This thesis is concerned with placing public art within the broader modernist spatialisation of social relations. The research takes place around two related enquiries. The first emerges from questions raised by the art critic Rosalyn Deutsche with regard to the proposition that public art functions as both a profession and technology that attempts to pattern space so that docile and useful bodies are created by and deployed within it. Following such questions, this thesis seeks to scrutinise the ways in which discourses on public art might operate in enabling, maintaining or disrupting everyday practices and socio-spatial relations. Secondly, as a foray into methodologies of public art research, the thesis considers Foucauldian governmentality approaches in terms of what these might have to offer an investigation of public art. The thesis undertakes the analysis of a wide range of texts connected with three South Australian urban developments for which public art was separately proposed, designed, selected and installed. Attention is given principally to the Rundle Street Mall, a pedestrianised shopping street in the city-centre of Adelaide, examined at several moments throughout the period of its development (1972-1977) and later refurbishment (1996-2001). Also discussed are the Adelaide Festival Centre Plaza (1973-1977) and the Gateway to Adelaide (1996-2000), the latter project involving the reconstruction of a major traffic intersection on the outskirts of metropolitan Adelaide. Through these examples the thesis documents key debates in the history of Australian discourses concerning public art. In addition, this study brings attention to the relations between artwork and a proliferation of individuals, agencies, and other interests, highlighting the competitions over space, authority and expertise, and the often unexamined role that public art plays in maintaining or unsettling socio-spatial relations. Knowledge about public art, it is argued, is produced, transformed and deployed across a range of discursive sites (contemporary art, urban design, planning, transport and others) and becomes tied to specific problems of governing. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2008

This thesis is concerned with placing public art within the broader modernist spatialisation of social relations. The research takes place around two related enquiries. The first emerges from questions raised by the art critic Rosalyn Deutsche with regard to the proposition that public art functions as both a profession and technology that attempts to pattern space so that docile and useful bodies are created by and deployed within it. Following such questions, this thesis seeks to scrutinise the ways in which discourses on public art might operate in enabling, maintaining or disrupting everyday practices and socio-spatial relations. Secondly, as a foray into methodologies of public art research, the thesis considers Foucauldian governmentality approaches in terms of what these might have to offer an investigation of public art. The thesis undertakes the analysis of a wide range of texts connected with three South Australian urban developments for which public art was separately proposed, designed, selected and installed. Attention is given principally to the Rundle Street Mall, a pedestrianised shopping street in the city-centre of Adelaide, examined at several moments throughout the period of its development (1972-1977) and later refurbishment (1996-2001). Also discussed are the Adelaide Festival Centre Plaza (1973-1977) and the Gateway to Adelaide (1996-2000), the latter project involving the reconstruction of a major traffic intersection on the outskirts of metropolitan Adelaide. Through these examples the thesis documents key debates in the history of Australian discourses concerning public art. In addition, this study brings attention to the relations between artwork and a proliferation of individuals, agencies, and other interests, highlighting the competitions over space, authority and expertise, and the often unexamined role that public art plays in maintaining or unsettling socio-spatial relations. Knowledge about public art, it is argued, is produced, transformed and deployed across a range of discursive sites (contemporary art, urban design, planning, transport and others) and becomes tied to specific problems of governing. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2008

Despite its origins in England two hundred years ago, the picturesque continues to influence landscape architectural practice in late twentieth-century New Zealand. The evidence for this is derived from a close reading of the published discourse of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects, particularly the now defunct professional journal, The Landscape. Through conceptualising the picturesque as a language, a model is developed which provides a framework for recording the survey results. The way in which the picturesque persists as naturalised conventions in the discourse is expressed as four landscape myths. Through extending the metaphor of language, pidgins and creoles provide an analogy for the introduction and development of the picturesque in New Zealand. Some implications for theory, practice and education follow.