‘Story’ lifts and carries ‘Voice’ with which we can express what we sense. This thesis is an Autoethnographic reflection that charts theoretical and methodological reasons for ‘harnessing’ my (Gameli Tordzro) Aŋlɔ-Eʋe story, storying and storytelling practices in the making of the film ‘Music Across Borders’, the ‘Ha Orchestra Music Project’ and the ‘Broken World, Broken Word’ devised theatre project. It also covers how this is also established in my participating in and contributing to the development, and production of ‘Vessels 2015’ and ‘Last Dream (On Earth) theatre productions as artistic research. The productions focus on story, expressing the lived experience, and how the value, knowledge, opinion, belief, and culture, within such expression represent ‘voice’. ‘Story’ is how we package and present the lived experience. Thus, ‘story’ and ‘voice’ are linked. I assume a subjective stance and a position within the research as an Aŋlɔ-Eʋe multi-genre storyteller and present my understanding of methods and processes of music-making, film-making and theatre-making in a Ghanaian and an Afro-Scot (and New Scot) diaspora context. I re-activate the idea of decolonization - reclaiming, carrying and lifting ‘voice’ - through storytelling on screen, on stage and in music. It is accepted for ethnographers to be positioned within their text; Patricia Leavy, (Leavy, 2015), and David Inglis with Christopher Thorpe, (Inglis and Thorpe, 2012) describe ways in which people perceive and act upon their social world in the constant process of achieving their sense of reality as social actors. Barrett (Barrett and Bolt, 2007) also draw on materialist Martin Heidegger’s notion of “handleability” to argue that artistic research demonstrates how knowledge is derived from doing and from the senses. I explore Aŋlɔ-Eʋe ways of sense making through story. This artistic inquiry takes the form of the practical making, producing and reflecting on music, film and theatre drawing on Aŋlɔ-Eʋe storytelling traditions. It is an artistic Autoethnographic research, it is generative of material arts, social interaction and transformation on the levels of the individual, the community and cultural capital. This thesis is to be read in conjunction with and as a follow-up to the portfolio of productions attached as the main part of the research.

Cette thèse s’assigne comme objectif d’examiner l’évolution des évocations culturelles et théoriques des grands ensembles français entre les années 1960 et 2000. Notre recherche s’articule autour de la Cité des Quatre-Mille de La Courneuve. Prenant en compte les productions journalistiques disséminées par les grands médias durant ces quatre dernières décennies, les contrastant avec des créations artistiques plus dissidentes, les comparant avec des créations culturelles réalisées par les habitants de cette cité, nous élaborons un «complexe culturel» permettant un questionnement à la fois différent et «démocratique» des représentations historiques des grands ensembles. Le chapitre premier détaille l’armature théorique et méthodologique de notre étude. Le chapitre II propose une analyse rancièrienne des principes d’égalité, de démocratie et de politique. Les chapitres suivants (chapitre III, IV et V) retracent la trajectoire spécifique de la Cité courneuvienne. Le chapitre III se focalise sur les représentations journalistiques des Quatre-Mille au sein de la nation. Le chapitre IV est dévolu à la culture artistique et contraste d’autres formes de représentations esthétiques de la Cité et de l’identité nationale. Centré sur les productions quotidiennes de banlieusards, le chapitre V donne lieu à différentes représentations entre «banlieues» et citoyenneté.

Costume colour held special significance in Chinese history. This thesis pioneers the multi-perspective exploration of dyes in high-status costume and textiles of the Ming and Qing Dynasties using the dual approach of history and chemistry. Through the examination and comparison of four important historical manuscripts of dye recipes (Chapter 1) and dyes in high-status historical and archaeological textiles (Chapter 4), dyes and dyeing techniques used during the Ming and Qing Dynasties are revealed. Results show that nine natural dyes were commonly used, and synthetic dyes were used from the late 19th century. Dyes were used according to specific rules to obtain various shades. Further research improves the understanding of some of the textiles including better knowledge of ownership and more accurate dating, as well as the role of dyeing in the social and global contexts (Chapter 4). Meanwhile, the botanical provenance, names and preferences for the significant dyes in Chinese textile history are clarified for the first time (Chapter 2). A database for the chemical composition of 22 reference Chinese dyes using Ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with Photodiode array detector and Mass spectrometer (UHPLC-PDA-MS) and UHPLC-PDA is first established, and the understanding of the chemical constituents of several dyes is improved. The investigation of dyes and dyeing techniques of the Li minority group in Hainan Province marks the start of the chemical research of ethnographic dyeing in China (Chapter 3). The accelerated light ageing study of reference dyes improves the knowledge of the lightfastness of the dyes. Suggestions on the conservation, preservation and exhibition of the dyes are provided (Chapter 5). This research contributes significantly to dyeing history, textile history and colour history both of China and the world.

This thesis documents a research and art project that explores the creative value of using constraints in film. The starting point is the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Oulipo), the Potential Workshop of Literature, whose members explore the Potential of Literature by writing with constraints, and the films of the early twentieth century avant-garde, which demonstrate the promise of experimentalism in cinema. From these points of inspiration, the idea of using constraints to explore the potential of a field is transferred to film. As the practice of filmmaking with constraints is yet to be fully formalised and currently lacks substantial academic recognition, this thesis presents a theorisation of constraint filmmaking as a creative practice that cuts across cinematic genres and already established areas of filmmaking practice – those of short, feature, and documentary film. The cinematic work emerging from the Ouvroir de Videographie Potentielle (Ouvipo), the Potential Workshop of Video, and the movement of Dogme 95, are shown to be influential in the theorisation of constraint filmmaking practice, and several other examples of constraint films across cinema will be addressed to show how the use of constraints can enhance a filmmaker’s creativity. The thesis is accompanied by three constraint films: Project Cube, A Day in your Life, and Tales and Tellers, which were made in adherence to the stages of the constraint filmmaking process. Project Cube is an exploration of mathematically inspired constraints and is grounded in the idea of permutation. Twelve shots are used to create several different films, with their order being determined by the rolling of dice. A Day in Your Life focuses on the interplay between linguistic constraints and their visual counterparts, reality and fiction, and past and present. Tales and Tellers is a project that shows the power of images, as fairy tales from participants are illustrated in moving images, using constraints to create these pictures. These short films demonstrate both my theorisation of constraint filmmaking as a practice that can be adopted by other artists also, and my journey from Potential Literature to Potential Film.

Hollywood film composers work within a complex process of film production, with limited control over the final outcome. Certain contextual agents have shaped the developing craft and caused recent Hollywood film music (since 1980) to depart from the symphonic neo-Romantic style that has traditionally and commonly been associated with Hollywood film scores. Developments in storytelling, changing demographics among filmmakers and composers, evolving business models, and the influence of television have altered the content and style of Hollywood films and film music. Furthermore, technological advances in film, soundtrack, and music production have contributed to changes in prevalent composer practice. Film music is always mediated by the films it accompanies and contemporary Hollywood films that speak a progressive language tend not to use conventional music of the classical Hollywood tradition. Film music must bow to commercial pressures that are often at odds with originality. An analysis of the workload distribution among composers in the 50 top-grossing Hollywood films each year between 1980-2009 reveals an uneven distribution skewed towards a select few individuals. These composers exert considerable influence on their field. Further findings summarized in this thesis also show a statistically significant increase in non-melodic minimalist writing as well as strong correlations between non-orchestral instrumentation and non-traditional musical styles over the past three decades. This thesis assesses recent Hollywood film music practice and the opportunities and challenges screen composers face. Acknowledging the role and influence of so-called contextual agents in film music composition means to consider film scores in the spheres of conceptualisation and compositional practice. The key research question addressed in this thesis is: 'What is the context in which Hollywood film composers actually work and how does this affect their creative practice and the musical outcome?'

Digital technologies are becoming extremely important for web-based cultural heritage applications. This thesis presents novel digital technology solutions to 'access and interact' with digital heritage objects and collections. These innovative solutions utilize service orientation (web services), workflows, and social networking and Web 2.0 mashup technologies to innovate the creation, interpretation and use of collections dispersed in a global museumscape, where community participation is achieved through social networking. These solutions are embedded in a novel concept called Digital Library Services for Playing with Shared Heritage (DISPLAYS). DISPLAYS is concerned with creating tools and services to implement a digital library system, which allows the heritage community and museum professionals alike to create, interpret and use digital heritage content in visualization and interaction environments using web technologies based on social networking. In particular, this thesis presents a specific implementation of DISPLAYS called the Reanimating Cultural Heritage system, which is modelled on the five main functionalities or services defined in the DISPLAYS architecture, content creation, archival, exposition, presentation and interaction, for handling digital heritage objects. The main focus of this thesis is the design of the Reanimating Cultural Heritage system's social networking functionality that provides an innovative solution for integrating community access and interaction with the Sierra Leone digital heritage repository composed of collections from the British Museum, Glasgow Museums and Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. The novel use of Web 2.0 mashups in this digital heritage repository also allows the seamless integration of these museum collections to be merged with user or community generated content, while preserving the quality of museum collections data. Finally, this thesis tests and evaluates the usability of the Reanimating Cultural Heritage social networking system, in particular the suitability of the digital technology solution deployed. Testing is performed with a user group composed of several users, and the results obtained are presented.

Over the course of six chapters, this thesis documents colour cinema in Scotland between 1896-1906, focusing on three locations: Aberdeen, Inverness and Edinburgh. Chapter One sets out the scope of the thesis, and defines the terms ‘colour’, ‘cinema’ and ‘place’. An overview of the relevant existing literature is then provided, tracing the evolution of the historiography of Scottish cinema and that of early colour film more widely. This chapter argues that ideologically charged historiographies have largely dismissed or marginalised both Scottish cinema and early colour film; the former deemed irrelevant, and the latter juvenile or crude. Chapter One concludes with a discussion of the historiographic principles upheld in “New Cinema History”, drawing attention to the pertinence of such principles for this thesis’s methodology. Chapter Two profiles prominent colour film technologies and techniques that were in use between 1896-1906, and is split into six sections: coloured lights, tinting, toning, hand-painting, stencilling and Kinemacolor. Chapter Three focuses on early cinema in Aberdeen, in particular Walker & Company, and their experiments with hand- painted films and coloured lights. Walker & Company purchased and hand-painted Up the Nile, the Way to Atbara (1899) to conjure imperialist sentiment; produced and hand- painted The Great Fire of Bridge Place (1899) as a polemic against Aberdeen Council; and experimented with coloured lights on film in spectacular and innovative ways. Chapter Four addresses early cinema in Inverness, focusing on the town’s only filmmaker and exhibitor: John Mackenzie. Mackenzie dismissed painted films because they jarred with his aesthetic principles as a serious photographer. Furthermore, the serpentine dance was locally condemned as immoral, thus rendering the widely popular hand-painted film versions of this routine as a subversive force. Chapter Four concludes with a discussion of Mackenzie’s filmic representations of the Highlands, and how they dramatically changed once he accepted an offer of employment from the Charles Urban Trading Company in 1903. Chapter Five documents early cinema in Edinburgh, highlighting the colourful sensorial environments within which early local film exhibitions took place; the conspicuous presence of stereoscopy and colour photography in early cinema; and the influence of Edinburgh’s rich pantomime traditions on local exhibitors. Chapter Six stresses the importance of this thesis, and its potential ramifications for future research.

In 1949, Giorgio de Chirico held a one-man show at London’s Royal Society of British Artists. It featured 100 paintings including Old Master copies (early 1920s), Renoiresque female nudes (1930s), and Neobaroque work (since the late 1930s). Founded on the artist’s belief that “traditions are our greatest riches, they are the stout pillars of progress”, the exhibition created an “immense museum of strangeness” inhabited by the melancholic ‘shadow’ of 15th-19th century European masters. The displayed artwork prompted one British critic to ask: “Can art advance by going backwards?” Taking this comment as its starting part, the present thesis explores de Chirico’s complicated relationship with the great masters, seeking answers as to how and why he sought to take possession of the past. Constituting one of the most misunderstood and under-researched areas of his career, it challenges the Surrealist-fuelled opinion that de Chirico’s stylistic 'volte-face' of 1919 repudiated his early Metaphysical art (1910-18) in support of the theory that the great masters inform his entire career (1908-76). Interpreted as an integral part of the dechirican aesthetic, I maintain that his post-1910 work employs the great masters as a vehicle for lending tangible form to his understanding of Nietzschean metaphysics, principally eternal recurrence and 'dépaysement', two themes explored in 1910-18. Rather than a Return to Craft in a quest to restore the great tradition of painting, I argue that de Chirico uses ancient painting techniques – along with great master compositions, styles, subject matters and application of colour – as secondary, 'dejà-vu'-like filters that provoke sensations of metaphysical revelation, surprise and enigma. The ‘mysterious transformation’ of their work allows de Chirico to sing a “new song” about the past and present that sit “on the great curve of eternity.” Such work does not deal with repudiation, reaction or revolution, but renaissance: the journey of metaphysical discovery. An in-depth examination of de Chirico’s critical and autobiographical texts (1911-62), which explore the notions of journey and discovery, strengthens this theory, as does the study of his recently-inventoried art library and collection of prints and reproductions. An investigation into de Chirico’s interpretation of originality, 'originarietà', copying, imitation, appropriation, and repetition not only reveals the influence they exerted on his great master choices but, when examined 'vis à vis' definitions favoured by Carrà, the Surrealists (Breton), Return to Order sympathisers and select Postmodernists, his place in art history is adjusted. Given the profundity of this rapport, this thesis contests criticism directed at his late ‘egocentric kitsch’ great master-inspired work (1940s-50s), alternatively categorising it as ‘bad painting but good art’. By acknowledging the pioneering aspect of this corpus (1908-76), this New Old Master demonstrates that art can, indeed, advance by going backwards.

Dada is often dismissed as an anti-art movement that engaged with a limited and merely destructive theoretical impetus. French Existentialism is often condemned for its perceived quietist implications. However, closer analysis reveals a preoccupation with philosophy in the former and with art in the latter. Neither was nonsensical or meaningless, but both reveal a rich individualist ethics aimed at the amelioration of the individual and society. It is through their combined analysis that we can view and productively utilise their alignment. Offering new critical aesthetic and philosophical approaches to Dada as a quintessential part of the European Avant-Garde, this thesis performs a reassessment of the movement as a form of (proto-)Existentialist philosophy. The thesis represents the first major comparative study of Dada and Existentialism, contributing a new perspective on Dada as a movement, a historical legacy, and a philosophical field of study. The five chapters analyse a range of Dada work through a lens of Existentialist literary and theoretical works across the themes of choice, alienation, responsibility, freedom and truth. These themes contribute to the overarching claim of the thesis that Dada and Existentialism both advocate the creation of a self that aims for authenticity through ambiguity.

This study will examine the conditions impinging on lifelong learning systems to foster participation in the political, social economic and cultural life of society. The research will monitor the manner in which policy and systems of lifelong learning become more cognisant of and responsive to the needs and entitlements of the human person. The aim of the study is to investigate the distinctive role played by the arts in effecting a cultural shift in the provision of lifelong learning. It will seek to bring a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the part played by the arts in giving people an authentic share in society. 'The arts', reflected in events, processes and manifestations occurring in non-formal settings, are espoused as a significant place where some individuals and communities discover a place to participate meaningfully in society. It is not possible to adequately present this study in isolation from the policy and systems of lifelong learning. These policies and systems have come under increasing pressure to create the conditions for greater linkages between the aims and objectives of education, training and employment measures. The rationale for a convergence of education, training and employment aims will be explored, and the adequacy of an approach centred on integration and collaboration will be assessed. The analysis employed in the study was undertaken between 1994-2000. It was based on a process of theory testing utilising four methods of investigation and examination: (1) a review of national and international literature, (2) a survey, (3) a questionnaire and (4)specific focus group exercises. At the outset, new base line data was collated on nonformal learning provisions, i.e. Irish Post Leaving Certificate courses and community arts learning programmes. Post Leaving Certificate courses are state-led and take place within the education system. The community arts learning programmes under investigation are arts sector-led and broadly located within the state training system. A standardised classification system was developed that enabled the documentation of four learning programmes. The study will contend that changes and adaptations to the structures and systems of accreditation and certification are necessary to accommodate non-formal learning opportunities. Finally, an analysis will be undertaken of existing structures and systems, with particular focus on education and training practices within the community and youth arts sector. The distinctive role that the arts can play in effecting change in the culture of lifelong learning will be affirmed.