Dissertation--Philosophische Fakultät--Köln--Universität, 2005. / Bibliogr. p. 299-317. Index.

This thesis tracks the melodramatic imagination of Tracey Moffatt's art. Whereas many of Moffatt's photographic and filmic works employ conventions of melodrama, the critical literature on her art has barely engaged with this important aspect of her practice. The thesis redresses this gap. I argue that a particular understanding of melodrama that constructs inauthe.ntic and indeterminate realities crucially shapes Moffatt's art. Building on seminal works from literature and film studies, as well as psychoanalysis I develop a framework for the detailed examination of melodrama in Moffatt's art, and identify major themes, stylistic elements and fonnal conventions of melodrama that penneate her practice. The thesis designates and investigates three major concepts associated with melodrama as applicable to Moffatt's practice. First, I propose that her art is linked to a particular melodramatic aesthetic, the aesthetic of muteness as defined by Peter Brooks. This aesthetic uses non-verbal means of expression, such as gestures, the tableau and mise-en-scene to convey emotional and narrative meaning. It also emphasises the shortcomings of verbal language in expressing inner states of being of the modem 'Western' subject. Analyses of Moffatt's photo series Something More and her film Night Cries. A Rural Tragedy demonstrate that the aesthetic of muteness not only serves to express unspeakable traumatic experiences of characters but is also linked to the artist's aim to cross media boundaries. Second, the thesis examines Moffatt's Scarred for Life series in relation to melodrama's exposure of issues of violence and oppression in the family. I will propose that the return of the repressed and the revelation of hidden forces in melodrama may be related to Sigmund Freud's concept of the uncanny. Focussing on Scarred for Life I will examine ways in which artworks may evoke uncanny feelings in viewers. The third key thematic investigated in the thesis is elaborated in Chapter Five, which examines a consistent ambiguity found in Moffatt's art and links it to the moral impetus of melodrama. Building on writings by psychoanalytic theorist Joan Copjec I argue that - unlike early theatrical and literary melodrama, which divides the world into clear-cut binaries of good and evil - Moffatt's melodramas construct a moral ambiguity that questions unequivocal moral' judgment~. With the example of Moffatt's photographic series Laudanum I show that this moral ambiguity challenges viewers to make their own judgments instead of automatically relying on pre-given moral and political premises. By analysing the crucial part that melodrama plays in Moffatt's practice, this thesis not only develops a new way of interpreting the work of this important Australian artist, but also presents an understanding of melodrama as an aesthetic and a way of seeing the world that may be applied to other fonns of contemporary visual art.

Frenzied facts and fictions collide as Maureen Medved takes her unconventional approach to writing from book to big screen.

As Elizabeth Burns’s paradoxical phrase ‘the thin universe’ suggests, the home is a place of both limitations and possibilities. Domestic life has been regarded by some as a spirit-sapping hindrance to creativity, recalling Cyril Connolly’s famous declaration that: ‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ This thesis examines the ways in which Burns, Herd and Jamie demonstrate how domestic life, for all its restrictions, can prove to be the ally of art. The home is a repository for childhood memories – shown in my analysis of Burns’s ‘Rummers and Ladels’ and Jamie’s ‘Forget It’ – and it is during this formative period that our ambivalent relationship with the home begins. The desire for comfort and safety can be felt alongside the tug towards the outdoor world of adventure and independence, a push-pull longing found in Herd’s ‘Big Girls’. Herd carries this longing into adulthood in ‘A Letter From Anna’, as does Burns in ‘Woman Reading a Letter, 1662’, and Jamie in ‘Royal Family Doulton’. Section one is my examination of this complicated sensation. The darkness that can make the home a hell features in Burns’s ‘Poem of the Alcoholic’s Wife’, Herd’s ‘Soap Queen’ and Jamie’s ‘Wee Wifey’. Contrastingly, the blissful events that take place there are evoked in Burns’s ‘The Curtain’, Herd’s ‘Rosery’ and Jamie’s ‘Thaw’. In section two I seek to prove that such extreme events, from the abuse suffered at the hands of an unfeeling mother to the delights of new parenthood, prove that the home cannot be dismissed as sequestered or mundane. And yet, dismissed it has been. Why bother depicting one’s ‘wretched vegetable home existence’, as Wyndham Lewis wrote, when one could ‘give expression to the more energetic part of that City man’s life’? Burns bemoans this attitude in ‘Work and Art/We are building a civilization’, and the idea that ‘home crafts’ like embroidery cannot be miraculous in themselves is dispelled by Herd’s ‘The Siege’ and Jamie’s ‘St Bride’s’. The celebration of the domestic interior found in paintings by, for example, David Hockney and Gwen John is similarly seen in the poetry of Burns (‘Annunciation’), Herd (‘Memoirs’) and Jamie (‘Song of Sunday’). Section three aims to show how the Bugaboo in the hall can be the ally of art, and – ‘thin’ though it may sometimes feel – the home is a universe in which infinite poetic possibilities exist.

Köln, University, Diss., 2005.

This thesis interrogates Andrew Tracey’s career as an ethnomusicologist and the significance of his research and publications on lamellophone (mbira) music of the Shona/Sena in Zimbabwe and Mozambique to subsequent scholarship of lamellophones throughout southern Africa. Through a survey of authors who have cited Tracey’s publications, this study assess how his use of the pulse notation transcription method and his theory of form and harmonic structure in mbira music, which he terms ‘the system of the mbira’ (A. Tracey, 1989) have influenced and contributed to the work of ethnomusicologists, musicologists and composers. Further this research evaluates the impact on subsequent publications by other scholars of Tracey's technical analysis of mbira music. Organizing and indexing Andrew Tracey's field collection in the ILAM archive gave direct knowledge of the scope of his work. The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter contains a general introduction to the thesis and outlines the goals of the research. Chapter Two presents a biographical sketch of Andrew Tracey. A general introduction to the lamellophone (mbira) family of musical instruments in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa is presented in Chapter Three, which also addresses the social function of lamellophone music. Chapter Four gives a summary of Andrew Tracey’s research on the Shona mbira (his publications, recordings, films etc), and it analyzes his theory - “The system of the mbira” - in which he defines the form and structure of mbira music. Chapter Five examines the impact of Andrew Tracey’s research and publications on mbira music to subsequent scholarship and makes an analysis and evaluation of the significance of his contribution to the body of knowledge of the instrument and its music. In addition I relate my personal experiences with mbira music as a Shona person and mbira player and give my opinions on Tracey’s and subsequent scholars’ theories on mbira music. Chapter Six concludes with a summary of outcomes of this research. Basing on the analyses of presented data, it is deduced that, despite a few shortcomings, Andrew Tracey’s research on mbira music is crucial for it laid the groundwork for subsequent mbira scholarship.

This thesis discusses the intersections of exposure therapy and art therapy in the works and careers of Deborah Orloff, Tracey Emin, and Louise Bourgeois, as well as in my own work. Artists use their practice as a form of mental healing, subconsciously utilizing essential theories of exposure and art therapies.

Tracey Emin est une figure singulière du monde de l'art londonien de par sa présence marquée autant dans le monde de l'art contemporain que dans les médias de masse. Les discours de l'artiste tendent à opérer un brouillage entre son œuvre et sa vie personnelle en se fondant sur une authenticité mis en avant par Emin elle-même. Elle se constitue ainsi une identité d'artiste femme en récupérant des stéréotypes attribués aux artistes. Toutefois, il ne peut être question de la véracité de l'authenticité d'Emin, puisque celle-ci est invérifiable. C'est pourquoi ce mémoire s'attarde plutôt sur le succès des actes et des discours d'Emin dans l'instauration de son statut d'artiste. Pour ce faire, le concept de performativité tel que développé par Judith Butler et les écrits de Foucault sur la parrhesia servent d'outils d'analyse afin de déterminer comment Emin parvient à se créer cette identité d'artiste femme tout en se faisant accepter comme telle par la plupart des spectateurs. Ce mémoire se penche sur les transformations dans les moyens employés par Emin afin de faire fonctionner son identité d'artiste. Ainsi, à travers l'analyse de l'œuvre The Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made de 1996, il est question de la manière dont Emin doit se mettre en scène comme artiste à travers ses œuvres afin de se distinguer dans le monde de l'art étant donné son anonymat relatif à l'époque. La série de scandales qui éclate à la fin des années 1990 sert ensuite à démontrer comment, à travers une accession soudaine à la célébrité, Emin doit adapter ses discours à sa visibilité soudaine. Emin parvient finalement à maintenir sa visibilité au cours des années 2000 et l'examen de sa chronique hebdomadaire « My Life in a Column », publiée dans le journal The Independent, démontre comment Emin consolide son identité d'artiste en prenant le lecteur à témoin de ses aléas quotidiens. Le succès des diverses stratégies exploitées par Emin permet d'affirmer que sa pratique comporte une dimension politique insoupçonnée, puisqu'elle parvient à faire admettre des comportements habituellement jugés inadmissibles par le public. Ainsi, la performativité chez Emin opère une déstabilisation des normes qui forment son identité à la fois comme femme et comme artiste. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Tracey Emin, discours sur l'art, femme artiste, stéréotypes attachés à l'artiste, performativité.

THE INDEFINITIVE SELF: subject as process in visual art This doctoral study is comprised of both creative work and accompanying critical study and exegesis, each comprising 50 per cent of the total weight of submission. The body of research develops a feminist genealogical methodology to explore the study’s central idea: that envisioning the feminine subject as process rather than a fixed entity enables political agency without recourse to rigid essentialism. The creative work, a public space installation in South Brisbane Cemetery at Dutton Park, is titled Last Drinks Gentlemen Please and traces the life and character of my great, great aunt Cecilia Mary Tennant (1875-1938). Documentation and discussion of this work is included in the exegesis and can also be viewed online at the web address http://www.GMTplus10.info/. The thesis presents a critical contextualisation analysing the work of the artists Tracey Moffatt, Mona Hatoum and Pipilotti Rist, as well as my own practice, and identifies key strategies enabling the representation of identity as process. Finally, this study proposes the figure of the Aunt as an elective relationship that enables both intimacy and agency beyond patriarchal constructions of the feminine.

This thesis will aim to investigate the extent to which Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella can be said to allegorically perform a dialectical enfolding of the dichotomous categories of meaning/nonmeaning; image/text; past/present and original/translation. The dual concepts of performance and performativity will be utilized as a means to explore the notion of interpretation as a meaning-making process and as an engagement between artist, artwork and viewer that is necessarily open-ended and in a state of constant change and flux. Rose's performance of Ciao Bella will be read as one that questions the illusion of unmediated representation by parodying and creatively misreading a multiplicity of visual, textual and musical representations so as to foreground the politics of representation. The representational figure of allegory, as one that defines itself in opposition to the Romantic conception of the unified symbol, will be put to work so as to reveal the ways in which Rose's performance works to critically undermine various positivistic attitudes toward self-identity, gender, race, politics, history, authorial intention and interpretation.