This study of the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath goes beyond the usual practice of labelling these writers either as reticent or Confessional. Instead, it places greater emphasis on their visual poetics which privileges the process of creativity – the different modes of seeing – over ethical and political considerations. I begin by discussing what each knew of the other and proceed to examine their common interest in perception and interpretation. Bishop and Plath seek to understand the depiction of ‘reality’ and the various forms that this takes: the concrete fact, the object or the authentic experience modulated by historical data, whether symbols, mythical forms or religious conventions. In their poetry the self objectifies the world, discovering and simultaneously defining observed phenomena. Alternatively, personal identity is determined as part of a symbolic order because the present is deemed inadequate in itself and, therefore, frames of reference need to be expanded, analogies drawn, historical parallels established, myths invoked. This historicised art is complex, stylistic and culturally established. Bishop’s poetry, for instance, distinguishes between customary ways of seeing; the symbolism of medieval painting and the untrained eye of individualism (Primitive art). Her poetic ‘transparency’, language which corresponds faithfully to actual experience, calls attention, by its very directness and apparent simplicity, to the various parts of a synthesising imagination that could, potentially, infringe upon pure vision. The analysis of Bishop’s language and its development is based upon her published and unpublished material. Bishop and Plath underscore differences between description and meditation, empirical enquiry and symbolic transformation, the tangible and the abstract. They further consider religious beliefs ephemeral and place their faith in the primacy of the material world. Bishop is especially distrusting of symbolism in Christian imagery. Plath admired Bishop‘s poetry for being ‘real’, that is intimate, but not self-obsessed, concerned with aestheticism and ‘pleasure-giving’. This was the type of poetry she aspired to write. The reading of Plath uses autobiography sparingly, while arguing that her work – including poems in Ariel – demonstrates the creative strategies of, what she termed, a ‘pseudo-reality’. This precludes the automatic designation of her poetry as fully Confessional. Visual poetics is broadly defined to include a discussion on surrealism. Bishop was fascinated by the movement‘s expression of the numinous and transcendent but recoiled from its illogical thinking. Plath was equally drawn and repelled by male surrealists’ portrayal of the woman subject. In her poetry the misogyny of this art is countered by the appropriation of more positive imagery found in female surrealists such as Leonor Fini.

One -dimensional infrared speckle scans of Ross 614 AB were recorded at a wavelength of 2.2μm. For each scan an estimate of the instantaneous quality of the seeing was calculated and the scan was binned accordingly. The three bins corresponding to the three best seeing conditions were further processed by applying the shift -and -add algorithm to the set of images contained within each bin, thereby generating three shift- and -add images with differing shift -and -add point -spread- functions. After windowing the shift -and -add images (using edge -extension) to reduce the effect of contamination, we have obtained parameters corresponding to the separation and brightness ratio of a two component model of the double star Ross 614 AB by deconvolving the three shift -and -add images with the aid of the zero-and -add technique. Least squares analysis on the positions of the clusters of zeros found from zero- and -add yields a separation of 1.04 arcseconds and a brightness ratio of 4.3 for the binary system at this wavelength. An extension of the processing, which takes explicit account of the nonlinear motion of the scanning mechanism gives improved estimates of 1.04 arcseconds and 3.9 for the separation and brightness ratio, respectively.

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Contemporary aesthetics includes a project directed at understanding the nature of pictorial representation. Three types of theories enjoy recent favor. One explains pictorial representation by way of resemblance or experienced resemblance between the picture and what it represents. A second employs interpretation: the spectator looks at a picture and interprets conventionally determined symbols found therein to mean what it represents. The third describes pictorial representation as a matter of experience. On this approach, when the spectator looks at a picture she has a visual experience of the thing represented. Key components of representation include the representation bearing artifact and the human activity that produces it. An adequate account of pictorial representation must neglect neither. Theories focusing on resemblance fail to account for the human role in representation so that a picture may represent only what it can resemble. Theories making interpretation of conventional symbols the key fail to account for the role visible properties play in grounding representation. Wollheim's experience based theory, however, unifies the visible properties of the artifact and the intentions of the artist in a single experience, called seeing-in, whereby a spectator sees in a picture what an artist intends to represent. Wollheim fails to specify just how visible properties of the artifact ground seeing-in. His account of seeing-in raises other curiosities as well. These issues can be dealt with if we apply phenomenological concepts developed by Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception to our experience of pictures as a method of enriching Wollheim's account of seeing-in. / Master of Arts

Modern space geodetic techniques are required to provide measurements of millimetre-level accuracy. A new fundamental space geodetic observatory for South Africa has been proposed. It will house state-of-the-art equipment in a location that guarantees optimal scientific output. Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) is one of the space geodetic techniques to be hosted on-site. This technique requires optical (or so-called astronomical) seeing conditions, which allow for the propagation of a laser beam through the atmosphere without excessive beam degradation. The seeing must be at ~ 1 arc second resolution level for LLR to deliver usable ranging data. To establish the LLR system at the most suitable site and most suitable on-site location, site characterisation should include a description of the optical seeing conditions. Atmospheric turbulence in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) contributes significantly to the degradation of optical seeing quality. To evaluate astronomical seeing conditions at a site, a two-sided approach is considered – on the one hand, the use of a turbulence-resolving numerical model, the Large Eddy Simulation NERSC (Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre) Improved Code (LESNIC) to simulate seeing results, while, on the other hand, obtaining quantitative seeing measurements with a seeing monitor that has been developed in-house. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / MSc / Unrestricted

Représenter l’homme ordinaire, c’est dans ce travail considérer la construction d’un commun du voir sur un commun aux hommes. Ordinaire vient du latin ordo, « rangé par ordre ». Ce n’est donc pas tant une question de forme que de regard. Ce travail ne porte pas sur l’homme ordinaire mais sur un regard qui voit l’homme ordinaire. C’est un regard politique, qui dit ce qui doit être vu au sein d’une société. C’est à la fois une violence et un confort du voir : imposition d’une représentation qui définirait ce qu’est un homme une fois pour toutes, mais également, confort de regards qui se réunissent autour d’une figure qu’ils reconnaissent et qu’ils partagent.Représenter l’homme ordinaire, dans les Caractères de la Bruyère, dans les Physiologies publiées dans la presse du XIXe siècle, dans des images d’anatomie et de physiologie médicales, dans les Français peints par eux mêmes, dans la couverture d'un catalogue IKEA ou dans les pages d'un magazine people, c’est adresser une représentation aux regards d’un public qui reconnaît quelque chose qui lui vient d’un vivre et d’un voir communs, qu’il a appris à reconnaître dans la société dans laquelle il est inscrit. Reconnaître de l’ordinaire, et de l’ordinaire de l’homme dans une représentation, c’est pour un regard dire que des individus peuvent être identifiés de la même manière. Ce n’est pas une notion genrée, mais une formule qui renvoie au « commun du voir » d’une société. Nous nous sommes intéressés à chercher comment un regard peut voir l’homme ordinaire : notre travail s’inscrit dans une sémiotique du voir qui se demande comment une société construit des catégories du voir qui permettent à ceux qui les partagent de construire un voir commun. / Representing the ordinary man is, in this work, considering that a common look is built on a human common. Ordinary comes from the word ordo, « arranged by order ». This is not about shapes or forms but more about a view. This work is not about the ordinary man but about a view that can see an ordinary man. This is a political view, that told what has to be seen in a society. It is a violence, and a comfort of viewing at the same time : a representation that imposes what is a man, definitely, but also, comfort of views that gather around a figure that they recognize and share.Representing the ordinary man, in Les Caractères by La Bruyère, in the Physiologies published in the XIX century press, in anatomical and physiological pictures, in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, on an IKEA catalog cover or in a people magazine pages, is addressing a representation to a public that recognizes something that comes from a common view and a common living, that this public learned to recognize in a society. Recognizing something ordinary, and something ordinary about men, means that individuals can be identified the same way. This is not a gender notion, but a formula that leads to the « common seeing » of a society. We searched how to be able to see an ordinary man : our work remains in semiotics of seeing that asks how a society builds categories of seeing that permits to whose who share them to build a common seeing.

Sight is the most important of our five senses. It allows us to navigate our environment, find food and avoid danger. Sight can be used to accurately render a drawing or to recognize nuance in a form. It can also be used in more dynamic ways to parse the complicated social systems and customs that build our societies. Despite all that we can see, we are inundated with what we cannot. This inability to see can be categorized into two subdivisions: items that possess characteristics that are beyond our eye's physical capacity of perception (e.g. microscopic objects or electromagnetic radiation) and items and situations whose exact presence goes unnoticed due to our mind's conditioning from repeated exposure (e.g. glass in a window frame or halftone dots that form a printed picture). Through the use of special instruments or awareness raising techniques these invisible objects can be brought to light. Artists and their art have often played important roles in society by revealing things that go unnoticed and making them plain to see for all. These revelations can be as simple as capturing the beauty of a natural landscape or as controversial as portraying the impact of religion, gender or oppression in our communities. My most recent set of prints investigate "seeing the unseen" by meditating on the minutiae and microscopic organisms that permeate our surroundings yet escape our attention. By utilizing handmade paper's tactile qualities, juxtaposing seemingly dissimilar objects and the use of bold and often times unnatural color, I have attempted to create a space where items of different scales can exist side by side so we can revel in their wonder, discover visual similarities between objects and plainly see them with our own eyes.

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