Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Compact disc. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Communication Arts, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Title from title screen. Includes bibliographies. Thesis minus video and audio files also available online at: http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/35367.

This research project explores a direction in the formation of sound and image. In the creation of a series of 'moving paintings' I bring together pieces of moving image and sound using techniques derived from musique concr??te. I have coined the term 'moving painting' to describe these sound/image objects that have grown out of an attention to the form, activity, rhythm and texture of sound and image. This project develops from an understanding that sound and image can be constructed on their own terms as opposed to being organised by specific plot devices. This text offers a context for the formation of these moving paintings and outlines the systems of construction that bring them forth from noise. Firstly, I identify sound and its emergence from noise. Secondly, I address the formation of sound into music within a community. And lastly, I use these ideas to form systems for organising visual imagery. In doing this, I present a series of audiovisual works in which sound and image are woven together to form moving paintings.

This research project explores a direction in the formation of sound and image. In the creation of a series of 'moving paintings' I bring together pieces of moving image and sound using techniques derived from musique concr??te. I have coined the term 'moving painting' to describe these sound/image objects that have grown out of an attention to the form, activity, rhythm and texture of sound and image. This project develops from an understanding that sound and image can be constructed on their own terms as opposed to being organised by specific plot devices. This text offers a context for the formation of these moving paintings and outlines the systems of construction that bring them forth from noise. Firstly, I identify sound and its emergence from noise. Secondly, I address the formation of sound into music within a community. And lastly, I use these ideas to form systems for organising visual imagery. In doing this, I present a series of audiovisual works in which sound and image are woven together to form moving paintings.

This paper centres in and around words. I have incorporated words into my recent work in a variety of ways including drawing, Letraset, sound and fiction writing. The philosophical questions which arise through any use of language and the various ways of adopting these questions and words within a 'visual art' context is considered in a number of ways. These include The Voyager Interstellar Space Mission which was humankind's first attempt to communicate with other hypothesized populations, conceptual word-incorporating artists, writers of fiction and philosophers within whose work can readily be found an extreme vigilance towards language. Alongside this word exploration I will consider other processes through which I've made and continue to make, works of art. These processes include drawing and film/video. My drawings (which sometimes include words) will be addressed in terms of a crossover between the drawn line and words found in Raymond Carver's story Cathedral. This story made me think about what it means to 'be led' by somebody and how I'm led (by myself or perhaps those mysterious 'populations' the Voyager team of thinkers had in mind) when drawing. It also marks an interesting point in my discussion of a state of being 'without words.' In addition to words an important focus in this paper are the windows through which I've spent a lot of 'my life' looking at 'life pass by' (which are in many ways a physical reality corresponding to the metaphorical 'frame of language'). The time I've spent looking out windows over the past few years has resulted in. several film and video pieces in addition to my latest work (presented as the appendix of this paper) which comprises of a series of short stories. The paper opens with a quote by German philosopher Martin Heidegger: "Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells." The enigmatic broadness of this statement is appropriate to the apprehensive and cautious attitude towards words found throughout the paper (also it mentions 'house' which immediately brings to my mind 'windows')

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / This thesis is informed by the assumption that the senses, in their manner of functioning, may have much to teach us about creativity and the dangers of categorization. Sound, as component of at least one of our senses, hearing, the only sense with an executive component, the voice, offers a particularly rich source for theoretical investigation. Western culture has, since the Renaissance, been dominated by the sense of vision as the distancing agent that enables the objectification that has resulted in scientific advances to our benefit, but also to our detriment in its constant reductionist impulse. This western history, dominated by the eye, must be acknowledged by us as visual artists, but, in our current globalized era, sound and hearing may possibly suggest an extended paradigm more appropriate for us to function in. Sound, through movement, is proposed as a medium that shapes the structure of materials, including the earth, by that means linking it to visual art and the ways in which it has dealt with earth and landscape throughout the centuries. Sound is also proposed as an inherently relational and social phenomenon able to be incorporated into the work of visual artists to great effect in an age moving toward intersubjectivity. Sound contributes also its other side, silence, which I present as an active space of co-existence, in which gathering may take place and through which a more subtle understanding of dialogue may be achieved.

Listen. If I ask you to listen, what is it that I ask of you—that you will understand, or perhaps obey? Or is it some sort of readiness that is requested? What occurs with a body in the act of listening? How do sound and voice structure audio-visual-spatial relations in concrete situations? This doctoral thesis in fine arts consists of six artworks and an essay that documents the research process, or rather, acts as a travelogue as it stages and narrates a series of journeys into a predominantly sonic ecology. One entry into this field is offered by the animal “voice” and attempts to teach animals to speak human language. The first journey concerns a specific case where humanoid sounds were found to emanate from an unlikely source—the blowhole of a dolphin. Another point of entry is offered by the acousmatic voice, a voice split from its body, and more specifically, my encounter with the disembodied voice of Steve Buscemi in a prison in Philadelphia. This listening experience triggered a fascination with, and an inquiry into, the voices that exist alongside us, the parasitic relation that audio technology makes possible, and the way an accompanying voice changes one’s perceptions and even one’s behavior. In the case of both the animal and the acousmatic, the seemingly trivial act of attending to a voice quickly opens up a complex space of embodied entanglements with the potential to challenge much of what we take for granted. At the heart of my inquiry is a series of artworks made between 2012 and 2016, which constitute a third journey: the performance Limit-Cruisers (#1 Sphere), the praxis session Limit-Cruisers (#2 Crowd), the installations Therapy in Junkspace, Fluorescent You, and “Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,” and the lecture performance Articulations from the Orifice (The Dry and the Wet). The relationship between what is seen and heard is being explored and renegotiated in the arts and beyond. We are increasingly addressed by prerecorded and synthetic voices in both public and private spaces. Simultaneously, our notions of human communication are challenged and complicated by recent research in animal communication. My work attempts to address the shifts and complexities embodied in these developments. The three journeys are deeply entwined with theoretical inquiries into human-animal relationships, technology, and the philosophy of sound. In the essay, I consider as well how other artistic practices are exploring this same complex space. What I put forward is a materialist and concrete approach to listening understood as a situated practice. Listening is both a form of co-habitation and an ecology. In and through listening, I claim, one could be said to perform in concert with the things heard while at the same time being changed by them. / <p>Avhandlingen är även utgiven i serien: Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Lund University: DoctoralStudies and Research in Fine and Performing Arts, 16. ISSN: 1653-8617</p>