There are many motives for making art, but economic drivers are often acknowledged as key attributes of artistic success. In particular, they figure in discussions about the strategic orientation of successful artist’s careers. However, in the literature on which this thesis is based, commercial factors are seen as important but limited, in relation to the actual range of values driving creative output. Hans Abbing (2002, p.59) notes, for instance, that other value concepts (such as social values) also have a strategic role alongside financial considerations. The practice-led inquiry asks what key concerns influence the day-to-day decision-making processes of artists and what information would be needed to be able to critically ‘think through what being and artist means to you’ (Butler, 1988, p. 7). In order to obtain access to the motives and value concepts of a practitioner, the author of this thesis has invented a ‘strategic studio framework’, a tool by which to access and assess day-to-day decision-making in practice, thereby gathering the information needed to make informed professional decisions. The thesis argues a continuous flux in the values a practitioner may assign to the key concerns in the Framework at different points in time- and stresses the importance of self-conceptions and personal aspirations in this process. The degree by which these insights would aid judgement of the relative success of the decision-making process, is also discussed. As a result, this thesis provides a better understanding of the way artists make decisions, and of what would be needed to improve or stimulate such practices on their own merits. The thesis will be primarily of interest to artists and art school lecturers looking to find new ways of critical self-inquiry, reflection and discourse. Secondly, it could be of interest to theorists who deal with visual artists and to those involved in supporting organisations within the cultural sector.

Despite the fact that photographs come into being as material objects imprinted with light reflected off the subject in front of the camera, and therefore possess a decidedly physical connection to their referent, the materiality of photographs tends to be overlooked in favour of apprehending them as primarily visual signs independent of their physical support. This practice-led research project under the title Taking Photographs Beyond the Visual: Paper as a Material Signifier in Photographic Indexicality explores the status of photographs as physical traces. In an attempt to find ways in which remote natural locations could be expressed more fully than it is possible by means of purely visual representation, papermaking and image-formation are combined in a single process executed entirely on-site. This working method was developed during the course of the project through artist residencies in Switzerland and a thorough research of traditional papermaking that included visits to numerous European paper mills. The making of each work involves an absurdly laborious and time-consuming process of hiking to an alpine location, making paper on-site from local plants and - using only the inherent light-sensitivity of plant substances - exposing it for many days in a camera built there partly from found natural materials. The resulting photographic objects function as pure indices in the semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce’s understanding of the term – as traces that point to their causes without necessarily revealing anything about the nature of the latter. They are artefacts testifying primarily through their presence, rather than through pictorial representation, to the exposure having taken place. Such process of signification requires the viewer’s active, haptic and imaginative response. The work proposes a way of photographically representing place as elemental - that is, existing outside the human schema of production, consumption and meaning – instead of through such cultural constructs as ‘landscape’ or ‘the scenic’.

Communal trauma is a culturally constructed ascription. Social agents propose that disastrous events have had traumatic effects upon the communities affected. If this proposition is convincing, then these events become acknowledged as communal traumas, and those affected as traumatised. This thesis examines how two crises in northern England: the Foot and Mouth Disease (F.M.D.) epidemic in Cumbria in 2001, and the demise of the mining industry in County Durham from the late 1970s onwards, have been constructed as communal traumas. While the F.M.D. epidemic in Cumbria has been explicitly studied, and therefore constructed as traumatic in sociological studies, the crisis was also broadcast through landscape imagery in press and documentary photography. This thesis examines such imagery in the work of photographers Nick May, John Darwell and Ian Geering, and in the printed and television media, and assesses how it has also contributed to the idea of F.M.D. as a communal trauma. This is one of the original contributions of this thesis. Another is the examination of the disappearance of the mining industry in County Durham since the rationalisation of the late 1970s, as communal trauma. This demise also had devastating economic, social and cultural effects for the communities involved, but has seldom been construed as communally traumatic. However, the film and photography of Newcastle’s Amber art collective creates a narrative that suggests precisely this, and fundamental to that narrative is landscape imagery. Their collaboration with the communities experiencing the effects of this demise, and the exhibition of their films and photography back to that community has created a vision of traumatic social change that is both corroborated and constructed by those most affected. With a detailed examination of the imagery of these two specific crises in Northern England, this thesis examines how landscape has contributed to the cultural construction of trauma.

Intermediality has become an umbrella term for a heterogeneous group of concepts as diverse as the creation of an entirely new medium and the mere quotation of a work from one medium in another. Intermedial analyses of specific film texts have appeared sporadically but have shed remarkable light on the influence of other media on film narrative, structure and visual style. This PhD takes intermediality to be, as Irina Rajewsky describes it, instances in which film ‘thematises, evokes or imitates elements or structures of another, conventionally distinct medium through the use of its own media-specific means.’ Using this definition as a starting point, this project applies the concept of intermediality to films that deal specifically with arts and media within their narratives, or that are adaptations from another medium, across the American independent cinema landscape since 1990. In this way, a typology of media interaction and intermediality within film texts is developed in relation to their relative position in the American ‘indie’ tradition. Although the thesis uses a primarily industrial definition of ‘independence’, this work also applies a number of criteria constituting a particular ‘indie’ aesthetic to these films, as outlined by experts in the field like Geoff King and Michael Z Newman. This enables additional links to be identified in regard to whether intermediality is utilised differently in particularly ‘alternative’ or more ‘mainstream’ film content. This methodology has demonstrated that intermediality plays a significant role in many American ‘indie’ films strategies of differentiation from the mainstream. Additionally, correlations have been discovered such as particular distributors’ preference for contacting specific types of media, as well their willingness (or otherwise) to engage in such potentially alienating and experimental content as intermediality and metareference.

The following thesis examines the possibility that the contemporary Western political leader can be assessed and understood as a performer. It subsequently highlights the various repercussions of this statement, from theoretical, practical, historical and cultural perspectives. Through an extensive, multi-disciplinary literature review and case specific examples, the author argues that researching the politician as a performer has both practical and theoretical value. Included in this review are analyses of key contemporary issues surrounding political performance. The various uses of contemporary media, including the skills and semiotics that they generate, are discussed. Questions are raised regarding the audience's ability to interpret the information they receive through mediated performance. A working definition of audience is developed, to include those who consume and interpret political performance. Also explored in relation to political performance are questions of contemporary celebrity, performativity, and feminism. The thesis suggests that not only is the politician a performer, but that the related theories of performance have an impact on political dialogue at a variety of levels. As is highlighted in the thesis, existing literature has not examined the politician from this perspective. Therefore the work contributes to the body of knowledge around performance and cultural studies.

This thesis examines the use of photographs in surrealist publications in Paris between 1924 and 1969, analysing how images functioned both in relation to surrealism and a wider cultural, social and political context. The thesis contends that developments in the illustrated press had a substantial impact on surrealist publications and that commercial photographic practices were both exploited and subverted by the group. I defend this assertion by demonstrating how photographers associated with the surrealist movement in its formative years, were closely involved in the process by which the photographic image became a major means of communication. I argue that the surrealists were conscious that photography was central to the circulation of ideas and developed a radical notion of the illustration of text. The thesis examines how photographs used in surrealist publications were integrated into the complex surrealist project and how due to the currency in images in society, the medium offered opportunities for disruption. In each of the five chapters I examine the surrealist deployment of photographic images to articulate cultural and political radicalism. The thesis argues that the photographs published by the surrealists made an important contribution to contemporary discourse on sexuality This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge as it expands the understanding of photographs published by the surrealist group by exploring their relationship to contemporary commercial images circulating in the press. It analyses works that have been marginalised, many of the images in the first two journals in the inter war period, the images in the illustrated books 1929, Banalité, Le septième face du dé and the images in the post war journals have been neglected as subjects of study.

While there is significant interest in the lives of looked-after young people, little attention has been given to the way these young people are depicted onscreen. The aim of this study is to explore looked-after young people's perceptions of these fictional depictions and the impact these depictions have on them. Drawing on Freire’s seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I adopt a participatory approach throughout. Research methods involved viewing and discussing TV and film content depicting looked-after characters with a group of young people in care, followed by semi-structured interviews with group members. The data is analysed using a modified Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis protocol. My research highlights that these young people perceive onscreen fictional depictions to be “unrealistic” and negative. These depictions have significant impact, particularly in terms of “presumed media influence”, on how these young people perceive negative depictions to influence others. The young people offer a range of suggestions in terms of better depicting looked-after characters, drawing on their own experiences of care. My research also highlights the benefit of utilising a Freirean empowerment model, in terms of raising critical consciousness, for a group of looked-after young people.

The film Red Line and accompanying thesis revisit the Documentary Torre Bela (1975) by Thomas Harlan and its memory, reflecting upon the role cinema played in revolutionary process in Portugal in 1975 and its enduring significance to the collective memory of this event.

This thesis evaluates the usefulness of post-nationalist theory in developing and understanding existing debates around national cinemas in film studies. Whilst a great deal of research has focused on the significance and importance of national cinemas, changes in the international landscape have offered challenges to the value of national cinema as a concept. To date, these challenges have been primarily addressed within discussion of transnational cinema which, although useful, has yet to fully interrogate the power relationships between nations. The importance of post-nationalist theory in this regard is that it deliberately seeks out texts which explore these power structures and often focuses on contact zones in which the dominant nationalism, and therefore national cinema, is being overtly opposed and undermined. The central question addressed by this thesis is ‘How can post-nationalist theory advance cinematic debates concerning national and transnational cinemas?’ In order to address this, the films of several migrant, exilic and diasporic filmmakers will be discussed as case studies. This is because their hyphenated identities offer access to a greater number of nationalisms, and also highlight a state of rootlessness in which oppositional positions can be more easily adopted. The filmmakers discussed are: Fatih Akin, whose work offers representations of migrant figures and literal border crossings; Ferzan Ozpetek, who expands these migrant representations to include issues of sexuality and class as non-official nationalisms; Atom Egoyan, whose cinematic style opposes cinematic forms, conventions and nations; Michael Haneke, whose films engage in an overtly oppositional style; and Gurinder Chadha, as a filmmaker who not only uses gender to advance these debates, but also enters them into discussion with mainstream cinema. The thesis will apply close textual analysis to each of the directors’ work in order to illustrate how post-nationalist theory can be used to understand the oppositional spaces they create in relation to nations and national cinemas. This will demonstrate not only the relevance of post-nationalist theory to cinema, but also develop current understanding of the strengths and limitations of the conceptual and theoretical work associated with national and transnational cinemas.

Contemporary art is seen as an effective way of communicating complicated science to a range of lay audiences, particularly in the context of medical research. This is the premise of ‘sciart’. However this rationale can limit the cultural significance of artworks by overstating their illustrative capacity, an outcome that severely reduces the creative endeavour of the artist. Based on the first-hand experience of an artist whose career has engaged with the opportunities afforded by ‘sciart’, this study seeks to address the illustration problem by exploring new methods of working across art and science that challenge representations of the inherited neuromuscular disorder myotonic dystrophy, a condition which affects one in 8000 adults in the UK. Hazel, a film made by the artist with the participation of eleven women affected by the condition, is placed at the centre of this as a case study. Pioneering work with the UK Myotonic Dystrophy Patient Registry facilitated recruitment, and it is this process that forms the unique contribution to knowledge of the research. By illuminating the multiple loss experienced by families struggling with physical and social decline, this research offers a practical and theoretical image of the capacity contemporary artists have to shape research into myotonic dystrophy. The study will argue that this capacity is more ambitious than illustration, more extensive than the communication of family insights. Thus it can embrace a much-needed form of research leadership that is built upon an artist’s scope to say powerful things by withholding information. In addition, the employment of feminist literature on ageing and appearance, and sociological research into the decline and isolation of affected families, helps define the particular form of leadership that can arise through extreme personal circumstances. As pressures on services increase, cross-sector influence becomes increasingly important and this thesis and body of practical work explores the future impact of contemporary artists taking a lead in shaping research agendas in the genetic sciences.