Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-44).

As a popular ‘scientific’ and educational journal, National Geographic, since its founding in 1888, has positioned itself as a voice of authority within mainstream American print media, offering what purports to be an unprejudiced ‘window onto the world’. Previous scholarship has been quick to call attention to the magazine’s participation in an imperialist representational regime. Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins, Tamar Rothenberg and Linda Steet have all argued that National Geographic’s distinctive, quasi-anthropological outlook has established hierarchies of difference and rendered subjects into dehumanised objects, a spectacle of the unknown and exotic other. A more nuanced understanding can be reached by drawing upon Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’. Pratt defined the contact zone as ‘spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’. Photographs since National Geographic’s centenary edition in September 1988 have traced the beginnings of a different view of encounters within the United States-Brazil contact zone, driven by the forces of globalisation, which have resisted the processes of objectification, appropriation and stereotyping frequently associated with the rectangular yellow border. This is because they have provided evidence of a fluid and various population, which has selected and experimented with preferred elements of American and European dress, and used it to fashion their own, distinctly Brazilian identities. This thesis will examine both the visual and textual strategies that National Geographic and National Geographic Brasil (the Portuguese-language version of the magazine, established in Sao Paulo in May 2000) have used to fashion Brazil, but also the extent to which Brazilian subjects can be seen to have self-fashioned, through the strategic appropriation of clothing and ideas derived from an existing and dominant global culture. It will approach dress not simply as cloth but as a system of communication, whose many meanings are not fixed but continually informed and to an extent, even performed, by its visual, material, and textual representation. This thesis employs a multidisciplinary mode of analysis that draws on five Brazilian scholars, each of whom have used dress and fashion metaphors in their writings, which have encompassed poetry, film studies, poststructuralist theory, literary criticism and anthropology.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-04-22Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:49:24Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 almeida_ff_me_ia.pdf: 1603074 bytes, checksum: d72da747934c44f3bd0db13daa6ff052 (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / O artista consciente do seu papel na sociedade – na qual vive e produz – pode e deve ser o primeiro crítico de suas obras. A análise de sua própria práxis, inserida no panorama artístico contemporâneo e, ao mesmo tempo dialogando com o legado da visualidade na pintura, contribui para a elaboração desta reflexão: as técnicas e os temas, os materiais e suportes adotados, refletem as suas escolhas, os processos e os procedimentos a sua poética. A reflexão resultante da compilação de teorias da arte pertinentes ao objeto também buscou nos discursos dos artistas – correspondência , notas, depoimentos e escritos em geral – as bases par s sua elaboração. Escolhidos por afinidade de gosto ou estilo, artistas como Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin e Matisse – além dos brasileiros Rubens Gerchman e João Câmara – têm seus escritos e reflexões sustentado e elucidando suas poéticas. A crítica – neste caso, a autocritica – é apresentada como uma parte integrante da obra de arte comparada numa metáfora ao toque final dado pelo artista numa pintura: a demão de verniz. / The artist conscious of his role in the society – in which he lives and produces – can and must be the first critic of his artistic works. The analysis of the praxis that is inserted lin the contemporary artistic scene and, at the same and at the time, dialoguing with the legacy of the visuality in the painting contibutes to the elaboration from this reflexion the tecniques and the themes, the materials and adopted supports, reflect their choices, the processses and procedures; its poetic. The reflection, resulting from the theories compilation of the art pertinent at the object, also looked for in the artists discourse – correspondences, notes, depositions and writings in general – the bases for its elaboration. Chosen by afinity or style artists like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse – beyond the brazilians Rubens Gerchman and João Câmara – have their writings and reflections sustainning and elucidating their poetics. The critic – in this case, the self-criticism – is presented as an integral part of the art work, compared in a metaphor to the final touch given by the artist in a painting the varnish coating.

Orientador: Livre-Docente Omar Khouri / Banca: Loris Graldi Rampazzo / Banca: Neiva Pitta Kadotta / Resumo: O artista consciente do seu papel na sociedade - na qual vive e produz - pode e deve ser o primeiro crítico de suas obras. A análise de sua própria práxis, inserida no panorama artístico contemporâneo e, ao mesmo tempo dialogando com o legado da visualidade na pintura, contribui para a elaboração desta reflexão: as técnicas e os temas, os materiais e suportes adotados, refletem as suas escolhas, os processos e os procedimentos a sua poética. A reflexão resultante da compilação de teorias da arte pertinentes ao objeto também buscou nos discursos dos artistas - correspondência , notas, depoimentos e escritos em geral - as bases par s sua elaboração. Escolhidos por afinidade de gosto ou estilo, artistas como Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin e Matisse - além dos brasileiros Rubens Gerchman e João Câmara - têm seus escritos e reflexões sustentado e elucidando suas poéticas. A crítica - neste caso, a autocritica - é apresentada como uma parte integrante da obra de arte comparada numa metáfora ao toque final dado pelo artista numa pintura: a demão de verniz. / Abstract: The artist conscious of his role in the society - in which he lives and produces - can and must be the first critic of his artistic works. The analysis of the praxis that is inserted lin the contemporary artistic scene and, at the same and at the time, dialoguing with the legacy of the visuality in the painting contibutes to the elaboration from this reflexion the tecniques and the themes, the materials and adopted supports, reflect their choices, the processses and procedures; its poetic. The reflection, resulting from the theories compilation of the art pertinent at the object, also looked for in the artists discourse - correspondences, notes, depositions and writings in general - the bases for its elaboration. Chosen by afinity or style artists like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse - beyond the brazilians Rubens Gerchman and João Câmara - have their writings and reflections sustainning and elucidating their poetics. The critic - in this case, the self-criticism - is presented as an integral part of the art work, compared in a metaphor to the final touch given by the artist in a painting the varnish coating. / Mestre

How interactive new media art can effectively communicate an indigenous philosophical concept. The sophistication and complexity of the philosophical concept concerning relationships between land and people and between people, intrinsic to the laws and customs of Australian Indigenous society, has begun to be communicated and accessed beyond the realm of anthropological and ethnological domains of Western scholarship. The exciting scope and rapid development of new media arts presents an innovative means of creating an interactive relationship with the general Australian public, addressing the urgent need for an understanding of Indigenous Australian concepts of relationship to land, and to each other, absent from Western narratives. The study is framed by an Indigenous concept of place, and relationships between land and people and between people; and explores how this concept can be clearly communicated through interactive new media arts. It involves: a creative project, the development of an interactive new media art project, a website work-in-progress titled site\sight\cite; and an exegesis, a Novella of Ideas, on the origins, influences, objectives, and potential of creative practices and processes engaged in the creative project. Research undertaken for the creative project and exegesis extended my creative practice into the use of interdisciplinary arts, expressly for the expression of philosophical concepts, consolidating 23 years experience in Indigenous community arts development. The creative project and exegesis contributes to an existing body of Indigenous work in a range of areas - including education, the arts and humanities - which bridges old and new society in Australia. In this study, old and new society is defined by the time of the initial production of art and foundations of knowledge, in the country of its origins, in Indigenous Australia dating back at least 40,000 years.

The thesis focuses on Denis Dutton's cluster definition of art, its critique and possible defence in the context of evolutionary aesthetics. The main theme that accompanies the thesis is the connection between the evolutionary origins of art and its definition today. After an introductory presentation of evolutionary aesthetics' approaches to the search for the origin and definition of art, the central section is devoted to Dutton's cluster theory. This is presented from two perspectives - against the background of his understanding of the Darwinian-inspired concept of art, that is, based on natural and sexual selection, and against the background of Berys Gaut's original cluster theory. Dutton's theory has faced criticisms of the normative universalism that his evolutionary theory has the potential to set up, the subjectivity regarding antipathy to modern art, and the over-openness of the cluster. The thesis will attempt to evaluate the critique and to clarify whether Dutton succeeds in advocating a link between the origins of art and its modern definition. Keywords: Denis Dutton, evolutionary aesthetics, darwinism, adaptation, cluster theory, definition of art.