Taking my own personal history as a starting point this paper will look at how we inherit culture and in turn shape it through the stories and objects that drive its formation. This extends into how these objects proliferate within our culture and the way in which the passing of History impacts on the way we view them and as a consequence ourselves as individuals and as a group. Identity is then passed on through generations through the act of storytelling, and this process is integral to this research paper. This is also a personal journey, taking place in varying sites, from a rusting car hulk in a back yard in North Canterbury, to a University in Wellington and another rusted car, which has gone through a strange restoration. The Morris Minor has been embraced as a narcissistic object that I have chosen to double in order to explore my individual and wider national cultural history and identity. One of the key themes of this inherited identity is largely based around Nostalgia for an ideal past. This ideal is a fiction, a layering of intended futures as well as a selective past. This works in the same way as the modern artistic preoccupation with gothic histories, but instead of a positive ideal we have the creation of a basement of horrors that lurks beneath the surface. Be it positivist idealism or Gothic inversion, one way of focusing on the way these fictions differ markedly from the reality of the objects existence, is to show the artifice of the stories told by enhancing the components of the story that are already exaggerated, for the Morris Minor this means getting as far away from its existence as a rusting hulk in the backyard as possible. The longing for a past that may or may not exist, is less important as existing in reality but instead for what these fictions supply in their retelling. The concept of the Uncanny is integral to this retelling of memory, in that through a memories reanimation it can only approximate the original event leaving gaps for circumspection and invention. This retelling necessitates a reorientation in the relationship between the teller of the tale and the listener and between the viewer and the object viewed. The research culminates in the alteration of a Morris Minor to appear as one continuous surface. The intention of which is to engage with the differing versions of the objects past through taking an active part in its reconstruction as artwork with the aim of reassessment not only of my individual approach to the object but also the viewers.

Taking my own personal history as a starting point this paper will look at how we inherit culture and in turn shape it through the stories and objects that drive its formation. This extends into how these objects proliferate within our culture and the way in which the passing of History impacts on the way we view them and as a consequence ourselves as individuals and as a group. Identity is then passed on through generations through the act of storytelling, and this process is integral to this research paper. This is also a personal journey, taking place in varying sites, from a rusting car hulk in a back yard in North Canterbury, to a University in Wellington and another rusted car, which has gone through a strange restoration. The Morris Minor has been embraced as a narcissistic object that I have chosen to double in order to explore my individual and wider national cultural history and identity. One of the key themes of this inherited identity is largely based around Nostalgia for an ideal past. This ideal is a fiction, a layering of intended futures as well as a selective past. This works in the same way as the modern artistic preoccupation with gothic histories, but instead of a positive ideal we have the creation of a basement of horrors that lurks beneath the surface. Be it positivist idealism or Gothic inversion, one way of focusing on the way these fictions differ markedly from the reality of the objects existence, is to show the artifice of the stories told by enhancing the components of the story that are already exaggerated, for the Morris Minor this means getting as far away from its existence as a rusting hulk in the backyard as possible. The longing for a past that may or may not exist, is less important as existing in reality but instead for what these fictions supply in their retelling. The concept of the Uncanny is integral to this retelling of memory, in that through a memories reanimation it can only approximate the original event leaving gaps for circumspection and invention. This retelling necessitates a reorientation in the relationship between the teller of the tale and the listener and between the viewer and the object viewed. The research culminates in the alteration of a Morris Minor to appear as one continuous surface. The intention of which is to engage with the differing versions of the objects past through taking an active part in its reconstruction as artwork with the aim of reassessment not only of my individual approach to the object but also the viewers.

Taking my own personal history as a starting point this paper will look at how we inherit culture and in turn shape it through the stories and objects that drive its formation. This extends into how these objects proliferate within our culture and the way in which the passing of History impacts on the way we view them and as a consequence ourselves as individuals and as a group. Identity is then passed on through generations through the act of storytelling, and this process is integral to this research paper. This is also a personal journey, taking place in varying sites, from a rusting car hulk in a back yard in North Canterbury, to a University in Wellington and another rusted car, which has gone through a strange restoration. The Morris Minor has been embraced as a narcissistic object that I have chosen to double in order to explore my individual and wider national cultural history and identity. One of the key themes of this inherited identity is largely based around Nostalgia for an ideal past. This ideal is a fiction, a layering of intended futures as well as a selective past. This works in the same way as the modern artistic preoccupation with gothic histories, but instead of a positive ideal we have the creation of a basement of horrors that lurks beneath the surface. Be it positivist idealism or Gothic inversion, one way of focusing on the way these fictions differ markedly from the reality of the objects existence, is to show the artifice of the stories told by enhancing the components of the story that are already exaggerated, for the Morris Minor this means getting as far away from its existence as a rusting hulk in the backyard as possible. The longing for a past that may or may not exist, is less important as existing in reality but instead for what these fictions supply in their retelling. The concept of the Uncanny is integral to this retelling of memory, in that through a memories reanimation it can only approximate the original event leaving gaps for circumspection and invention. This retelling necessitates a reorientation in the relationship between the teller of the tale and the listener and between the viewer and the object viewed. The research culminates in the alteration of a Morris Minor to appear as one continuous surface. The intention of which is to engage with the differing versions of the objects past through taking an active part in its reconstruction as artwork with the aim of reassessment not only of my individual approach to the object but also the viewers.

In memory of cats: The camera and the ordinary moment looks at the way in which families use photographs to remember the past. Photography’s offer of memory is limited to a visual trace, so strategies of oral telling are examined to interrogate the way in which memories can be recovered from photographs. Martha Langford’s study of the similarities between structures in oral culture and the photograph album and Annette Kuhn’s strategies for reading family photographs in a broader historical context, are used to examine and recover memories from my own photographic archive. Using moving image to record those memories and then tell how that photographic evidence has shaped my present, is a process suggested by Linda Williams in her writing about how postmodern documentary can use the past to intervene in the present. Other documentary styles, performative documentary and the essay film, offer a structure for personal memories to be revisited and re-presented to public viewers. Offering a space for personal or specific memories to be understood or related to by a viewer is discussed by Lisa Saltzman, who looks at indexical forms other than the photograph, like casting and tracing. These ideas culminated in my video work, A Clowder of Cats, which explores the losses that have been a part of my history, through photographs of the cats my family has owned. The camera gives us a strategy to remember moments that may otherwise have been forgotten, and moving image provides a space for those ordinary moments to be bought back to the present.

The role and position of the documentary street photographer is examined in the context of other forms of contemporary visual survey, including Google Street View. The Street View methodology is critically examined and related to the methodologies of other visual artists, including street photographers Peter Black and Robert Frank. Comparisons are drawn between the methodological restrictions imposed by Street View and those imposed by the photographers in the course of their practice. The issue of authorship is discussed and the lack of specific authorship of Street View is related to its inability to augment the viewer's personal sense of space. Wainuiomata, a suburb of Hutt City in Wellington, New Zealand, is introduced as a location for the author's research into how documentary photography might operate. The author's own phenomenological history is considered, and it is proposed that Wainuiomata may act as a mirror which reflects a sense of place derived from personal history, triggered by the visual landscape. The author's installation work The 1 p.m. Project is discussed and contextualised as a response to the author's research findings.

Taking my own personal history as a starting point this paper will look at how we inherit culture and in turn shape it through the stories and objects that drive its formation. This extends into how these objects proliferate within our culture and the way in which the passing of History impacts on the way we view them and as a consequence ourselves as individuals and as a group. Identity is then passed on through generations through the act of storytelling, and this process is integral to this research paper. This is also a personal journey, taking place in varying sites, from a rusting car hulk in a back yard in North Canterbury, to a University in Wellington and another rusted car, which has gone through a strange restoration. The Morris Minor has been embraced as a narcissistic object that I have chosen to double in order to explore my individual and wider national cultural history and identity. One of the key themes of this inherited identity is largely based around Nostalgia for an ideal past. This ideal is a fiction, a layering of intended futures as well as a selective past. This works in the same way as the modern artistic preoccupation with gothic histories, but instead of a positive ideal we have the creation of a basement of horrors that lurks beneath the surface. Be it positivist idealism or Gothic inversion, one way of focusing on the way these fictions differ markedly from the reality of the objects existence, is to show the artifice of the stories told by enhancing the components of the story that are already exaggerated, for the Morris Minor this means getting as far away from its existence as a rusting hulk in the backyard as possible. The longing for a past that may or may not exist, is less important as existing in reality but instead for what these fictions supply in their retelling. The concept of the Uncanny is integral to this retelling of memory, in that through a memories reanimation it can only approximate the original event leaving gaps for circumspection and invention. This retelling necessitates a reorientation in the relationship between the teller of the tale and the listener and between the viewer and the object viewed. The research culminates in the alteration of a Morris Minor to appear as one continuous surface. The intention of which is to engage with the differing versions of the objects past through taking an active part in its reconstruction as artwork with the aim of reassessment not only of my individual approach to the object but also the viewers.

Photographic technology is increasingly respondent to a desire for the production and consumption of information. The current age of photography not only possesses the ability to capture the image, but also to capture photographic metadata as supplemental information. Engaging in the premise that the photographic image exists as an incomplete medium to the transfer of information, this research identifies the acquisition of data as a means to resolve interpretation and quantify the photographic image. Inhabiting a complex territory within this structure, the photographic image manifests multiplicity and operates as source, production, and capture of information. This work challenges the perceptions of how to engage with the dialogues created between the photographic image, and the externally appended metadata.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Mar. 10, 2010). Thesis advisor: Daniel Feller. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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