Drawing inspiration from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, this project seeks to incorporate the oxymetaphor, digital photography and photo manipulation into considerations of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. By considering the potential of an earthly site of transition (the cemetery) in relation to Dante's divine spaces, these images consider certain contradictions existing between the cemetery as a manifestation of waiting, permanence, and decay, and its associations with temporality and transition. The cemetery is therefore an oxymoron. It suggests both a beginning and an end; growth and decay; a place of closure and a pace of transition. Although Heaven, Hell and Purgatory have distinct characteristics in these images, there are commonalities between their layered treatments and iconography that unify them as a whole.

Despite the salient role of the landscape in the development of white Australian identity, and the prominence of the landscape discourse in dominant film commentary, little attention has been afforded to the function of the animal image as a cultural representational code in the context of the meanings educed. The aim of this study is to examine the animal and human-animal representations in selected Australian films released between 1971 and 2001, and to establish the various ways in which such a focus foregrounds significations which offer new, or more complex, articulations of Australian identity.This study was confined to live-action representations of animals, not necessarily as central figures, in Australian feature films. Within the three-decade time-frame, the films chosen for analysis were selected to provide illustrations of the main hypothesis through a range of narrative themes and genres. The films considered include those recognised as forerunners to the Revival (e.g. Walkabout and Wake in Fright); classics of the Revival (e.g. Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith); Australian produced international commercial successes (e.g. The Man From Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee); as well as films which have fallen off the radar of recent Australian film commentary (e.g. Mad Dog Morgan and Long Weekend), and those that never made it into the matrix of intellectual representational discourse (e.g. Howling III: The Marsupials and Razorback). The films were analysed as open-ended metaphors, allowing for negotiated and oppositional readings. The images and the narratives of the films were interpreted using qualitative methods grounded ontologically in a mixed method semiotic approach. All representational modes were considered: image, symbol, analogy, allegory, metaphor or metonymy. Where appropriate, cultural, psychological and behavioural theories from reception studies were employed to describe or decode textual effects. The discussion addresses overt messages and alternate interpretations. The dominant meanings were considered from the social reflection perspective and where pertinent, analysed through social imaginary theory.The analysis found that Walkabout functions as the seminal text in the study of animal symbolism, human-animal representation and the objective or ‘ecological’ perspective in post-Revival Australian cinema. The film introduces a new mode and style of animal representation evident in many subsequent Australian films. Films set around the time of Federation featuring marginalised protagonists and the landscape are found to be nationing allegories, presenting themes of equal import and greater contemporary relevance than those of male representation. More recent films with marginalised protagonists exhibit a shift in focus from the concerns of emerging nationhood to those of Australia’s emerging cosmopolitanism. In representations of masculinity and the landscape, the privileging of the physical activity of human-animal interaction resituates the texts beyond the customary matrices of patriarchal affirmation and the promotion of a pastoral ethos. Themes of humananimal ‘mateship’ and inter-species egalitarianism are identified, as well as the presentation of conflict resolution through symbolic metamorphosis into animality. The films are revealed to be a more complex exposition of Australian identity than previously recognised, marking a distinct development in the progression of national representations towards an environmentally aware ethos.Analysis of the horror genre foregrounds the nexus between Australian identity, assimilation and metamorphosis into animality. The feral/indigenous dichotomy is identified as a key trope in Australian representation and the portrayal of particular modes of human-animal relationships are seen to function as indicators of deviance in characterisation. The discussion also highlights the way in which the privileging of animal representations works to emphasise the universality of the films’ concerns, while simultaneously grounding them in a specific culture and location. Principally, the findings in this study confirm my original proposition that animal-centred readings of the selected films would reveal a rich seam of fresh interpretative possibilities relevant to the discourse of Australian national cinema and identity. I have also argued that many of the cultural significations and thematic nuances offered by the texts have been overlooked or misinterpreted by a dominant commentary which repeats the omissions inherent in the viewpoint of the sublime aesthetic by failing to recognise the codes and conventions signified in the detail of the filmic representations.More broadly, this study exemplifies the ways in which animal-centred readings not only resituate certain texts within the cannon of Australian national cinema, but how depictions of animals and the human-animal relationship function simultaneously as both nationing and universalising tropes. By admitting animal-focused discussion into the norms of Australian cultural criticism and textual discourse, the resulting significations connect the texts with a global contemporary inflection in existential concern: namely that of the relationship between humans and the environment.

This thesis project explores, through art practice that is informed by sociological and theoretical considerations, a transition taking place on Waiheke Island, in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The project focuses on, and investigates change. The research examines the heightened public profile, which has impacted upon the development of the Island. The study explores states of human occupancy, in particular how we view and inhabit the land.As a photographer, it is my intent to consider how modern properties experience place, via the constructed aperture of the window.This is a creative production1 project, that utilises the medium of photography, to explore the notion of change through a representation of images. The exhibition of outcomes is divided into three distinct sections. I am employing analogue and digital technologies to contrast old and new Waiheke. The link between past and present, indicated by the movement of people to and from the Island, is delineated through a journey through the space of the installation. This passage, provides a metaphor for the transition.

This is a practice-based research project that explores a new aesthetic perspective and approach in the Western medium of photography, through the application and interpretation of contemporary Chinese master artist Qi Baishi’s philosophical notion of between likeness and unlikeness. Rooted in Chinese ink painting tradition, Qi Baishi [齊白石] (1864-1957) developed and created his theory of achieving likeness in spirit and unlikeness in form as the ultimate goal of painting aesthetics. Adapting Qi’s aesthetics and design approaches to inform the research, and through theoretical explorations and photographic practices, a series of works will be developed that manifests the fusion of Chinese aesthetics with Western photography, to propose a confluent cross-cultural aesthetic thought. The aspiration of drawing upon Qi’s aesthetics at a philosophical level, which is unfamiliar in the context of Western photography, has posed a challenge to the creative exploration. The final outcome is intended to trigger aesthetic resonance in the viewers to further dialectic discussion. The outcome of this research project is presented through a series of photographic works and displayed in a gallery environment.

Drawing inspiration from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, this project seeks to incorporate the oxymetaphor, digital photography and photo manipulation into considerations of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. By considering the potential of an earthly site of transition (the cemetery) in relation to Dante's divine spaces, these images consider certain contradictions existing between the cemetery as a manifestation of waiting, permanence, and decay, and its associations with temporality and transition. The cemetery is therefore an oxymoron. It suggests both a beginning and an end; growth and decay; a place of closure and a pace of transition. Although Heaven, Hell and Purgatory have distinct characteristics in these images, there are commonalities between their layered treatments and iconography that unify them as a whole.

Thesis (MScIng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--George Mason University, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 21, 2008). Thesis director: Peggy Feerick. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art in Art and Visual Technology. Vita: p. 58. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-56). Also available in print.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Toledo, 2006. / Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics." Bibliography: leaves 103-113.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.E.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Paula Eubanks, committee chair; Akela Reason, Melody Milbrandt, committee members. Electronic text (153 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 31, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-153).