscape and refining that method through exploring the tactile dimension of experience. This method of separating the tactile from the non-tactile has relevance for the creative practitioner, Furthermore, when undertaking this research I allowed a period of 15+ day’s gestation period between the haptic work in the field and the creative response to that experience on the poetic canvas in the studio. This relationship to time and what I have called ‘the looping of experience’ became a second key part of the research methodology. This methodology uses the memory of a visceral emotive ‘in situ moment’ as a stimulus - a memory formed in the somosensory cortex as a response to the 15+day gestation period. The cognitive process that is a consequence of the time lapse, or ‘time looping’ between the two events, synthesizes in the brain with the recall activity undertaken in the studio during the creative process. The research suggests that haptic experience (tactile perception) tends to enrich the creative process in both visual art and poetry.

This practice-based thesis examines the relationship between space, time and the human presence. It is concerned with the dialectic exchanges between my work and the places in which its meaning is defined. Oppositions between space/place, place/non-place, and immobility/movement, articulate the spatial and temporal limitations that delineate my site-specific practice and its experience. The exploration of the relationship between the notion of time and my practice has profoundly affected my research, which has itself endured for an extended period of time. This is described in chronological sequence: 1)initial site-specific installations, 2) site-writing: the thesis and photographic documentation of the installations, 3) installation of the documentation of the initial site-specific installations on the occasion of my viva. My thesis emphasises the role of the viewer’s presence, including the moment in time and the presence of other people in experiencing the site-specific work. The question posed is whether the ‘literality’ of site-specific art can encompass antithetical notions of site as they appear in contemporary life. The hypothesis advanced is that by adjusting the limits between the double experience of the fluidities and continuities of space and time, on the one hand,and their ruptures and disconnections, on the other, site-specific art may allow viewers to think and experience apparent contradictions as sustaining relations. My thesis looks at three works: 'Central Corridor' (2003), 'Seven Windows Divided by Two' (2004) and 'In Site Compression' (2007). Their documentations emphasise the paradox of representing site-specific work on the page. Another set of documentation will be exhibited at the viva, comprising the material of anew situation with its own spatio-temporal relationships (other than those of the initial installations), and will require anew the physical participation of the viewer to be perceived.

Includes bibliographical references. / Herschel resided in Cape Town until 1838. He set up a telescope in the orchard of their estate, Feldhausen, in Wynberg, and worked towards completing a systematic survey of the southern hemisphere for stars, nebulae and other celestial objects (Warner, 1996:55 & Buttmann, 1974:104). Herschel’s observations in the Cape were not only focused on astronomy. His scientific contributions included work in the fields of geology, meteorology and botany and this scope of diversity extended beyond the disciplines of science since he also pursued his interests in poetry, music and visual art (Buttmann, 1974:112 & Schaaf, 1989:10). Herschel played the flute and was also an avid draughtsman, evident in the extensive collection of sketches that he made of Cape botanicals and landscapes (Schaaf, 1989:10). In addition to these sketches, his diary entries from his stay in Cape Town, published in “Herschel at the Cape: diaries and correspondence of Sir John Herschel, 1834 to 1838” provide another affirmation of his variety of skills, since poetic descriptions and multi-sensory observations can be found amongst scientific and analytical inquiries. For example, in his diary entry March 1836 he commented on a nightjar’s song and included a music staff with an accurate notation of the bird’s melody. In a letter to William Henry Harvey in 1837 Herschel wrote about the scents of Cape flowers, applying perceptive metaphors for each flower species, such as cinnamon, pepper and ginger (Warner, 2011:34-35). He often created links between his observations from these different fields, such as applying his study of botany to that of photography by using Cape flower juices for photographic colour filters (Schaaf, 1992:98). The title of my MFA project references John Herschel as well as the Theme and Variation form in music in which a single musical theme, often written by a different composer, is followed by a series of developments of this theme through the employment of a range of compositional techniques (Lindsay, n.d.). The body of work that I created is structured according to this musical form. I used Herschel’s representations from and of the Cape as the basic theme which I then developed through a series of variations, employing media and methods across disciplines, time periods and sense modalities. By way of this process of mediation, the resulting art works become parallel records of my own specific experience of Cape Town.

Denotations of Memory: A Familial Archive is an evocative exploration of memory centred on a familial archive. Notions of memory as well the memories themselves in the archive are explored in the form of paintings, sculptures, photographs, installation and videos. A major part of this work focuses on living in Cape Town, South Africa, which was the central location of my lived reality while I was reflecting on the past as embodied in the familial archive.

Includes bibliographical references. / A history of failure implies several things. It can point to a chronology of the concept of failure, like so many contemporary history books that chart a minute aspect of culture. It could refer to a personal record, like a criminal having a history of violence. The implication is also there that history itself has failed to achieve, failed to describe, failed to move forward, failed to be history at all. History in this essay is not just the study of the past, but also its use in culture - to separate us from nature, to validate ideologies or to provide insight into our present. History in these terms is not a sequence of physical events, but the representation of these events. These representations exhibit curious behaviour: no matter their function they appeal to truth. History uses the language of the real to validate itself (Culler 2002: Kindle edition'), and this language is often constituted into narrative (which I will discuss in some detail later).

My interest in oneirism grew out of my search for a concept that would encapsulate my concerns in painting at the start of this project, namely the formal values I exploited, the quotidian subject matter I favoured, and the sense of contemplation I wished to convey. The correlations I perceived between my concerns and oneirism became more emphatic as my research progressed. The more I read about oneirism, the more I became aware of how the concept could be translated into painted form, a process which in turn inspired my practice. This document serves as a means to reflect on something of this complementary process. Within this framework, my discussion of theories related to oneirism is presented to amplify my painting practice. As a reflection on oneirism, the body of work submitted for my MFA comprised paintings in ink and oil. Many pieces were based on snapshots of views and objects in my surroundings. I often cropped the photographs to focus on a single object or a minor detail of a view. My approach was figurative, although it verged on abstraction depending on the source imagery I selected. I used a close-value palette that was dominated by chromatic greys. The structure of my paintings is quite simple in formal terms and my work is generally small in scale. I used these features and selected my subject matter to parallel theories about the oneiric zone that I discovered in my research. In terms of my aims in this project, and the media and approach I used in my practice, the figurative paintings of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) and contemporary Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (b. 1958) were most compelling. I responded to their muted palettes and, for me, their work shares a contemplative quality, despite differences in subject matter and approach. However, I was also intrigued by certain artists who used media other than paint to produce work that related to my concerns. I thus touch on the work of some of these artists, in addition to Tuymans and Morandi.