The research question explored in this exhibition and dissertation was to review the conventional notions of craftsmanship and the use of the specific medium of oil paint with reference to the art of Rembrandt and Damien Hirst. The subject matter is flesh. This study foregrounds the involvement and acknowledgment of the corporeal body, the hand of the artist, and of the organic material reality of our existence and the objects that surround us. The paintings reflect a series of interventions that resulted in abstracted images based on photographs of meat. Once a detail had emerged that emphasised the fleshiness of the selected image, it was printed by a professional printing company. These details were then translated into oil paintings. What is explored is the specific material qualities of the binding mediums traditionally associated with the use of oil painting to create expressive paintings. In the creation of the series of paintings, I prepared binding mediums consisting of wax, stand oil, damar varnish, zel-ken liquin and acrylic paste medium mixed with manufactured readymade oil paints. Consequently the choice and exploration of the material possibilities of a specific medium becomes content, using art to explore the idea of art. Paint becomes flesh-like, having congealed over the surface of the technical support. These paintings propose an internal and an external reality simultaneously referenced through the flesh-like surface, pierced and cut to reveal multiple layers created on the supporting structure (wood and canvas) with the use of a specific medium, oil paint, combined with a variety of other binding mediums. The edges of the unframed paintings play an important role assuming a specific physical presence, enabling them to define themselves as boundaries, both of the paintings particular field of forces and of the viewer’s aesthetic experience. They are no longer edges or frames in the conventional sense, but become other surfaces that are of equal significance in the reading or viewing of the work. Finally, the notion of an exhibition site being neutral or given is contested and, as a result, the contemporary artist needs to be mindful of site specificity in relation to the exhibition of the artworks. This series of paintings is intended to communicate as a body of work, reflecting an individual vision: a recurring, introspective process that is always unfolding. The body is constantly recreated by each individual viewer, and the context or site of display. The artist’s intention is to activate the viewer’s heightened awareness and response to the conscious arrangement of the collection of canvases, as each one represents a fragment or detail of a flayed carcass.

Anatomy is of little use to the student if he has not grasped how to draw form, but it helps him to invent form. Without an understanding of how to invent, we can only make flat plans of the anatomy inside the outline; but once the drawing of bones and structure has been understood, all the anatomy that the student knows may be to his advantage. An artist must know as much science as he can use. If he knows more, there is a chance that sciences will use him. It is the structure of the body he must grasp and the way anatomy works. Knowing the parts by name is merely a convenience. If we can master Figure Drawing, even to a limited extent, we shall be well prepared to draw anything, and of all things in nature we are most critical of the human body round which there are gathered the deepest associations of idealism and instinct. However, the ideal in Art and in Nature is best understood as a standard from which to deviate, rather than as a scheme to impose on form. Rules are made to be broke, but they cannot be broken until they are understood. The creative force is given to few, but each one of us, layman or artist, cherishes a spark that may - who knows - start in another artist a conflagration. Then whether the work produced the trivial or profound, the student of "Life" may give thanks that he pursues an ageless quest of inexhaustible allure,

M.Sc (Computer Science) / Facial modelling and animation is considered one of the most challenging areas in the animation world. Since Parke and Waters’s (1996) comprehensive book, no major work encompassing the entire field of facial animation has been published. This thesis covers Parke and Waters’s work, while also providing a survey of the developments in the field since 1996. The thesis describes, analyses, and compares (where applicable) the existing techniques and practices used to produce the facial animation. Where applicable, the related techniques are grouped in the same chapter and described in a chronological fashion, outlining their differences, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. The thesis is concluded by exploratory work towards a talking head for Northern Sotho. Facial animation and lip synchronisation of a fragment of Northern Sotho is done by using software tools primarily designed for English. / Computing

Thesis (M.A.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Arts, 1999.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 444-468).

Desiring Machinations of Matertekhnologi is an Individualized Multidisciplinary thesis that synthesizes feminist frameworks with new media art to investigate the mediated body in relation to communications technology. The thesis illustrates contemporary, twenty-first century artists working with feminist strategies, the body, performance and technological media. Theoretical discussions are developed that imagine or suggest new forms of subjectivity that could be experienced through artistic appropriation of communicative, networked and technological media. These discussions include my studio investigations and unfold around the following themes: corporeal feminism, body-based philosophy, a subversion or manipulation of consumer technologies through intervention, appropriation and performance, the politics of space and location through networked interaction, and the mediated body in relation to communication technologies through a valorization of embodiment and the senses. / vii, 161 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. --

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Universiẗat, Diss., 2003.

Thesis -- Departmental honors in Studio Art. / Bibliography: ℓ. 48.

M.Sc (Computer Science) / Facial modelling and animation is considered one of the most challenging areas in the animation world. Since Parke and Waters’s (1996) comprehensive book, no major work encompassing the entire field of facial animation has been published. This thesis covers Parke and Waters’s work, while also providing a survey of the developments in the field since 1996. The thesis describes, analyses, and compares (where applicable) the existing techniques and practices used to produce the facial animation. Where applicable, the related techniques are grouped in the same chapter and described in a chronological fashion, outlining their differences, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. The thesis is concluded by exploratory work towards a talking head for Northern Sotho. Facial animation and lip synchronisation of a fragment of Northern Sotho is done by using software tools primarily designed for English. / Computing

Figures who turn their heads frontally and gaze outwards from Archaic Greek artworks look back at the viewer and destabilize the typical relationship between viewing subject and viewed object. These frontal characters were especially effective for viewers who encountered them during the Archaic period, when the profile perspective was conventional and vision was understood to be a tactile sense. Frontal-facing figures have often been interpreted as carrying protective power or having the ability to threaten the viewer with their attention. While some frontal figures are intimidating, frontality and the represented gazes it engenders do not provoke a single, universal reaction. Instead, these images’ interactions with ancient viewers were shaped by the type of frontal figure represented, the figure’s representational context, and the real context in which the figure was originally encountered. This dissertation takes a contextual approach to the study of Archaic frontal figures to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of their functions and effects. The frontal figures that are represented on vases made between 700 and 480 BCE are comprehensively examined. Frontal-facing characters that decorated temples in the same period are also considered. By inspecting each individual type of frontal figure in turn, we can better comprehend the differing responses the figures elicit, which include humor and horror in addition to terror. This project also examines how frontality was employed by innovative vase painters to create images that directly engage viewers and shape their viewing experiences. While a few figures were conventionally frontal in the Archaic period, the majority were represented frontally only by the most experimental artisans who were eager to surprise their viewers and distinguish their work from that of their colleagues. This investigation of Archaic frontality in multiple media demonstrates the power of the perspective in its original context and the inventiveness of the craftsmen who used it.