Thesis (M.F. A.)--Washington State University, May 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 10).

Th.--Lettres--Lausanne--Université de Lausanne, 1995. / S'inscrit dans l'enquête pluridisciplinaire financée par le Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique : "Le réalisme socialiste de la période jdavonienne : usages à l'intérieur, image à exporter", menée sous la dir. de Leonid Heller à partir de 1987, et comptant trois volumes. Bibliogr. p. 349-370. Index.

Texte remanié de: Habilitationsschrift--Fakultät 12--Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1997. / Résumé en français. Bibliogr. p. 252-267.

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From Thesis: Why the animal as our point of departure in this discussion of prehistoric art, and why as a sacred symbol? Prehistoric art stretched over an immensely long period, from the first evidence of the activities of Neanderthal tribes during the Mousterian period, ± 35,000 B.C., to the end of the Magdalenian, ± 8,000 B.C. We are dealing with a time-span of nearly 30,000 years, during which a strictly Zoomorphic attitude existed. The animal was the dominant feature. It was constantly used in the decoration of cave walls, on engraved stone slabs, and on all kinds of utilitarian objects.

M.A . / The nude is generally approached as a historical and cultural product of specific societies, while a generic conception of the nude as a genre of gendered art (Gill Saunders, 1989), rather than as form (Kenneth Clark, 1956) is more vaguely perceived in underlying assumptions in texts on the nude, and the works themselves. The tradition of the nude is extremely varied, and complex. My purpose is not to unify or simplify this tradition. Any nude is never one thing alone, but is subject to interpretation. The nude, largely through recent feminist interpretations, has come to fulfil the role of trustee for alterity (Lynda Nead, 1992). By considering the main typologies in which the nude has been studied and interpreted, I hope to show the importance and significance of gender in art, aesthetics, and finally, philosophy. The significance of this thesis is to confront the antagonism between traditional and contemporary feminist issues and that of the standard patriarchal tradition. In this regard the nude is an interesting and rewarding genre of the expression of gender, as it deals with the delicate concerns of this category. The central problematic of the research is the question of gender. On an epistemological level, feminism 'introduces' the category of gender, which subverts and challenges all previous conceptions of the human subject. While I wish to bear in mind the history of oppression through the neglect and negation of the category of gender, I also recognise the vital importance of moving beyond this structure by proposing the celebration of plurality through more life-affirming readings of nudity in art. Although femeneutics may sound idiosyncratic, I propose to use the term as shorthand for feminist studies combined with a hermeneutic approach.

"VIDEO HIROBA: Contingent Publics and Video Communication in Japan, 1966-1981" is the first major study in English or Japanese of the seminal 1970s video collective Video Hiroba (Video Plaza). Formed in the aftermath of both Expo ’70 and the late 1960s season of protest, Video Hiroba’s founding in 1972 coincided with a moment of crisis in public space. The combination of high economic growth, rapid industrialization and urbanization, and expansion of mass media in the 1960s also sparked a series of cultural debates around the effects of eizō (technological images) and media (both mass media systems and media technologies) under the highly-managed conditions of the information age, encompassed in the term kanri shakai (the managed or controlled society). Through encounters with North American video practitioners and engagements with these Japanese debates, the members of Video Hiroba developed video as an applied discourse centered on the idea of “video communication,” where video, counter to television but also to industrial capitalism, was positioned as process not product. Through individual and collective experiments with the possibilities of video, the members of Video Hiroba imagined contingent forms of community and experiences of urban space as alternative solutions to the failures of direct confrontation with authorities. Taking a cue from Video Hiroba’s concern with “video communication” over “video art,” this art historical study takes the framework of critical translation to investigate and articulate the forms of collectivity, the processes of mediation, and the systems of circulation with which Video Hiroba members experimented. After laying out the problems of visual culture and subjectivity in the arts from Japanese Surrealism through Expo ‘70, this dissertation devotes four chapters to examining Video Hiroba as a collective, charting their visions for video through their collective exhibitions, the circulation of their work domestically and internationally, the collective’s engagement with institutions, and their community-based work. Through these perspectives, it uncovers both a unique vision of video formed from the local context of 1970s Tokyo but with transnational aspirations, and an alternative lineage for contemporary Japanese socially-engaged art. The final two chapters look at the practices of individual members through a thematic lens to reveal different models of contingency in both urban space, and the discursive public space of media and culture. While these experiments chart possibilities for alternative ways of visualizing collectivity, in their attempts to make systems of media exchange both open and visible, they displace human authors. Combined with their aspirations to engage international art and video circles, in which Video Hiroba was seen as representative of “Japan” and “Asia,” this effect inadvertently played into a burgeoning techno-orientalist image for Japanese video in the early 1980s. This project thus charts competing possibilities for early video in Japan, as both a medium around which alternative modes of human-centered community could be formed, and a medium through which Japan could become, yet again, an empty image of reflection.

This thesis includes the work of Vicki L. Clarke for a Masters in Fine Arts.

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