Nous ne sommes plus à l’âge où les destructions poétiques d’appareils se voient car les régimes d’appareils sont devenus transparents : lorsque nous pressons un écran tactile, nous touchons ce que nous ne voyons plus, nos empreintes, et nous voyons ce que nous ne toucherons jamais, le plan numérique. Pour l’artiste contemporain, l’interface haptique – point d’orgue d’une technologie stéréotypée de la percussion – est le parergon d’une échelle inédite, toute tactile. De la machine à écrire aux claviers de plus en plus fins du design informatique, à mesure que l’on croit voir le bloc imaginaire céder sous la pression ergonomique de l’empire cybernétique, se palpe en fait un réel d’emblée en dehors des formes et à l’intérieur de notre doigté. C’est l’espace de la corne aux doigts. Ce transfert, cette remontée du point d’impact dans son élan, ce retour de la forme dans sa structure font du moment de touche – de l’appareillage comme manœuvre de départ – un isolat capital pour reposer la question de la sculpture à l’époque des immatériaux. Bien en face et à contre-courant de la surface informatique, une épaisseur sensible fonctionnelle aurait lieu et pourrait donc faire œuvre ; telle est la thèse proposée ici. Le comportement machinal de l’utilisateur d’interfaces sera considéré comme un modèle poïétique ou pensé comme une partie de l’imagination en attente de traduction plastique. Pendant que se joue l’expérience rythmique de l’interactivité, le corps ne doit-il pas fournir un effort perceptif pour ne pas s’absenter dans une partition photo-digitale jouée par avance ? Ne doit-il pas exprimer son ancrage particulier, calleux et bruissant – nous l’appellerons dactylo-phonique – au contact de la matière du monde ? Sans cette expression, jamais le design technologique contemporain, bi ou tridimensionnel, modélisé et assisté par ordinateur, n’entamera de rapport véritablement efficient avec le réel de nos habitudes et de nos démarches ; bref avec tout le poids incarné de notre conscience imageante : la perte d’indicialité instaurerait-elle un type introverti de phénoménalité ? / Poetic destructions of apparatus are no longer visible as regimes of apparatus have become transparent: when we press a tactile screen, we touch what we cannot see anymore – our fingerprints – and we see what we will never be able to touch – the digital space. For contemporary artists, haptic interfaces are the finger-tipping point of a technological dynamics of percussion but also the parergon of a new and entirely tactile scale. From the first typewriters to the latest ultra thin keyboards designed by computer manufacturers, we may think imagination is yielding under the ergonomic pressure of the cybernetic world. But in fact, existing outside of the shapes and right under our fingertips lies a palpable reality – the space of calluses. This transfer, this sensory feedback, this return of the form to its structure turns this casting off of the apparatus into an essential isolate to rethink sculpture in the age of immateriality. Right in front of the computer surface but working against it, there would be a functional sensitive thickness – an art-making place. This is our thesis. The machine-like behaviour of the interface user will be considered as a poietic model or regarded as a part of imagination waiting for plastic translation.We may wonder whether the rhythmic experience of interactivity does not entail a perceptual bodily effort on our side in order not to remain absent during the performance of a somewhat predictable photo-digital score.Doesn't this peculiar, callous and rustling – or dactylo-phonic – anchoring of the body to the substance of the world need to express itself? Without this expression, contemporary technological design — whether bi or tri-dimensional, modeled or computer-assisted — will never initiate a truly efficient relation with the real experience of our habits and actions, i.e. with all the embodied strength of our image-making consciousness: does the loss of indiciality create an introverted type of phenomenality ?

This dissertation deals with sepulchral artworks of Franta Úprka (1868-1929), the Czech sculptor. At first his life is described. Franta Úprka was born in Kněždub, south-eastern Moravia. Beginning of his artistic activity belonged to the end of 19th century, when he worked as an assistant of two famous Czech sculptors - A. P. Wagner and Bohuslav Schnirch. His own career took place in the first two decades of the 20th century. Name Úprka is best known for Joža Uprka, Moravian painter and Franta's elder brother. Although Franta Úprka lived and worked in Prague from 1890th, the midpoint of his artistic interests and main theme of his sculptures was depicting people, traditions and subjects from his home country, Moravian Slovakia. Moravian Slovakia was specific part of Moravian countryside full of long lasting and still surviving folklore, folk traditions, peculiar vivacious characters and intact nature. As Auguste Rodin said during his visit of Moravian Slovakia in 1902 it was kind a Greek Helada overflowing with bright colours, sunshine and cheerful relaxed atmosphere. On the other side, common people lived there their uneasy rural lives with all ordinary worries and pleasures. Both sights of the issue were solved by Úprka's artworks. Very specific and the most significant part of his chef-d'oeuvre...

This thesis describes how I took part in a series of collaborations with dancers Danai Pappa and Katie Hall, musician George Williams and video artist Julie Kuzminska. To realise our collaborations, I built electronic sculptural instruments from junk using bricolage, the act of subversion, skip diving and appropriation. From an auto-ethnographic viewpoint, I explored how collaborations began, how relationships developed and how various levels of expertise across different disciplines were negotiated. I examined how the documentation of the performances related to, and could be realised as, video art in their own right. I investigated the themes of work, labour and effort that are used in the process of producing and documenting these works in order to better understand how to ‘create’. I analysed the gender dynamics that existed between my collaborators and myself, which led to the exploration of issues around interaction and intimacy, democratic roles and live art. The resulting works challenged gender stereotypes, the notion of what a musical instrument can be and how sound is produced through action/interaction. I found that reflective time was imperative; serendipity, constant awareness of one’s environment, community and intimate relationships greatly enhanced the success of the collaborations. Instruments became conduits and instigators with shifting implied genders based on their context or creative use. As well as sound being a product of movement, effort and interaction, I realised it was also an artefact of the instruments.

The design of anthropoid / metamorphosis loosely follows the pre-diploma project Fortel or so called "build a house" when I decided to "put my hand to the work, cut, drill, fold…" and to rediscover the imprints of work and tools in the mass from which they disappeared due to the mass production. The output of the project was an eclectic, crumbling garden of prefabricated bricks. Capillary (open) porosity usually occurs in brick products. It allows the penetration and retention of a relatively large amount of water. The bricks are made of natural mineral raw materials, as well as expanded clay, which is commonly used as a hydroponic substrate. At the same time, the porosity of the brick blocks causes future degradation of the material in the exterior. The disrupted "worked" ceramic blocks in the garden burst, mix with the substrate and create a breeding ground for plants. In my diploma thesis I move away from materials formed into modules, imported to the construction site, and I deal with matter in its freest fluid form and forms arising in-situ. The work is permeated by three fluid media, water, clay and concrete. Concrete - initially a fluid material, takes the form of two other materials, solidifies. Clay - as a semi-solid - semi-fluid material Water - infinitely fluid material, still present, rapidly transforms, and periodically comes and disappears, transforms the other two materials. The materials mix together, form into matter, then drain and disintegrate and disappear when their time comes. With these nature-friendly processes, the design works on three scales. On a micro scale, matter decomposes into gravel, sand, loess, which nourishes soils and plants, and allows an environment suitable for a variety of animals. In the middle scale, these are small objects that shape and manipulate the landscape. And in a big scale, it is co-working with the landscape itself.