The aim of the research is to contribute to a critical interpretation of the multiple dimensions that shape the concept and the practice of contemporary living by analyzing the transformations that domestic space has experienced within the framework of the Information Society. The study emerges from the evidence that the changes that emerged due to the diffusion of information and communication technologies have originated a new social, economic and cultural paradigm that has deeply transformed the way in which contemporary domestic spaces are imagined, designed and lived. Deeply affecting life habits, these changes put into question the persistence of traditional conceptual models related to domestic space such as protection, intimacy, privacy and reproduction of consolidated family structures, recording the appearance of new interpretative categories with respect to private space and the activities developed there, such as connectivity, flexibility, ubiquitousness, transformability and mobile domesticity, among others. The research deals with four main aspects: a) the social and cultural context in which the contemporary debate on domestic space is situated; b) the historical context of the second half of the 20th century when various interpretations of dwelling were formulated in an era dominated by technology and information; c) a proposal to reformulate the concept of living from the perspective of becoming in light of functional transformations of contemporary domestic space epitomized by mediascapes, workspaces and bodyspaces; d) a proposed reading of the interpretative keys on the basis of which the informational house is imagined and designed in relation to the stimuli of objects and spaces, flexibility, digital design and sustainability. The research argues the multidimensionality and complexity of contemporary domestic space steming from both the growing diversity of the actors involved in its production and the variety of factors that influence it. In the culture of dwelling, the role of technology is not univocal and involves all stages of the process of design, construction and use of domestic space. Focusing on advertising and specialized media, the research highlights the role played by images in the construction of a collective imagination of the domestic. In discussing changes in the functional environment, the research highlights how the domestic plays an important role in domestication of technologies. Finally, the research underscores the need for a reformulation of the idea of domestic space within the scope of considering dwelling as an art of becoming, more in keeping with the zeitgeist of the Information Society.

This thesis imagines an ecological future for the post-industrial landscape of Govan Graving Docks, situated on the banks of the River Clyde in inner city Glasgow. The research is framed by a context of urban renewal and at times violent change in early 21st century Glasgow which has seen the city’s riverside transformed, with centres for culture, tourism and entertainment built on its infilled docks and sites of dereliction. Prompted by the development priorities of this change, and the nostalgia for an industrial past that has become a ‘way of seeing’ the river, this research seeks to better know the material life of this landscape. On Govan Graving Docks - an abandoned ship repair and fitting facility that remains as yet ‘unresolved’ - this thesis unearths the agencies, temporalities, ecologies and material legacies of a less familiar elemental landscape, and considers how these expressions could be tended and extended in a vision for a different future, focused on fostering new kinds of environmental engagement. The research themes draw insight from emerging theories in new materialism and the environmental humanities, particularly those that are responding to the matter of the Anthropocenic landscape, and they are explored through a repertoire of creative and collaborative field methods crafted with the site of study; variations on ecological performance, landscape and ecological survey work, public consultation, material imagining and sitewriting. These methods are founded on openness and attentiveness, they are opportunist and affirmative in nature, they are practiced on site and taken into the wider estuarine landscape, and they enrol many others beyond the researcher. These methods are first used to explore the expressions of life and vitality that can be found in the Graving Docks’ new ecologies, material memory and more-than-human publics, and then to imagine the creative capacities of these agencies in new configurations of shared possibility. The researcher is another site of investigation: a distributive understanding of agency informs the emergence of an ecological sensibility through material engagement, which has implications both for the design process and the imagined landscape. These resources are used to imagine an alternative future for Govan Graving Docks: it is a vision that works with ruination, re-wilding, and the liquid dynamics of the city; a vision that honours both natural and industrial histories; a vision that is both challenging and necessary, where new experiences of ‘worlding’ in the city are made possible. Through this process of investigation and conjecture, the Clyde imaginary emerges as a space for critical and creative thought; a discursive space where the challenges facing this ecological landscape and its future are explored. This thesis is both a product of, and contribution towards, cultural geographical enquiry, but it also has an interdisciplinary reach both theoretically and methodologically speaking, which enables the research to contribute to a wider debate about environmental futures that is currently taking place across the sciences and humanities. It can be defined as ‘interdisciplinary in practice’ for the way that it brings a wider range or perspectives to bear on a precarious urban wilderness and its associated communities, and seeks to develop a broader repertoire of research methods capable of exploring it’s diverse material world, and the multiple expressions of value that exist therein. Written in a style that has been highly affected by this kind of open and inclusive style of research engagement, the emotive environmental story that is contained within this thesis is open to a wider audience. This thesis identifies the productive role that cultural geography can play in larger environmental debates concerned with the current state and play of ‘life on earth’, and by enacting and engaging ideas related to the cultural landscape, place-based identities/communities/values, and landscape practices, it also identifies the particular conceptual and methodological resources that make cultural geography’s contribution both unique and necessary to these debates.

The following dissertation reassess previous explanations for the transmission of Byzantine iconography to western material culture that have been classified by the classical canon as being manifestations of a ‘barbarian’ ruler attempting to legitimize their fledgling culture. The tumultuous relationship between the east and the west during the Late Antique period to the middle Byzantine period and the subsequent visual culture that demonstrates cross-cultural exchange comprises the majority of my analysis. I approach the topic in a case study fashion focusing on five rulers: Theodoric, Charlemagne, and the three Ottos. The source material chosen for this dissertation varies as it has been selected based on claims by previous scholarship of demonstrating some level of Byzantine influence. My re-examination of these works includes the application of an interdisciplinary theoretical framework first postulated by Robert Hayden: Competitive Sharing. This theory suggests that material culture displaying syncretism was not a reflection of admiration, but of competition. An implication of this study is that art was an active participant in the relationship between the east and the west, serving as a communicative device, rather than as the more frequently cited passive role of a conduit for iconographical transmission or cultural legitimization.