Thesis (M.A. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / "Submitted in part fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts (Honours) by Research, School of Contemporary Arts, University of Western Sydney" Bibliography : leaves 104-110.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History of Art), 2017 / This research was instigated by a collection of uncollected portraits (completed and incomplete), photographs, letters, papers, documents, passbooks, and other materials, left behind when an airbrush portraiture studio, The Aqua Portrait Studio, closed in about 1998 after fifty years of continuous business. The portraits were created by enlarging small original photos – sometimes from two separate sources – and then colouring them with an airbrush and other materials. Because of the nature of the airbrush technique, it was possible to change the original image completely: to clothe the sitters in completely imaginary attire, for example, and pose them together with someone they had possibly never been photographed with. This process gave rise to a genre in which people could re-imagine themselves, enact other personas. Because the fifty years of existence of this studio almost coincided with the years of apartheid (the studio was open from about 1950 to about 1998), it seemed that the collection of uncollected images and notes left behind could be a source of rich information about the people who were the studio's clients, the process of acquiring airbrushed portraits, and the social and historical context in which those involved lived. I start with three fundamental questions: Since this portraiture form grew so exponentially in popularity, especially during the apartheid years, what specific significance and meaning had it taken on for the communities who were buying the portraits? What need was it meeting? What can we learn about these lives from this collection? The research takes two forms. First, it closely interrogates the material objects in the collection; and second, it tracks the routes of clients and salesmen to what were some of the former homelands of the northern part of South Africa. Both these investigations attempt to understand the possible roles and contribution of these pictures to the construction and reconstruction of self-identity under apartheid. / XL2018

My thesis body of work developed from a desire to examine my nonrepresentational artwork in relation to the concept of entropy - the law of thermodynamics that measures the gradual, steady disintegration in a system such as our world. Experimenting with a range of approaches and mediums, I resolved to radically manipulate the inkjet printing of my digital photography files to introduce chance and provoke decay. The resulting prints operate as an orchestrated chaos alluding to environmental decline and collapse, and by extension, potential social degeneration. My art reflects my perceptions of our times as well as adds to the problem. I continue to produce waste through the consumption of materials. I contaminate through inks. I add to landfills with failures. My artwork points out the inevitable end. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014.. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Senegal’s leading role in the development of African modernism in the 1960s is well known. Lesser-known is that, a century earlier, photography first arrived and took root in Senegal before circulating across French West Africa. This dissertation focuses on the genre of photographic portraiture in a country that did not have sculptural or masquerade traditions. It studies the ways in which photography accommodated and fostered new social and artistic practices and identities in Senegal between 1860—when the first studio opened in Saint Louis, the historical capital—and the 1960s, when photography became a “social imperative,” to use Geoffrey Batchen’s description (2001). The first chapter discusses cartes-de-visite commissioned as early as the 1860s by the first Senegalese patrons. In the course of this discussion, I challenge unilateral conceptions of photography as an apparatus of ideological control monopolized by the colonial authority. Chapter Two argues that Islam—the predominant religion in Senegal since the late nineteenth century—facilitated the popularity of the genre of portraiture through the circulation of devotional images in the form of lithographs, glass painting and photographs between the 1890s and 1920s. Chapter Three focuses on two photo series by amateur photographers from Saint Louis in the interwar period. I argue that these snapshots delineate the birth of a new subjectivity that neither mimicked French culture, nor conformed to Wolof customs. The last chapter juxtaposes the work of Mama Casset and Oumar Ka, two studio photographers working in the 1960s and 70s, in the capital and the rural interior of the country, respectively. In doing so I revisit the association between photography’s modernity and urban living, and propose that modernity can also be linked with “rural” tastes and styles. Rather than interpret it as either a “foreign” or “local” technology, this dissertation traces the fluctuations of photography’s significance in a dialectic relation with European, Islamic, American, African and Indian sources, revealing the nature of the medium as a multiplier of visions. Given Senegal's privileged status within La Grande France, this analysis will contribute to our understanding of the relationship between photography and modernity in Africa and beyond.

Orientador: Omar Khouri / Banca: José Spaniol / Banca: Neiva Pitta Kadotta / Resumo: Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo a apresentação, investigação e leitura da série de fotografias intitulada O Cinza e a Carne, bem como o diálogo entre as referidas imagens e reflexões sobre as capacidades documentais e artísticas da linguagem fotográfica. Para fundamentar tal abordagem, buscou-se aliar um instrumental teórico referente a discursos e conceitos que acompanham a trajetória da fotografia, ao relato da Autora sobre o processo de criação e produção das imagens. A dissertação está, portanto, dividida em três partes: a primeira, com a exposição das fotografias, em um formato de livro de imagens; a segunda, com todo referencial teórico sobre a linguagem fotográfica e a terceira, com o relato das experiências de morar no Parque Cecap e fotografá-lo, além da leitura das imagens / Resumen: Esta pesquisa tiene como objetivo la presentación, investigación y lectura de la serie de fotografías titulada El Gris y la Carne, bien como el diálogo entre éstas imágenes y reflexiones sobre las capacidades documentales y artísticas del lenguaje fotográfico. Para fundamentar tal abordaje, se ha buscado combinar un instrumental teórico referente a discursos y conceptos que acompañan la trayectoria de la fotografía, a el relato de la Autora acerca del proceso de creación y producción de las imágenes. La disertación está, así, dividida en tres partes: la primera, con la exposición de las fotografías, en un formato de libro de imágenes; la segunda, con todo referencial teórico sobre el lenguaje fotográfico y la tercera, con el relato de las experiencias de vivir en el Parque Cecap y fotografiarlo, además de la lectura de de las imágenes / Mestre

Master of Visual Arts / The Dissertation is a meditation on our relationship with this continent and its layered physical and psychological ‘landscapes’. It explores ways in which artists and writers have depicted our ‘thin’ but evolving presence here in the South, and references my own photographic work. The paper weaves together personal tales with fiction writing and cultural, settler and indigenous history. It identifies a uniquely Australian sense of 21st-century disquiet and argues for some modest aesthetic and social antidotes. It discusses in some detail the suppression of focus in photography, and suggests that the technique evokes not only memory, but a recognition of absence, which invites active participation (as the viewer attempts to ‘place’ and complete the picture). In seeking out special essences of place the paper considers the suburban poetics of painter Clarice Beckett, the rigorous focus-free oeuvre of photographer Uta Barth, and the hybrid vistas of artist/gardener Peter Hutchinson and painter Dale Frank. Interwoven are the insights of contemporary authors Gerald Murnane, W G Sebald and Paul Carter. A speculative chapter about the fluidity of landscape, the interconnectedness of land and sea, and Australia’s ‘deep’ geology fuses indigenous spirituality, oceanic imaginings of Australia, the sinuous bush-scapes of Patrick White, and the poetics of surfing. Full immersion is recommended.

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Master of Visual Arts / The Dissertation is a meditation on our relationship with this continent and its layered physical and psychological ‘landscapes’. It explores ways in which artists and writers have depicted our ‘thin’ but evolving presence here in the South, and references my own photographic work. The paper weaves together personal tales with fiction writing and cultural, settler and indigenous history. It identifies a uniquely Australian sense of 21st-century disquiet and argues for some modest aesthetic and social antidotes. It discusses in some detail the suppression of focus in photography, and suggests that the technique evokes not only memory, but a recognition of absence, which invites active participation (as the viewer attempts to ‘place’ and complete the picture). In seeking out special essences of place the paper considers the suburban poetics of painter Clarice Beckett, the rigorous focus-free oeuvre of photographer Uta Barth, and the hybrid vistas of artist/gardener Peter Hutchinson and painter Dale Frank. Interwoven are the insights of contemporary authors Gerald Murnane, W G Sebald and Paul Carter. A speculative chapter about the fluidity of landscape, the interconnectedness of land and sea, and Australia’s ‘deep’ geology fuses indigenous spirituality, oceanic imaginings of Australia, the sinuous bush-scapes of Patrick White, and the poetics of surfing. Full immersion is recommended.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 6, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.