In fulfillment of my degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Central Florida specializing in sculpture and ceramics, I have produced a body of artwork in a range of media, including printmaking, bookbinding, painting, ceramics, and sculpture. This thesis is the exegesis of my creative work, informed by contemporary artworks and the study of shelter-making in nature. Utilizing The Practitioner Model of Creative Cognition as defined by R. Lyle Skains, I will establish my work as practice-based research. While "exegesis" generally refers to the critical examination of written work, I feel it is appropriate in this context as I view my work as a visual diary conveying the narrative of my lifelong search for meaning. I draw from familiar sensations, memories, spiritual practices, and nostalgic memorabilia in my creative practice, utilizing various media to produce tangible representations of home, exploring whether these liminal spaces can provide the sense of shelter and belonging I seek.

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This PhD responds to a two fold problem with the philosophy of design and the practice of design. The philosophical problem is stated as the discrepancy between a dominant philosophical framework that orders the world according to eternal essences and the actual conditions of the world in which we exist: the conditions of becoming and of flux. Commencing with a critique of the western metaphysical tradition of statics this research project proposes that we need to find a way of describing an evolutionary model of practice, and by so doing to provide a revitalised narration of process. Consequently, the PhD explores the meanings of process through a critical examination of an ensemble of projects created by the author. Within this framework, a number of questions are posed in order to explore the proposition of a process practice. These questions are: What is process? How does one think process? Indeed, how do we get to grasp change? What are the consequences of process thinking on the practices of design, their fields of operation, and their productions? And, how can the thematising of process contribute to the design of the constructed environment, as well as reconfigure the practices of design? This thematising of process is argued to involve a necessary address to the constitutive and interrelated characteristics of process: space/time, movement, change, form and matter. Such an address is also seen to problematise the status of the object, the paradigms of representation, the modes of creation, the economies of exchange, and the structures of community, and to offer a modality of practice which would re-imagine the forms of social exchange to offer an ethical alternative to the tyranny of supply and demand, and thereby reconfigure the potential for dwelling. Making an overview of the discourses and practices engaging with theories of becoming, this thesis argues that almost all of these re-inscribe statics and that consequently the practice of design seems to drag behind our understanding of the world. Through a meditation on dis/appearance, in which the dynamics of being and becoming and the restless ambiguity of the gap are examined, the work establishes a process vocabulary, and makes clear through a material practice, the domains of process thinking, its inclinations, and the kinds of operations and procedures that flourish there. Foregrounding the fertile character of process practice, the PhD then proceeds to introduce notions of the movement-form, the duration-form, the transformational-form, the geometry of encounter, and to argue for physical form as an in-movement poise. Advocating new modes of approach and of attentiveness, and demonstrating new generative methods, this PhD argues that process thinking is not simply an operational stance, but an ethical position that identifies a field of care, and that consequently the design practices be expanded by taking seriously the relationship between process thinking and place making. Thus, this thesis concludes by advocating a mode of place making which, rather than reproduce planned environments as systems of control, configures place as the discursive contested place of encounter and exchange.

Type de dépôt #1 (version complète) / Ce mémoire porte sur la réactualisation de l’opéra d’un point de vue féministe en s’appuyant sur l’exemple de la mise en scène de Don Giovanni (1787-1788) de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Cette étude montre comment il est possible, en s’appuyant sur les outils de l’analyse musicale et littéraire, de créer une mise en scène qui respecte les principales caractéristiques du livret et de la partition – conservant ainsi ce que Jean-Jacques Nattiez appelle des « fidélités locales » – tout en permettant au public d’aujourd’hui de s’identifier à une œuvre composée il y a plus de deux siècles, et de s’y projeter. Pour ce faire, l’enjeu est de proposer une adaptation de l’opéra qui tient compte du contexte politique et social actuel, axé ici sur le féminisme. Prenant pour exemples les trois personnages féminins de Don Giovanni, le mémoire est construit sous la forme d’un triptyque, par ordre chronologique d’apparition des personnages : Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Zerlina. Ainsi, il sera possible d’établir un point de vue s’apparentant au female gaze dans cet opéra, jusqu’ici majoritairement interprété par le biais du male gazing (regard masculin). Le premier chapitre propose donc l’analyse de deux airs phares du personnage de Donna Anna. Cherchant à l’abstraire de l’entité quasi fusionnelle qu’elle constitue avec son fiancé Don Ottavio, l’analyse harmonique et littéraire s’intéresse aux passages où Donna Anna est susceptible d’affirmer son indépendance. L’analyse de ces mêmes scènes dans deux mises en scènes récentes de l’œuvre vise ensuite à vérifier si les caractéristiques qui ressortent de cette analyse sont mises en valeur dans les productions. Enfin, dans un processus s’apparentant à la recherche-création, je propose pour les passages étudiés des avenues de mise en scène qui tiennent compte des analyses effectuées dans les premières parties du chapitre. Les deux autres personnages féminins sont abordés suivant le même procédé, cherchant d’un côté à dé-ridiculiser celui de Donna Elvira – trop souvent considérée comme « hystérique » – et, de l’autre, à rendre au personnage de Zerlina son côté stratège, habituellement camouflé dans les productions « traditionnelles » où la jeune femme n’est représentée que par son côté paysan. / This thesis explores the feminist actualization of opera, using Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) Don Giovanni (1787-1788) as a case study. This study shows how it is possible, by using musical and literary analytical tools, to create a performance that respects the main characteristics of the libretto and the score—thus preserving what Jean-Jacques Nattiez calls “local loyalties”—while allowing today’s audience to identify with a work composed over two centuries ago. To do so, I propose an adaptation of the opera that takes into account the current political and social context, focused here on feminism. Taking as examples the three female characters of Don Giovanni (Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina), the thesis is built as a triptych in which the characters are studied in the chronological order of their apparition. The approach is based on a female gaze point of view, contrasting with the male gazing interpretation which has been dominant in the operatic world until now. The first chapter analyses two major arias of Donna Anna. In order to free her from the almost fusional entity she forms with her fiancé Don Ottavio, the harmonic and literary analysis centers around passages where she is most likely to show independence. The analysis of these same scenes in two recent stagings of the work then aim to verify whether the characteristics that emerge from this analysis are highlighted in the productions. Finally, in a process of research-creation, I propose staging directions for the same passages that take into account the findings made throughout the chapter. The two other female characters are approached following the same process, seeking on the one hand to de-ridiculize the character of Donna Elvira—too often considered “hysterical” —and, on the other hand, to highlight Zerlina’s sense of strategy, which is usually downplayed in “traditional” productions in which the young woman is solely represented by her peasant character.