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This dissertation develops a theory for analyzing the role of audiences as aesthetic resources in contemporary site-specific performance and relational art. Collaborating with three Canadian companies as a participant-observer, interviewer, and in some cases, documenter, I develop case studies that track flexible stage-audience relationships in public spaces. By analyzing how companies Radix Theatre Society, Bluemouth, and Mammalian Diving Reflex put spectators to work in sites like IKEA showrooms, disused warehouses, and theatres, I advance a method that attends to the doubled practice of the spectator as worker and witness. This framework, which I term bifold spectatorship, articulates how audiences constitute theatrical worlds through direct physical engagement with the cultural criticism and formal experimentation that artists stage. Folded into the event, spectators literally compose the scene of the action, and enter into what I call critical proximity with the discourses that shape the performance. As participants interact with and directly query the artistic expressions that they patron, they answer a challenge to perform that is typically reserved for professionals. Such novel participation begins with a hail that interpellates audiences into the action as subjects and even sites of performance. Adapting the concept of the casting call, or what I coin site-casting, miscasting, and central casting, I show how spectators are aligned with the exigencies of the site; “mis-placed” or miscast by artists (provoking performance anxiety in participants); or cast to play a role they already perform in their everyday lives. In addition to these critical frameworks, I challenge the established narrative of “liberating the audience” by forwarding a multi-sited genealogy of site-specific performance that confronts the romance of freeing spectators from stage conventions. In examining the ethical problems that arise when audiences are made responsible for representation, The Stagehands of Subversive Spaces extends debates within site-specific performance to wider conversations in performance studies about ethics, subjectivity, and audience reception.

Bakalauro darbą sudaro: • Kūrybinė dalis: trys konceptualios ir funkcionalios rankinės-krepšiai jaunimui; • Projektinė dalis: 2 planšetai pristatantys kolekcijos idėją, aiškinamieji brėžiniai; • Teorinis aprašas: pateikiama netradicinius aksesuarus kuriančių dizainerių ir aksesuarų tendencijų analizė bei prieduose - verslo planas susietas su gaminių realizavimu. Pagrindinė kūrybinio darbo idėja – remiantis fiziologinėmis gyvūnų kūnų savybėmis, sukurti netradicinių rankinių-krepšių kolekciją, kuri padėtų suformuoti liberalesnį požiūrį į kasdienius aksesuarus ir praplėsti jų pasirinkimą. Originalaus dizaino, konceptualių idėjų trūkumas jaunimo rankinėse, įkvėpė sukurti netradicines rankines-krepšius laisvalaikiui, turinčius funkciją. Kuriant, prototipais prinkti trys gyvosios gamtos žinduoliai – kengūra, skujuotis ir šikšnosparnis. Jų kūnų funkciniai ypatumai interpretuoti krepšių dizaine: kengūros sterblė – kuprinė priekyje, skujuočio kūną dengiantis šarvas – kuprinės ir gobtuvo sintezė ir šikšnosparnio sparnas – krepšys tvirtinamas prie klubo ir rankos riešo. Kolekcijos pavadinimas „Urbe animalis“ (lot. miesto gyvūnai), atspindi pamatinę kolekcijos idėją – žmonių atsigręžimą į savo ištakas, į gyvają gamtą, o gaminiai skirti sąmoningam, šiuolaikiniam miesto jaunimui. Krepšių spalvinis sprendimas parinktas atsižvelgiant į žmogaus ir faunos aplinkoms būdingas spalvas – žalią, mėlyną ir pilką. / Thesis consists of: • Creative part: three conceptual and functional bags-baskets for youth; • Project part: 2 planchets, which represents idea of collection and explaining schemas; • Theoretical part: presented analysis of designers who are making non-traditional accessories and their tendencies as well enclose business plan related with realization of products. Main idea of creative work – referencing to physiological animal bodies’ characteristics, create non-traditional collection of bags-baskets, which would help to shape more liberal attitude to casual accessories and extend a choise of their. Lack of original design, conceptual ideas in bags for youth, had inspired to create non-traditional bags-baskets for leisure, containing functionality. Three mammalian animals were selected from nature as prototypes – kangaroo, pangolin and bat. Their body singularity and functionality are interpreted in bags design: pouch of kangaroo – bag on a front; shell, covering back of pangolin – synthesis of backpack and hood; wing of a bat – bag, which is attached between hip and wrist. Collection named “Urbe animalis” (lat. city animals), reflects the main idea of collection – human redounding to it’s origins, living nature and designated to conscious, contemporary city’s youth. Solution of colours were chosen considering to inherent human’s and fauna’s surroundings – green, blue and gray.

This thesis uses literature, film, satire, poetry, and news rhetoric to explore the evolving face of gender in today’s society. It is framed by interviews with two women who are residents of the senior living community Pilgrim Place. Each interview brings up themes and feminist concerns that are explored in the essay that follows it. In putting together this work I interviewed the two Pilgrim Place women, Teresa and Anne Marie, and discussed with them their concerns about contemporary feminism and feminist activism differences between our generations. These concerns are distilled into a series of essays that compare themes and concerns shared by the two women with a work of literature or media that compliments and complicates relevant issues. Half of the interviews included are verbatim transcripts of what was said, the other half are works of oral historical fiction based on interviews and subsequent research into the historical events in question. This thesis engages with the question of who owns a movement and whether the recognition of (or refusal to recognize) a history does damage to the movement. This thesis brings into conversation contemporary and modern media to illustrate the changing world of feminism in a way that celebrates the past and anticipates the future.

This master thesis contextualise, and discuss the contemporary art as a catalyst for change, and raises social issues through art production in the urban district Nima. Perspectives of "community", and "community of practice" affiliates with examples of placed based art, mainly mural paintings performed in the urban landscape of the community, in the stigmatised community Nima, an area in Ghana’s capital Accra. The study has identified an artistic climate that is emerging from within the community, where artists have created a system for various forms of arts education. The artistic climate is a process of social practice, and this study further discuss the interaction of people in the process of art production, which provides both local, and global perspectives of art. Issues of representation, especially who is in the position to represent others, and how others are in fact represented are discussed and analysed as well as the terminology of “African art”.

Although nature is a dominant presence both in historical New Zealand literature and in New Zealand's current international image, literary critics observe a tendency on the part of young writers to neglect nature in favour of more human, urban and cultural themes. I write against this perception, basing my argument on the hypothesis that such urban-based literature may in fact be centrally concerned with the natural world and with human-nature relations. In locating nature within the urban fictional environment, I demonstrate a model of analysis that extends literary critical approaches to nature both within New Zealand literature and within the field of ecocriticism, both of which are largely consumed with analysing representations of sublime, non-urban nature. I test this urban ecocritical method of reading in my analysis of Catherine Chidgey's three novels, In a Fishbone Church, Golden Deeds and The Transformation, all of which adhere to the human-centred trend typical of contemporary New Zealand novels. I reveal within Chidgey's fiction a gradual progression away from archetypal representations of the sublime toward a more complex, fractured and rebellious variety of nature that co-exists alongside humans within urban space. Thus, while the characters in her first novel predominantly interact with nature as a sublime, non-urban entity, those in her second and third novels face the daily possibility of encountering "the wild" within domesticated settings that are apparently severed from any connection with the natural world. This kind of urbanised feral nature poses a significant threat to Chidgey's characters, overtly in the form of the powerful natural elements, and covertly through the myriad varieties of transformed nature with which they surround themselves. I read this portrayal of nature as a commentary on contemporary modernity's relationship with the natural environment, and I suggest that this kind of agentive, autonomous nature demands a new theory of environmentalism which will consider nature as an actor alongside humans.

Military ethics serve as a normative code of behaviour for the armed forces of a state, acting as a mechanism of definition and control within the force, between the force and its client, and between the force, its adversaries and the wider public. They have two, intrinsically linked, functions: a preventative function, which defines the moral and legal parameters of conduct, and a constructive function, which creates and maintains an effective and controllable force. Preceded by the code of chivalry, they were largely a creation of the era of conventional interstate warfare that was waged across the European continent from the Treaty of Westphalia through to the desolate end of the Second World War; yet, the operations upon which armed forces, and in particular, the New Zealand Army are deployed have changed, dramatically. Wars no longer, current operations are generally justified on moral principles and involve a multinational, joint and interagency deployment sent to intervene in an irregular, intrastate conflict occurring in an underdeveloped region and conducted under the intense glare of the media. This disjuncture between the changing nature of operations and the context in which military ethics were formulated provides the fundamental question for the thesis: if the milieu in which military ethics developed has changed significantly, what is their current utility? Using the New Zealand Army as the frame of reference, first the contemporary operational environment and then the specific operational environment in Timor-Leste were examined to assess the current utility of military ethics. It was found that the preventative function has an increasing utility because it ensures conduct is within expected norms in an era where the perception of the adversary, the local populace and the domestic and international audience is key to operational success. Despite the reduction in conflict intensity, the constructive function has a remaining utility through its mediation and amelioration of the stressors engendered by the growing complexity of the operational environment. The retention of utility for the constructive function appears to have been facilitated by an adaptation of the warrior ethos, from a narrow traditional outlook to a broad and comprehensive modern interpretation.

Fokus på basens roll i musik. Hur används instrumentet i ensemblen? Vad händer om basens roll utvecklas och hittar nya ytor i gruppen? Ett arbete om skapa musik med influenser från jazz och fusion som sätter basen i nytt ljus. / Focusing on the role of the bass in music. How is the instrument used in an ensemble? What happens if it develops and finds new spaces in the group? A work about creating music with influences from jazz and fusion that puts the bass in a new light.

Increasingly, contemporary artists are invited to create artworks responding to and located in cultural heritage sites such as national parks, national monuments, historic landmarks, and historic buildings. This thesis examines the nature of contemporary art production, display, and encounter in cultural heritage sites. The research is directed by the question: What are the conditions of curating contemporary art in cultural heritage sites?   The analysis builds from the idea that the meeting ground of contemporary art and cultural heritage produces a curatorial zone, and explores the implications of the interplay between these two fields for curatorial labor in cultural heritage sites specifically. A set of conditions that are central to both curating and cultural heritage management forms the methodological starting point for a comparative analysis of ten contemporary art projects in cultural heritage sites, including one in-depth case study.   The comparative analysis reveals that this curatorial zone is characterized by conditions that arise from conceptual tensions between the fields of contemporary art and cultural heritage. Specifically, a set of conditions I have termed change, temporal, interpretive, site-specific, and instrumental conditions actively shape the act of curating contemporary art in cultural heritage sites.

Architektūros vietoženklių statyba – vienas ryškiausių visuotinių miestokūros reiškinių, kuris Vakaruose stebimas ir nagrinėjamas jau daugiau nei dešimtmetį. Tačiau į urbanistinėje aplinkoje išsiskiriančius architektūros objektus dar dažnai žvelgiama pro pusės amžiaus teorijų prizmę. Pirmojoje tokio pobūdžio disertacijoje pasiūlytas miesto įvaizdį formuojančių šiuolaikinės architektūros vietoženklių tyrimo modelis, kuris leidžia išsiaiškinti miesto įvaizdį formuojančių šiuolaikinės architektūros vietoženklių reikšmę. Teoriniai aspektai čia yra suderinti su praktiniais. Metodologiniu pagrindu čia tapo R.Barthes išplėtoti teksto analizės principai, akcentuojantys prasminį – giluminį – kūrinio lygmenį. 1990–2010 m. pastatyti Vilniaus, Kauno ir Klaipėdos įvaizdį formuojantys šiuolaikinės architektūros vietoženkliai čia traktuojami kaip vizualus tekstas. Remiantis sukurtuoju tyrimo modeliu buvo išsiaiškintos urbanistinėje aplinkoje vietoženklius išskiriančios fizinės, estetinės ir kitos funkcijos bei išskirtinės dislokacijos ypatybės. Architektų bei eilinių Vilniaus, Kauno ir Klaipėdos miestiečių sociologinė apklausa (buvo apklausti 363 skirtingo amžiaus ir išsilavinimo asmenys) leido sukurti miestų įvaizdžiui svarbių šiuolaikinės architektūros vietoženklių reikšmės atvaizdus, kuriuos sudaro 9 būdingos vertės. Matematinės statistikos priemonėmis atlikta šių verčių dažnio koreliacija su vietoženklius urbanistinėje aplinkoje išskiriančiomis ypatybėmis padėjo surasti patikimus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In the global urban development, the construction of new architectural landmarks is one of the most prominent phenomena, which has been widely observed and analyzed in Western Europe for more than a decade. However, in urban areas, distinctive architectural objects are still often viewed through the prism of the half-century theories. The key innovation proposed in the thesis is a construction of the research model that helps to explore the meaning of the contemporary architectural landmarks important for the city image. The theoretical aspects in the dissertation are in line with the practical ones. Methodological basis there were the text analysis principles developed by R. Barthes, emphasizing meaningful level of an object. From 1990 to 2010, built in Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda image forming modern architecture landmarks here treated as a visual text. The research model reveals aesthetic, physical and some other features of contemporary architectural landmarks (exceptional location, distinctive function), distinguishing them in the urban context. In total, 363 respondents of citizens and architects groups were interviewed in the sociological survey and it led to the creation of The images of meaning, which consist of nine key values. In order to process the data of the survey and to find the correlation between the contemporary architectural landmarks’ values frequency and aesthetic, physical, and the distinctive function, the exceptional location characteristics... [to full text]