Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Gregory Abowd; Committee Member: Elle Yi-Luen Do; Committee Member: James Foley; Committee Member: John Peponis; Committee Member: John Stasko. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

This thesis examines seven of Devora Neumark's artistic interventions that activate an embodied transfer or continuity of knowledge. I am inspired by phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of "the flesh of the world," that is the element enabling a reversibility between subject and object, specifically with regard to the body. Neumark draws from a repertoire of her everyday activities like crocheting or peeling beets to make a stew. She resituates the activity from one which is traditionally practiced in the private sphere of the home, often undervalued, to one which critically engages passersby in various urban settings. I study the repetitive capacities of these everyday activities, how they are negotiated in the public sphere, and how they remain (re)productively in the flesh through body-to-body transmission. Flesh becomes the operative concept in this thesis and activates a phenomenology in Neumark's interventions that goes beyond Merleau-Ponty's and which engages with both aesthetic and socio-political questions.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Feb. 28, 2008). Directed by Patrick Lee Lucas; submitted to the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-152).

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 61).

Thesis (M.Des.)--York University, 2009. Graduate Programme in Design. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-65). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR51550

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 45 p. : col. ill. + wmv video and jpeg files. Includes video files in the wmv format, and photo files in the jpeg format. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 24-25).

Orientador: Agnus Valente / Banca: José Paiani Spaniol / Banca: Antônio Busnardo Filho / Acompanha caixa com folhetos / Resumo: Esta dissertação apresenta o estudo e a problematização da produção plástica deste artista-pesquisador, oferecendo ao leitor, um fio condutor que percorre o caminho entre as origens e os desdobramentos do que se convencionou chamar de arte ativista, engajada, ou arte política. A reflexão sobre este processo e sua trajetória, são fatores determinantes para entender a configuração de sua poética como a de um artista ativista, evidenciando os aspectos relacionais às questões materiais e processuais. Consideramos neste sentido, a interação entre suas obras anteriores, que transitam entre o universo da arte postal e do livro de artista, até o seu ingresso na academia e a transformação daí ocorrida através da potencialização de sua metodologia de trabalho. A interação proporcionada pela pesquisa modificou a hipótese inicial, a tal ponto, de gerar mudanças significativas na estrutura deste trabalho. A partir das ações vivenciadas, foi possível identificar poéticas que fazem uso de sistemas híbridos de produção. A construção de trabalhos sob estas premissas corroboraram e direcionaram para que tenhamos como perspectiva, o aprofundamento de questões relativas às metodologias colaborativas, onde os problemas relacionados à matéria sugerem procedimentos autônomos e independentes; ora individuais, ora colaborativos; de interação e não lineares; envolvidos por fatores não necessariamente pertencentes ao universo plástico, constituindo-se em processos essencialmente híbridos, múltiplos, tanto sob a ótica do cruzamento de sistemas, quanto da relação de produção material entre diferentes áreas de conhecimento. / Abstract: This work presents the study and the questioning of plastic production of this artistresearcher, offering the reader, a common thread that runs through the path between the origins and developments of the so-called activist art, engaged, or political art. Reflection on this process and its history, are key factors to understand the configuration of his poetic as that of an activist artist, showing the relational aspects to substantive and procedural issues. We consider in this regard, the interaction between his earlier works, traveling through the world of mail art and the artist book, until his admission to the academy and the transformation that took place there through the enhancement of its working methods. The interaction provided by the research changed the initial hypothesis, to the point of generating significant changes in the structure of this work. From the experienced actions, were identified poetic that make use of hybrid production systems. The construction work under these corroborated and directed premises so that we have as perspective, the deepening of issues related to collaborative methodologies, where problems related to the matter suggest autonomous and independent procedures; sometimes individual, sometimes collaborative; and nonlinear interaction; surrounded by factors not necessarily belonging to the plastic universe, thus becoming essentially hybrid processes, multiple, both from the perspective of systems crossing, as the ratio of production material between different areas of knowledge / Mestre

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion -1 have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understands, historical human self-understands which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy.

This practice-based thesis undertakes research into the contemporary aesthetic of interactive media art, in order to propose a useful practical model of interactivity founded on a critical approach to both existing theory and practice. It proceeds from the identification of a primary lack in contemporary aesthetics that arises from the predominantly materialistic comprehension of technologically-mediated artworks. The thesis establishes a new model for interactive art that offers an immaterial engagement with technology at a locus where cognition and the aesthetic intertwine. This model is constructed following a revision of both the theory and practice of interactive media art, which identifies a materialistic bias of technology-mediated art production caused by a confused concept of technology as both tool and medium. This investigation confines itself to the last forty years of interactive art and the new model of spectatorship that has accompanied it. The main objective of what follows from this investigation is an account of agency in the artist and spectator interrelationship. In the context of technologically based artworks various approaches to spectatorship have frequently remained within the constraints of the traditional model of art that inherently drew on a separation between body and mind. It is argued in this thesis that neither the technology nor the participation itself, but the cognitive interconnection between 'artist-artwork-spectator' produces the primary aesthetic dimension of interactive media art. In this respect, not the physical object creation but the aestheticisation of this triangle produces the here identified immaterial/cognitive experience of the spectators. This can be achieved when the technology is applied as a transparent medium one of the core concepts introduced in this thesis which can facilitate an aesthetic quality or meaning creation through technology. The 'transparent medium' enables the cognitive-based experience production, which is identified as the immersive flow of the spectator's aesthetic experience. As such, the re-evaluation of the artist- spectator interrelationship proposes a new immaterial model of art which is called the Transparent Act. The introduction of the Transparent Act leads to the main intervention of this thesis which lies in an effort to recover a lost dimension in interactive media art. A recovery of this dimension enables access to a knowledge practice which is not necessarily located in ordinary cognitive experiences but in unfamiliar conscious states that can be compared to accounts of so-called spiritual experiences. The model of the Transparent Act is concurrently applied as a practise-based intervention and proof-of-concept in a major installation, the Mind Cupola. This artistic and technological contextualisation of the original intervention of this thesis is exemplified as an affective environment which aims for an immediate cognitive affection of the spectator by generating mechanical and audio-visual effects in the spectator's 'mind'. The artistic system uses special face analysis techniques to close the feedback loop and affect the spectator through the analysis of her/his reactions. The installation is built upon a 'passive' modality of interaction in which the spectator contributes to the artwork with subtle, cognitive-based interactions which are fed back through a complex open response system. The implementation of cognitive feedback loops, also described as the fractal structure in the spectator's cognition, constitutes the essential transparent medium through which the previously lost immaterial dimension of a spiritual-like aesthetic experience in interactive media art is achieved. The thesis concludes with suggestions of further applications including the evaluation of technologically mediated artworks.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-06T13:03:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-06-17. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2015-10-06T13:18:07Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000849699.pdf: 6825760 bytes, checksum: a415df8cb472143cb708a98404db87e2 (MD5) / Esta dissertação apresenta o estudo e a problematização da produção plástica deste artista-pesquisador, oferecendo ao leitor, um fio condutor que percorre o caminho entre as origens e os desdobramentos do que se convencionou chamar de arte ativista, engajada, ou arte política. A reflexão sobre este processo e sua trajetória, são fatores determinantes para entender a configuração de sua poética como a de um artista ativista, evidenciando os aspectos relacionais às questões materiais e processuais. Consideramos neste sentido, a interação entre suas obras anteriores, que transitam entre o universo da arte postal e do livro de artista, até o seu ingresso na academia e a transformação daí ocorrida através da potencialização de sua metodologia de trabalho. A interação proporcionada pela pesquisa modificou a hipótese inicial, a tal ponto, de gerar mudanças significativas na estrutura deste trabalho. A partir das ações vivenciadas, foi possível identificar poéticas que fazem uso de sistemas híbridos de produção. A construção de trabalhos sob estas premissas corroboraram e direcionaram para que tenhamos como perspectiva, o aprofundamento de questões relativas às metodologias colaborativas, onde os problemas relacionados à matéria sugerem procedimentos autônomos e independentes; ora individuais, ora colaborativos; de interação e não lineares; envolvidos por fatores não necessariamente pertencentes ao universo plástico, constituindo-se em processos essencialmente híbridos, múltiplos, tanto sob a ótica do cruzamento de sistemas, quanto da relação de produção material entre diferentes áreas de conhecimento. / This work presents the study and the questioning of plastic production of this artistresearcher, offering the reader, a common thread that runs through the path between the origins and developments of the so-called activist art, engaged, or political art. Reflection on this process and its history, are key factors to understand the configuration of his poetic as that of an activist artist, showing the relational aspects to substantive and procedural issues. We consider in this regard, the interaction between his earlier works, traveling through the world of mail art and the artist book, until his admission to the academy and the transformation that took place there through the enhancement of its working methods. The interaction provided by the research changed the initial hypothesis, to the point of generating significant changes in the structure of this work. From the experienced actions, were identified poetic that make use of hybrid production systems. The construction work under these corroborated and directed premises so that we have as perspective, the deepening of issues related to collaborative methodologies, where problems related to the matter suggest autonomous and independent procedures; sometimes individual, sometimes collaborative; and nonlinear interaction; surrounded by factors not necessarily belonging to the plastic universe, thus becoming essentially hybrid processes, multiple, both from the perspective of systems crossing, as the ratio of production material between different areas of knowledge