Thesis (inaugural)--Universität Bern, 1920. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [109]-111).

<p> The rise of social practice art in Europe and North America since the 1990s has provoked a variety of critical alignments and contestations around multi-authored "post-studio" artwork, aimed at collapsing the boundaries between visual and performing art, and between art and everyday life. One of the most visible and impassioned contestations has centered on the value assigned by different critics to so-called convivial and antagonistic directions for social practice art. This project enters the debate on collaborative and participatory art by highlighting the commonalities between the turn away from spectatorialism in philosophy and the politically-driven, activist social practices coming out of the visual arts. Contending that the more salient problems under debate revolve around what art historian Grant Kester has described as "a series of largely unproductive debates over the epistemological status of the work," I focus on the way different epistemological frames impact the reception of convivial and antagonistic directions in art. With attention to the theory and criticism of Clare Bishop, Grant Kester, Shannon Jackson and Tom Finkelpearl, I examine how a variety of epistemological frames both reflect the work's values around social change, and also impact the critical lenses through which such values are communicated to the public through art criticism. While Bishop raises important questions around the limits of a turn against traditional art spectatorship and singular authorship of visual art, I claim that her view of a convivial tendency in social practice art overlooks key epistemological insights embodied in feminist standpoint theory and American pragmatist epistemology. I contend that John Dewey's view of knowledge as <i>transactional</i> captures the epistemological framing of some of the more socially ameliorative directions social practice work has taken in recent decades because Dewey rejects a view of knowledge that divides subjective entities from each other and from their wider environments. Bishop's traditional spectatorship model fails to capture the aesthetico-political ethos of an area of art that acknowledges the fragile contingency of standpoints. I show that the criticism of Kester, Jackson and Finkelpearl recognize this contingency and then enlarge their perspectives by bringing attention to feminist standpoint theory and pragmatist aesthetics and epistemology. I conclude by claiming that a more robust way of understanding the value of social practices in art recognizes that transactional and contingent standpoints demand an ethos rooted in the continuity of convivial and antagonistic features of aesthetico-political experience.</p>

<p> Since the Devonian Period, 360 million years ago, trees have been foundational for the survival of aerobic life. Today, most humans relate to trees through the idea, material and commodity of wood. This understanding is primarily informed by its use as a building material: the formal attributes of its grain pattern read to assess structural integrity and aesthetic applications. I think of these marks as autonomous and unique natural drawings, documenting time in a scale different from our lifespan. Wood&rsquo;s composition of cellulose and lignin create patterns that record temporal fluctuations in precipitation and the unique soil compounds of each tree&rsquo;s growth site as a codex. As an MFA candidate, I used woodworking techniques to explore the relationship between temporality and materiality. Along the way, I became interested in the reductive carving techniques of woodturning as a metaphor for this investigation: cutting through layers of time. Small segments of wood were laminated together in mathematical patterns and turned to reveal parabolic grids on the interior and exterior surface of each object. This study led me to consider the limitations that traditional art display conventions impose on the viewer&rsquo;s perception of an artwork, and to the realization of the <i>Thoughtitarium; </i> an eight-foot diameter fiberglass hemisphere that hovered above the gallery floor in architectural scale.</p>

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<p> "Dissociated Verses" is a collection of poems inviting its readers to step into a space of cleansed perception&mdash;a poetic field that enables the apparition of objects and phenomena as they are in themselves, as though they were uncontaminated by human subjectivity. Avoiding the traditional predicative use of the English language and favoring the use of paratactical linguistic constructions, the verses in this collection literally carve out the white space of the page to display luminous aesthetic moments. </p><p> "Intonation" is a complementary opus&mdash;an antidote to the solemnity and escape-from-emotion-ness of "Dissociated Verses." Although steeped in a similar apocalyptic vision of phenomenology, the poems in this collection clearly differ in form: they are pulled by a lyrical and symbolic drive. Winking at Blake and Baudelaire, they bring the dissociated reader back to human-ness&mdash;the symphony of joy and sadness.</p>

<p> This paper discusses the relationship of ideas to their media, through the relationship of contents to a book and through the use of aesthetic barriers. The conceptual content of the artworks produced center around epistemological self-betterment and practical mysticism. I discuss in this paper my thought process, the work itself, and the works intended functions. I discuss the idea of the book and my rationale behind working in printmaking.</p>

No description available.

<p> Seeing Eye to Eye is a case study connecting relationships between aesthetics, aesthetic development, and gender. This study identifies major trends of aesthetic experience unique to sexual difference and gender. Viewers develop frameworks for making meaning from artworks that consist of epistemologies accumulated through education, socialization and individual experience. The dominant pedagogy is a logical tradition that teaches universal meaning. Emergent themes in student responses showed that ways of viewing and speaking about artworks are usually extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic approaches privilege individual artistic agency, action, contrast and shadows, message delivery, and technical fabrication of an image. Intrinsic frameworks for viewing favor creative narration and characterization, details and textures, and personal emotional metaphor. The model created from the research equalizes a variety of aesthetic strengths, while recognizing when an individual is in possession of many strengths in looking at and talking about works of art. I created a model that catalogues extrinsic and intrinsic approaches to making meaning from artworks. Under this model, the art viewer may have varying degrees of expertise with major categories such as visual analysis or creative narrative and also use extrinsic or intrinsic frameworks for image deconstruction. The search for meaning is ever universal for humankind. This model is for teaching a pluralistic approach to education and promotes an ideal of encouraging a culture of dialoguing in civic education. Art educators should use this model for identifying and teaching to a variety of aesthetics strengths. Drawing from extrinsic and intrinsic frameworks for making meaning, art experiences in the classroom can be tailored to develop a curriculum that promotes and teaches diverse aesthetic meaning.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from file title page. Maria Gindhart, committee chair; Susan Richmond, Akela Reason, committee members. Electronic text (82 p. : ill. (chiefly col.)) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed July 14, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-82).

Thesis--Utrecht. / Vita. Includes summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-243).