This research project operates from the perspective of the author as graphic design practitioner and considers how practice-based visual methods may be used to form a novel system of analysis in graphic design research. The focus of this research is the Conservative Party poster, produced for the British General Elections held between 1979 and 2010. With practice at the core of the research methodology, visual design methods have been configured and applied to a range of material in order to generate insights about how visual language is used in a variety of contexts. The research includes a review of the graphic communication of the British political poster, existing visual methods, and practice-based research within the field of graphic design. From there, a system of practice-based methods was devised, and then applied to the Conservative Party posters. The design system employs methods that disassemble each poster into its individual components (type, image, hierarchy, colour and negative space), mapping each using simple visual techniques, before reassembling these components to identify trends and insights in relation to various political themes. In order to test this design system, these methods were applied to a very different type of visual communication material produced for Sense, a charitable organisation that advocates for the rights of deaf-blind people. This proved valuable to the study, and demonstrated how this system could function in a very different context. The output of this study proposes potential visual devices for aiding visually impaired readers engage with photographic imagery. The findings and visual outputs of this investigation are described in this thesis, and are also housed in a series of three books that form the practice component of this research project. This thesis aims to highlight the value of practice-based methods within graphic design research, and specifically, methods more exclusively available to the graphic design practitioner. Practice is of central importance to this research project, forming the core of the methodology, as well as the outputs produced in response to the research findings. Through establishing the visual characteristics of the Conservative Party poster (1979-2010), this research seeks to demonstrate how a novel system of practice-based methods might help further an understanding of visual communication design.

This practice-based doctoral research project is an artist’s response to the ‘unique status’ ascribed to human remains in the DCMS Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums (2005): as objects, in scientific, medical/anthropological contexts, or subjects, which may be understood in associative, symbolic and/or emotional ways. It is concerned with the circumstances in which human remains were collected and interpreted in the past, and with the legacies of historical practice regarding their presence in museum collections today. Overall, it aims to contribute to public engagement concerning these issues. Taking the form of a Comparative Study the project focuses on the late nineteenth century, when human skulls were collected in great numbers for comparative anatomical and anthropological research, while in wider society the fashion for incorporating human hair into mourning artefacts became ubiquitous following the death of Prince Albert in 1861. William Henry Flower’s craniological work at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, where he amassed a vast collection of human skulls that he interpreted according to theories of racial “type” (in which hair was identified as an important distinguishing characteristic), is investigated, and its legacy reviewed. His scientific objectification of human remains is presented for comparison, in parallel, with the emotional and associative significance popularly attributed to mourning hairwork, evidenced in accompanying documentation, contemporary diaries, literature, and hairworkers’ manuals. Combining inter-related historical, archival- and object-based research with subjective and intuitive elements in my practice, a synthesis of the artistic and academic is developed in the production of a new “archive” of The Wildgoose Memorial Library - my collection of found and made objects, photographs, documents and books that takes a central place in my practice. Victorian hairworking skills are researched, and a new piece of commemorative hairwork devised and made as the focus for a site-specific presentation of this archive at the Crypt Gallery St. Pancras, in which a new approach to public engagement is implemented and tested, concerning the legacy and special status of human remains in museum collections today.

This thesis explores the relationship between sound, word and image as mediated by technology. It is situated within the discipline of ‘performance art’ or ‘live art’ – both terms that I have come to challenge in my work because they fail to encompass the contemporary developments within this expanding field. My research pays particular attention to the technological conditions that affect contemporary performative practice. It investigates these conditions with special regard to the interrelated themes of improvisation, composition and exhibition, proposing constellations between performer, instrument, text and stage. This written component of my practice-based Ph.D follows the exhibition Melech at the Stanley Picker Gallery in January 2014, which brought together the key elements of my research over the course of four years. These manifested themselves as a triple-­‐screen video projection, a 45-­‐minute live performance, a photographic installation and the vinyl LP Melech. The following text focuses on the central working method of my practice, which I call the ‘sonic image’. I define the sonic image as an effect created when sound and gesture are added to words. My key area of investigation is the ‘instant feedback’ that occurs when the voice mediates text using technology. As a vocal performer working within a visual art context, my concern is with the sound of the spoken/sung word during a performance. During the course of my research I have developed the term ‘OpeRaArt’ to describe work that results from the performance of lyrical text. OpeRaart resonates with the Italian word opus (meaning ‘work’), ‘the opera’ being the performance constructed around the libretto (the opera’s text). In order to demonstrate the dynamic interaction of visual, sonic and semantic elements that govern the performance of language, I chose to make the spelling of the word OpeRaArt changeable – by shifting the capital letters. This reflects one of my major research findings: that visual, sonic and semantic elements have shifting statuses in the vocal delivery of words during a performance. Sometimes the visual element shapes/overrides the sonic, and at other times the sonic shapes/overrides the visual. The semantic element, rather than preceding sonic and visual elements as the ‘guarantor’ of the work’s content, is seen as developing from them. By making links between random fragments of language and signs, my research has enabled me to see how meaning can be generated without assuming that the sonic and the visual elements are directly answerable to a semantic one. Rather, the content surfaces through a constant migration between all three elements. 1920s and 1950s avant-­‐garde devices have strong links to methods and principles developed in my work. Although I consider these methods within their various historical contexts, I am primarily interested in their relation to the three axes of performance that dominate my method: improvisation, composition and exhibition. This triangulated way of thinking about performance guides the structure of my thinking, the thesis being concerned with how the core of an effective artwork will always involve oscillation between these three axes.

No description available.

Naga is an animated short about a lively dragon that roams about the lands embracing it’s surroundings dearly. It discovered a barren land while out exploring and was saddened by the sight. After pondering for a while, it then realized it could revive the land with it’s ability to summon rain using it's dragon ball. The short blends traditional animation and computer animation, where the look is similar to 2D animation but the character and a few environment elements are done in 3D. Software utilized to complete the short were Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro. The short showcases a stylized Chinese traditional ink painting style, key frame animation, and particle effects.

Because of influences of Chinese flower-and-bird paintings, I created a series of fossil peonies and birds paintings. This paper describes the concept of this series, materials, creative process, cultural and contextual influences, and the artists who inspired my works. Several problems I encountered during the creative process were addressed and have been solved to my satisfaction. My concept was influenced by my desire to combine Western painting techniques with Eastern topic and style.

The Living Chain is a body of work built to apply and analyze mythological narrative and traditional printmaking techniques. The work is a collection of prints telling an original narrative that derives much of its visual and thematic style from the works of the Baroque and Medieval periods, as well as significant influence from the prints of Gustave Doré. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ideas, mythologies, histories, and symbols found in and inspiring the work, in order to better understand the work’s purpose and its technical challenges. Additional focus is given to the historical significance and cultural impact of meaningful, mythological narratives and the differences between modern and historic narratives told through sequential works of art.

This paper details the design and development process for two technical projects, both of which were developed for use in Autodesk Maya to enhance the workflow processes of 3D character animation. The first project is focused on advanced character rigging using mathematical concepts and Maya nodes, while the second project is focused on plugin development in python 2.7, making full use of the PySide2 library which binds to the Qt5 user-interface framework.

From the 1730s through the 1770s Shadwell was home to Jane and Peter Jefferson, their eight children, over sixty slaves owned by them, and numerous hired workers. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveals much about Thomas Jefferson's boyhood home. Shadwell was a well-appointed gentry house at the center of a highly structured plantation landscape during a period of Piedmont settlement that scholars have traditionally classified as frontier. Yet the Jeffersons accommodated in their house, landscape, material goods, and behaviors the most up-to-date expectations of Virginia's elite tidewater culture. The material remnants of Shadwell raise questions about the character of this frontier and how the Jeffersons maintained a style of living that reflected their high social status.;The Jeffersons' wealth made it possible for them to enjoy the fashionable material goods they desired and also meant that they had the ability to influence the character and development of their community in profound ways. In providing their family with a home and consumer goods that served the familiar functions of elite society, they also fostered the growth of a local community of craftspeople whose skills the Jeffersons needed. The Jeffersons' slaves worked agricultural jobs but also were cooks, personal servants, and nurses to children and had a variety of skills to support the Jeffersons' material needs and heightened social position. The number of African Americans at Shadwell meant that slaves had opportunities to form effective families and communities. The Jeffersons' various agricultural investments required the building of infrastructure that small planters nearby could also use. Social connections and economic clout translated into political influence; the Jeffersons and their peers affected how their county grew and also how Virginia grew.;Archaeology at Shadwell gave new meaning to many of the historic documents as the material culture recovered there prompted fresh reading of much that seemed familiar. The results of the research offer new views of the Jefferson family and their role in settling Virginia, a rich description of the lives of both house and field slaves who worked for them, and a few new perspectives on Thomas Jefferson himself.

The intent of this study was to investigate those artists in early Utah art history who played an important part in the development of water color painting.