Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Basel. / Description based on print version record.

Thesis (M.A.)--Dept. of Art and Art History. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2004. / "A thesis in art history. Typescript. Advisor: Rochelle Ziskin. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed Feb. 27, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-153). Online version of the print edition.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2005. / Vita. Thesis advisor: Sheila Bonde. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-209). Also available online.

A new focus in Palaeolithic archaeology is to look at the possibility of the individual as a unit of analysis in the prehistoric record. This involves looking at the Palaeolithic actor as more than just an invisible entity that had a minor role in the production of long term patterns. The Palaeolithic individual was a ‘lived life’, with all aspects of agency, identity, and decision-making abilities. One area that is potentially illuminating for the examination of the individual is personal adornment, as this can lead to an understanding of the body and identity and the role of material culture in social life and self-making. A catalogue of Upper Palaeolithic sites in Europe and Siberia with evidence of items of personal adornment was recorded. From this information, patterns and sites that potentially show the individual are discussed through the categories of body, identity, and material culture.

No description available.

Le Corbusier tente de ramener l’architecture à l’utilité et de créer une esthétique de pureté en parfaite harmonie avec celle-ci. Or s’il est conduit à s’opposer à tout excès et à économiser l’espace, ses choix esthétiques semblent mal répondre à cet impératif. Un seul superflu demeure un tabou chez lui: l’ornement. Le refus de cet ajout constitue ainsi un angle pour la compréhension du caractère de ses œuvres. Une enquête sur les causes de ce rejet mène à la conclusion que l’architecture nouvelle doit avoir comme principes l’esprit puriste, l’esprit scientifique déterministe et l’esprit individualiste. Pourtant, en même temps qu’elle les incarne, elle les enfreint systématiquement jusqu’à un certain point en vue de l’obtention des effets artistiques. De cette transgression de l’interdit résultent la réintroduction du superflu, une esthétique mi-authentique mi-inauthentique, et la qualification de l’espace de création corbuséen par la « parergonalité sans parergon ». Comme l’utilité ramenée en soi implique l’économie du temps, l’examen porte aussi sur les expériences temporelles que permet l’architecture nouvelle. Il montre qu’avec la « parergonalité sans parergon », celle-ci fait éprouver la décroissance du temps, sa suspension, son enchevêtrement avec l’objet, l’éternel présent présentiste, la logique de l’accroissement sous la logique de la réduction, des vécus semblables aux troubles de l’insomnie, etc. En même temps, cette architecture se remet en question, ouvrant ainsi d’autres historicités à l’art de bâtir et à l’homme, dont l’économie de l’espace ne valorise que le comportement corporel / Le Corbusier intends to bring architecture back to the utility and to create an aesthetics of purity in perfect harmony with this latter one. Yet if he is led to oppose all excess and to economize the space, his aesthetic choises do not seem to well respond to this imperative. One single surplus remains a taboo to him: the ornament. The opposition to this addition becomes then an angle for understanding the characteristic of his works. A conclusion of the inquiry into causes of this rejection is that the new architecture must hold the purist spirit, the scientific determinist spirit and the individualist spirit as principles. However, while embodying them actually, at the same time it infringes them systematically to a certain degree in order to create artistic effects. The outcomes of this transgression of the inhibited are the reintroduction of the surplus, a half authentic, half inauthentic aesthetics, and the characterization of Le Corbusier’s space of creation by “parergonality without parergon”. Since the utility brought back to itself implying the economy of time, we proceed as well to examine the temporal experiences made possible by the new architecture, and demonstrate that by means of the “parergonality without parergon”, it brings forth experiences like diminution of the time, its suspension, its entanglement with the object, the presentist eternal present, the logic of the increase under the logic of the reduction, effects similar to insomnia disorders, etc. Meanwhile, this architecture calls itself in question, opening then different historicities to architecture and to human being of which the economy of space values only the corporal movement

‘The Influence of British Rule on Elite Indian Menswear: The Birth of the Sherwani’ is a study of the influence of politics on fashion and the resulting development of new garments. This research is designed to demonstrate the effect on elite Indian menswear of the two centuries of British rule in India. It is an effort to understand how the flowing garments worn by elite Indian men in the 18th century gradually became more tailored and fitted with the passage of time. The study uses multiple sources to bring to light lesser known facts about Indian menswear, the evolution of different garments and especially of the sherwani. The sherwani is a knee-length upper garment worn by South-Asian men, and is considered to be India’s traditional menswear. My study highlights the factors responsible for the birth of the sherwani and dispels the myth that it was a garment worn by the Mughals. Simultaneously, this study examines the concept and value of ‘tradition’ in cultures. It scrutinises the reasons for the sherwani being labelled as a traditional Indian garment associated with the Mughal era, when in fact it was born towards the end of the 19th century. The study also analyses the role of the sherwani as a garment of distinction in pre- and post-independence India.

This practice-led research aimed to design letterforms for an ancient Thai script known as Khom Thai, to aid learning of the script by today’s Thai population. Khom is a script that was developed in Thailand around the 15th century. It was widely used as the country’s official script for historical documents and records in Pali, Sanskrit, and Thai until 1945. Now, very few members of younger generations can read the script, which poses a major obstacle for preserving the knowledge of Khom Thai and severely limits access to the country’s historical documents and heritage. Although there are some relationships between contemporary Thai letters and Khom Thai letters, the unfamiliar letterforms constitute the largest hurdle for Thai readers learning to read the Khom Thai script. This study’s goal was to resolve this problem by creating three new Khom Thai letterform designs for use as learning materials and writing models for beginners. This study investigated whether Khom Thai letterforms could be redesigned so that modern Thai readers could recognise them more easily. To explore this possibility, three letterform designs, TLK Deva, TLK Brahma and TLK Manussa, were developed. This practice-led research employed mixed methods, including interviews, a questionnaire, and a letter recognition study. The first section of the research discusses the theoretical framework regarding familiarity in enhancing letter recognition. Additionally, analyses on Thai, Khom Thai, and Khmer letterforms were also included in this part. The second section is about the design process resulted in three designs. Among the three, TLK Brahma and TLK Deva maintain a close connection to the proportions and writing style of the traditional script, and could potentially be used as writing models for those learning the script. By contrast, TLK Manussa is adapted to characteristics and proportions of the present-day Thai script and is intended to look more familiar to Thai readers. One potential use of TLK Manussa is as a mnemonic aid for learning Khom Thai characters. Interviews were conducted with Khom Thai palaeographic experts to gather opinions on the designs. A questionnaire was also used with 102 participants to establish which of the three TLK designs had most familiar characteristics for Thai readers. The results showed that TLK Manussa was the most familiar among the three. After further refinement of the designs, the third section describes the data collection procedures. A short-exposure technique was used with 32 participants who already had some knowledge of Khom Thai, to compare letter recognition. This method was used for gathering reader feedback on the designs. In general, the findings did not indicate any significant differences between the three designs regarding the accuracy rate of letter identification. However, certain individual letters that more closely resembled the Thai script received higher scores than did unfamiliar characters. The three TLK designs constitute the primary contribution to knowledge. However, further contributions made by this research are its analyses of Khom Thai characters and its systematic guidelines for developing Khom Thai letterforms, the guidelines will aid future type designers of Khom Thai on letterform design. The study contributes to the field of research in non-Latin type design by endorsing the role of design in enabling contemporary audiences to learn ancient Thai scripts.

No Brasil, o campo profissional do design não costuma valorizar seu passado histórico e o que se observa é um desconhecimento da produção nacional antes da institucionalização do ensino dessa área do conhecimento. Assim, este trabalho procurou abordar as origens do design gráfico brasileiro por meio de um resgate histórico, analisando uma publicação periódica do início do século 20 como exemplo do que era feito no Brasil no campo do design gráfico antes mesmo dos profissionais utilizarem a denominação designer. A publicação periódica escolhida foi a revista Kósmos, uma das chamadas revistas ilustradas que circularam na cidade do Rio de Janeiro na primeira década do século 20, mais precisamente de 1904 a 1909. Procurou-se determinar e observar as soluções gráficas empregadas na revista de modo que se pudesse contribuir para a sistematização de conhecimento no meio acadêmico e profissional de design. / In Brazil, the design professional field denies its past and so, denies its history. Thus, the designs production before the configuration of design education in this country is unknown by designers and students. This research intended to broach the origins of Brazilian graphic design by doing a history recovery and presenting a periodic like an example of what had been done at graphic designs field in Brazil before the use of the name designer by these professionals. The periodic chosen was Kósmos magazine, the one of the magazines known as illustrated magazines and that were publicated in Rio de Janeiro at the first decade of the twentieth century. It was publicated between 1904 and 1909. We attempted to analyze the graphic solutions used by the magazine chosen in order to improve systematic knowledge in designs academic and professionals fields.

The 1940s are undoubtedly the years most neglected by scholars of Italian Futurism. The movement had long supported Fascism, but its vocal endorsement of Mussolini’s regime and its military adventures at this time is widely considered to represent Futurism’s ultimate betrayal of those ‘progressive’, counter-cultural values popularly associated with the avant-garde. For many, the movement’s apparent engagement with the forces of reaction and conservatism is reflected in the work produced by its artists throughout the war years, which is invariably presented in terms of propaganda imagery, characterised by an unchallenging and retrogressive figurative vocabulary. However, this thesis argues that the 1940s cannot be said to reveal a rupture in either the ideological or aesthetic foundations of the movement, and that common assumptions regarding the crude, rhetorical and one-dimensional nature of Futurist painting (and poetry) during this period are not necessarily borne out by the works themselves. The text also examines the movement’s status within the cultural establishment at this time. It challenges the notion that the reverberations within Italy of Nazism’s campaign against modern art during the late 1930s were irrevocably to prejudice the Fascist regime and its institutions against Futurism. Indeed, it is argued that one can no more consider the 1940s a period of decline from the point of view of the movement’s political fortunes than one can from an artistic perspective. Of course, Futurism did not survive the war. However, it is suggested that whilst the cataclysmic events of 1943-44 were to seal its fate, they also served to liberate the imaginations of Marinetti and his followers, reawakening the movement’s original, visionary spirit, and inspiring a final burst of creativity that anticipated ‘the future of Futurism’.