This thesis considers the making and circulation of drawn and printed imagery in Britain over the period 1610-1750 with a particular emphasis on the observation and record of place. It takes as its focus the contested position of the visual image in Britain over this period, considering the place of the record of the land, past, present and future, in the making and re-making of the country. It is particularly concerned to elucidate links between different forms of depictive practice: ‘pictorial’ and ‘mathematical’, evident at the time of their making, if often lost in their interpretation in the modern literature. These depictive traditions are explored in order to examine the value of the categories of ‘real’ and ‘ideal’ that have tended to dominate narratives of landscape history. Throughout, drawings and prints are considered as forms of knowledge that combined a number of traditions and practices, aged along with those more recent. Tensions between theories and practices of image-making are central rather than incidental to the study, discovered through an examination of manuals and treatises as well as drawings and prints. There is also a recognition of the importance of collecting practices and patronage over this period, explored through the extended legacies of Lord Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. A focus on collections and the legacies of landscape imagery has necessitated that images be brought together from a wide range of regional and metropolitan libraries, archives and art galleries, and reconnected with the wider cultural, political and religious worlds through which they were circulated and enacted at the time of their making. Drawing on a number of disciplinary traditions, this approach offers a new perspective on topographically-informed imagery over this extended period, seeking to expand the parameters of the interpretation of such works.

Contemporary discourse in the field of Memetics offers potential new insights upon the ways and means of producing and curating contemporary Performance beyond the limits of discipline specific Performance taxonomies. Alongside the rise of Internet Culture and the rapid adoption of social media, it is argued that contemporary artistic practice is becoming ‘more fluid, elastic, and dispersed’ (Cornell, 2014: online). Given this circumstance, the researcher acknowledges that notions of disciplinarity, performative agency and materiality remain in a state of flux and in need of reconsideration. Utilising a Practice-as-Research (PaR) framework, and based upon the above context, the researcher initiated an innovative three-phase methodological approach focused on the application of insights drawn from the concept of the ‘Meme’ (Dawkins, 1974) alongside a primarily Deleuze & Guattarian philosophy upon methods of artistic production, and the curation of transdisciplinary performance. The resulting praxis: ‘Rhizo-Memetic Art’ produced three major artworks including the hypertextual assemblage - Corpus 1 (2012-13), produced collaboratively online with users of Twitter and Facebook; the Florilegium: Exhibition (3rd -24th November, 2014): produced and curated alongside an invited group of contributing artists; and Florilegium: Remix (24th April 2015): an intermedial Live Art lecture. Each of these elements plugs into the following exegetic writing, and alongside the documentation of its artefacts (available on the project website), these elements produce the thesis. The outcomes of this PaR are twofold. The first outcome is a new theoretical understanding of the mechanisms of interdisciplinary creative practice emerging out of the synthesis of meme and rhizome. This outcome can be further developed to reveal insights relevant to the production of transdisciplinary performance and archival/curatorial discourses. The second outcome can be identified as the Rhizo-Memetic Artwork itself, or, rather the multiple creative artefacts and actions that combine to produce its assemblage. The implications of this research suggest that the functioning of Rhizo-Memetic Art raises permanent questions about the status of Performance in terms of its materiality and efficacy outside of the limitations of disciplinarity.

This thesis argues for the continuing possibility of Adorno set against the backdrop of a post-modern proliferation of affects. A major theoretical contention is the concept of the subject: a sticking point within philosophy. The thesis takes this up and offers a new pathway without falling into the cliché of a renewal of Adorno’s position. Drawing on Adorno’s theoretical thoughts on the subject the thesis contends that the subject is that which by turns dissolves all eventualities or more proportionally acts like a place-holder for the newly emerging: structures that cannot be explained by recourse to the laws that govern its parts. These experiential structures present a surface, resistance, or solidarity that upon closer examination dissolve back into the ephemeral. Although such structures are profligate and prolific, the thesis adopts as its major concern artworks and aesthetics. Following Adorno, a claim is made for artworks that present open-ended possibilities. They are able for example to critically challenge the dominant hegemony the profundity that all too easily sides with the oppressors of life. What philosophy, a critical tool in furtherance of the good life, a concept restaged, here takes from art is not a sense of equivalence, art and philosophy are held apart in a creative and critical tension, but the sense of yearning that animates the nonconceptual side of art which the concept negates. The yearning, being experiential, is always embodied. Its fulfilment negates the immediacies, the mere appearance of life, particularly in its systematically reflexive form. The conclusion concurs with Adorno in the thought that affinity with the object is achieved not as the resultant of identity thinking, but through the act of definite negation of identifying schema.

The portfolio consists of eight compositions of varying instrumentation and length. The pieces explore a range of aspects, including experimental and graphic notation, instrumental theatre and differing performance practices. Most of the music presented incorporates other forms of expression: mainly movement, but also spoken word, photography and painting. This creates a musical experience, not only for the ear but also for the eye. The commentary to these pieces discusses aspects of the music that are not directly evident in the score and places the body of work into a wider musical and cultural context.

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.

The oppositional rule, established upon the philosophical traditions of binarism and dialecticism, situates the two protagonists in this research (the artistic collaboration matthews and allen) as antithetical systems. This discourse proposes a disruption to a metaphysical dichotomy between the noetic authorial text and the poetic paratext. The non-oppositional premise of collaborative dialogue is proposed as a method to resist the oppositional logic of dialecticism and the homogenous ‘third hand’ of collaboration theory. Michel Serres’ assertion that to ‘hold a dialogue is to suppose a third man and seek to exclude him’ positions the ‘third man’ of communication as a disruptive force. The excluded third is a noise in the background of ideological unity, the ‘potential for surprise’, an intervallic exception in a paradigmatic order. This collaborative game breaks the rule of opposition and subsequently generates a third space where the indeterminate relation between the scholastic text and matthews and allen’s paratext performs disruption in the authorial system.

The availability of advanced software allows museums to preserve and share artefacts digitally, and as a result, museums are frequently making their collections accessible online as interactive, 3D models. Since this could lead to the unique situation of viewing the digital artefact before the physical artefact, more research is needed concerning how viewing and interacting with artefacts outside of a museum affects emotional connections to artefacts and how meaning is given to them. Furthermore, users may have varying degrees of technology skills, which could also influence the way they make emotional connections and meaning from interactions with digital artefacts. This study contributes to existing research by exploring the way older adults (65 years and older) and young adults (18-21 years), two groups of users with diverse technology skills and museum experience, emotionally connect and give meaning to digital artefacts. Interaction with digital artefacts will be through two digital modalities: an Augmented Reality app (AR) on a tablet and 3D models on a website using a laptop. Their subsequent viewing of the physical artefacts will also be examined. Video recordings and questionnaire data, including enjoyment and emotional responses, were analysed quantitatively. Utilising the think-aloud method, participants verbalised their thoughts and feelings while interacting with the artefacts. These comments were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively to understand how participants construct meaning from their interactions with artefacts. Results revealed that regardless of age and digital modality, participants made emotional connections with the digital artefacts, and meaning emerged from their interactions. Seeing the physical artefacts after the digital ones still prompted participants to experience emotions; they were not passive when giving meaning to physical artefacts. The results aim to provide insight into how older and younger adults experience two important aspects of a museum artefact experience, emotion and meaning, when first interacting with 3D artefacts on devices outside of a museum.

The fundamental basis of the project concentrates upon an interactive manoeuvre involving Modern Continental Philosophy and the Postmodern Visual Arts. The primary components that structure the thesis conduct a Deleuzoguattarian "process” of action to produce a series of mechanisms designed to “open-up" a space in which to manifest a range of interpretations/translations that follow the developmentary trajectory of designated specific areas of art production. The primary aims concern the advance of the action to communicate an innovative/original set of expositions with a view to both “animate" and enhance these designated perspectives. The structural framework of the project tracks through “passages'/lines of flight” that occur/result from the impact of the Deleuzoguattarian mechanisms upon chosen material - "Introduction" (Primary) sets forth some guiding themes (how to think knowledge without the presumption of the neutral interchangeability of the subject?). “Tours of the Black Clock" (Dark) elaborates the Nietzschean background that informs the philosophical basis of the complete project. “Electrolite” (Spin the Black Circle), “Where Angels Play" (In a Network of Lines that Intersect), “Not to Touch the Earth” (Elephant Stone) “Across” (Out of Time) are sections designed to trace a number of alternative pathways through the major texts of the Deleuzoguattarian enterprise. “Becoming X" (Impact) initiates a secondary movement of experimentation. “Animal Nitrate" (The Image of Chance) effects “an encounter" with the work of painter Francis Bacon via the Deleuze text(s) “Logique de la Sensation" (1981), “Time and Again" (New Damage) introduces and articulates a number of instances from Deleuzian film-theory “The Fountainhead” (Vision Machines) is the main section of the project which evolves a detailed process analysing the paintings of American painter David Salle “The Mirror of Enigmas" (Numbers in the Dark) traces related Deleuzeoguattarian themes through the films of David Lynch, maintaining as a background an examination of Postmodern American culture/society. “Breaking into Heaven" (Elegia) returns to the more specific analysis of the late paintings of David Salle and uses the mechanics elaborated in Deleuze's book “Le Pli”. “Final Cut”/”Last Exit”/”Memorial Beach" is an attempt at a series of concluding remarks within the project divisions are resolved within a comprehensive Deleuzoguattarian structural system - evolving to be primarily defined in terms of two “active" processes/movements which engage theory and explanation, practice and application respectively, being therefore both a philosophical /academic debate while incorporating a high-level of “creative" experimentation. The first sections of the project detail an extensive series of explanatory “pathways/journeys” through the texts of Deleuze and Guattari with a view to indicating measures that can be deployed/utilized in a Deleuzoguattarian process of art/cultural analysis. Constructing the architectural pattern/”anatomy” of a series of interpretative surfaces to reflect the dimensions of the cultural material approached. The sections in the second part of the project enact a number of experimental designs, dispatching Deleuzoguattarian mechanisms in the body of the chosen cultural material. An interpretative surface is never under the influence of a single differentiated flow it constitutes the mutual boundary of numerous adjacent flows. The same interpretative surface is therefore available to be understood in as many different ways as there are adjacent flows along its fractural surface. This project is essentially a speculative enterprise, a philosophical experiment whose aim is to enhance, enlarge and intensify our “knowledge" of the area defined, through a synthesis, here labelled as a “Deleuzoguattarian process of Art analysis”. For Deleuze, thought creates what it thinks, as perception creates what it perceives (and therefore does not relate to it). The philosophical concept does not refer to the lived, but consists through its own creation, in setting up an event that surveys ("survole“) the whole of the lived no less than every state of affairs Deleuzoguattarian philosophy does not establish a relationship “between” philosophy and other disciplines, other ways of making sure, but eliminates this relationship to the advantage of a type of “greater philosophy” Thought/Philosophy thinks the sufficient reason of the actual in this manner. For Nietzsche, whose enterprise constitutes (I have suggested) the base/departure for the Deleuzoguattarian program, “the world" we know lies in our interpretation of it. However, the task of interpretation is not to discover “truth" but to “create" it. According to Nietzsche, there is no “world-in-itself, no unconditioned and stable entities that await our discovery, but a dynamic and turbulent “becoming" in which the forms we perceive are not separate from our interpretations of them Because we are ourselves part of this becoming, there is no vantage point from which it is possible to gain the absolute/unconditioned knowledge that we have imbued with the idea of “truth”. The exercise merely becomes self-reflective. However, despite this skepticism, Nietzsche realizes that the game of truth is unavoidable, so therefore he, and In consequence we, departing/initiating the pathways through this project, have to cast in the role of the philosopher who knows what he invents and invents while he knows. In Postmodern Art no style dominates. Alternatively we experience endless improvisations and variations on themes, parody/playfulness. Postmodern artists are unabashedly eclectic and call attention to it, combining traditions borrowing from rituals and myths. All the world's cultural symbols are now available in the public domain - “SANTA CLAUS IS ON THE CROSS". The Deleuzoguattarian process of art delineated is a play with the game of “truth” and not an explanation of a “whole" a description of the network of the "dynamic”/fluid nature of our transitional relationship to it. It is the flow of energy that encompasses what Deleuze/Nietzsche refer to as “the whole" A flow invokes the dynamic/fluid nature of becoming, while energy/activity implies a potentiality - the inherent capacity and growth actuated by the will to power. The flows of energy are manifested into differentiated flows within flows, “Ad infinitum” and powered by the parameters of state space - a potential i.e field defined by the characteristics of the subject flows associated Nothing exists in isolation Differentiation exists only via relations to other flows in a dynamic/non linear network of resistances.

Two compositional concerns are prevalent and interrelated in my recent music. The first is an interest in the use of predetermined decisions, and in many cases rule-based systems, to influence the organization of events in a piece. The orientation towards predetermined systems reflects a desire to avoid well-established musical tendencies, which is achieved to the extent that decisions are removed from moment-to-moment compositional activity, thereby evading perceptual intuition and factors of musical acculturation. The use of predetermined systems also reflects a concern for clarity of compositional intention, as processes tend to produce structurally coherent developments due to their gradual and systematic progression. The second characteristic that is prominent in my music is an interest in recurrent sectional forms, which not only divide time but also offer listeners additional opportunities to absorb the musical ideas explored in a piece. These two concerns, predetermined systems and sectional forms, are brought together through the use of interleaved structures, whereby developments with distinct identities are divided, into segments and alternated in succession. Interleaved structures are uniquely continuous; upon the return of each process, the development resumes from the point at which it was last suspended. Consequently, each segment represents just a portion of the whole, and the full development of each process is only revealed over the duration of the piece. When developments are transformed to the extent that their surface qualities are significantly altered then dynamic relationships are likely to arise between them as the piece unfolds. Interleaved structures suggest a shift in compositional concerns from the vertical to those that are oriented horizontally. In my own music this has resulted in a greater emphasis on the relationships between processes, and more specifically, on how those relationships evolve over the duration of the piece.

This thesis investigates stylistic and technological changes in the production of Attic Geometric and Orientalising finewares (c. 900 – 620 BC), and their relationship with society. The transition from the abstract motifs of the Early and Middle Geometric styles to the figurative representations of the Late Geometric and Orientalising styles are examined in conjunction with the technological advances in the ceramic chaîne opératoire, and the social changes that characterise these periods. According to previous studies, the social developments in the Athenian polis between the 9th and 7th centuries BC left traces in the archaeological record suggesting competition among different elite groups. This social competition was expressed through funerary rites, which were subject to continuous changes all across the Attic Early Iron Age. The consumption of decorated finewares in such rites and other important social occasions demarcated the social position of the consumers/users of fine decorated pottery, while ceramic styles adapted to accommodate the changing nature of social demands. An important manifestation of stylistic change was the dominance of the figurative style in pottery decoration during the beginning of the Late Geometric period (c.760 BC). The original hypothesis of this research project is based on the fact that decoration was only part of the total production sequence of Attic Geometric and Orientalising pottery; therefore, it could be likely that the social changes noted during these periods triggered broader advances in ceramic technologies employed for the production of such finewares. This thesis moves away from traditional stylistic approaches and employs a technological approach based on the chaîne opératoire theory in order to explore the behaviour of Attic Early Iron Age potters and their response towards changing consumption demands during an era of significant social transformations.