The core themes in Thai art have traditionally been didactic Buddhist ethical works and popular folkloric beliefs. Both are permeated with a cosmology and worldview that is supernatural but which is pervaded with ethical implications for people’s daily lives. Buddhist art aims to encourage selfless acts for the good of others, including other individuals, society, the country and the natural world. Such abstract themes have been rendered accessible to ordinary people by means of fantastical creatures and supernatural myths that insinuate moral values and demonstrate a coherent Theravada worldview that is uniquely Thai. This thesis explores the popular manifestations of such phenomena at the intersection of traditional folk beliefs and practices, popular entertainment, Thai official/ royal high culture and confessional Buddhist ethical instruction by analysing the art forms associated with temple fairgrounds at major festivals. Based on a review of related literature and analysis of Thai artists, it concludes that the renaissance of traditional Thai culture is reciprocal with authentic grassroots activities such as temple fairs fostered and supported by traditional patronage and cultural resources from the royal court culture and Buddhist ethics. Based on this analysis, my own work offers a modern rendering in the spirit of traditional forms utilising modern multimedia methods to create an immersive and interactive artistic experience.

At the Salon d'Automne of 1929, French designer René Herbst (1891-1982) inaugurated the Chaises Sandows, a series of mass produced chairs built with seamless tubular steel and brightly colored elastic straps (sandows). The chairs were deemed beautiful modern art by the Union des Artists Modernes (U.A.M.), a revolutionary artist collective that Herbst co-founded the same year. The group defined beautiful objects as those that provided psychological repose and were financially attainable for every class, highly functional and socially engaged. Based on the naturalism of Hyppolite Taine, the U.A.M. believed that if beautiful art like the Chaise Sandows was consumed en masse, an egalitarian utopia would be produced. This thesis offers comprehensive understanding of their project as defined by Herbst and their manifesto and the group's connection with larger political concerns during the interwar period.

This dissertation tracks the exhibition design practices developed in and around the Independent Group (IG) from the late 1940s through the 1950s. A loose affiliation of artists, architects, and critics, the IG gathered at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in the early to mid-1950s to debate the aesthetic, socio-political, and techno-scientific forces of their present (key figures included Lawrence Alloway, Reyner Banham, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, Alison and Peter Smithson). Synthesizing science-fiction, Dada, theoretical biology, and cybernetics (among many other topics) within a single mode of research, IG members formulated a non-hierarchical model of the cultural “continuum” in discussions, presentations, and most importantly, collaborative exhibition designs. The dissertation contends that exhibition design provided the IG with a timely strategy for navigating the contradictory traditions of aesthetic and technical production that came together in Britain during postwar reconstruction, from interwar avant-gardes to emergent American technocracy. IG members realized that exhibition design was the one technique that could move fluidly between the phenomenological conditions of architecture and display and the technological networks of communication, image distribution, and scientific production structuring the “continuum.” The goal was to bring these circuits and spaces—gallery, factory, laboratory, office, home, cinema, television, street—to bear on bodily experience so they might first be lived, then studied and redesigned. Chapter 1 examines Hamilton’s Growth and Form (1951), arguing that the exhibition’s apparatuses for displaying images and models of organic processes materialized a looming shift in global power structures. Chapter 2 unpacks a “Brutalist” empiricism from Parallel of Life and Art (1953), a web of photographs of cultural and technical materials. Chapter 3 investigates Hamilton’s Man, Machine and Motion (1955), which was less exhibition armature than metallic machine of production. Chapter 4 considers IG participation in This is Tomorrow (1956), a collection of propositions for artistic integration. Here, the IG met spectators, not in the realm of bodily experience, but on the plane of fantasy. Chapter 5 examines Hamilton’s an Exhibit and Exhibit 2 (1957/59), proto-Conceptual projects testing whether forms of affect, play, and chance might be fabricated within production systems no longer requiring human operators. / History of Art and Architecture

This dissertation is a historical study of the life and work of French-Canadian architect and engineer, Ernest Cormier (1885-1980), who is considered to be among the most important Canadian architects of his generation, yet about whom relatively few scholarly studies exist. In light of the range of issues raised by Cormier’s work and their degree of importance to an understanding of Canadian culture at large during the first half of the twentieth century, this dissertation argues that no other architect operating in Canada during the interwar period made a contribution that touched on so many salient issues as Cormier did. A cosmopolitan figure who tapped into everything available to him, Cormier’s multidisciplinary practice spanned over five decades in his native city of Montréal, and reflects his synthesis of diverse influences, his role as an agent of cultural transfer, and his remarkable degree of savoir-faire in everything he undertook. Entrusted with important commissions at local, national and international levels, Cormier’s contribution merits further study both as a milestone in the development of architecture in Canada, and for what it reveals about the charged sociocultural dynamics of Montréal at that time, which was then the cultural and economic capital of the country. Cormier was particularly active during the interwar period, which was an important time in the advent of cultural modernity in the province of Québec, and in the development of a national consciousness among French Canadians. Focused primarily on the close study of two very different yet interrelated projects by Cormier that date from this period, this dissertation contends that the house he designed for himself (1930-31) and the main pavilion of the Université de Montréal (1924-43) are his most important works, both for what they reveal about his sustained commitments as well as for the innovative ways in which they address the conditions of modernity, and thus, critically illuminate the opportunities and constraints of their time and place. Heavily reliant on the study of archival materials alongside empirical analyses of the buildings, and readings from a range of interdisciplinary sources in order to take account of the work’s meaning and significance within and beyond architecture culture, a central leitmotif of this study is the theme of ‘construction’ construed both as a preoccupation internal to Cormier’s oeuvre and as a theoretical orientation driving my analysis of his work. In the first instance, the figure of the constructeur [constructor] is incorporated into Cormier’s professional title to better align himself with French architecture and engineering culture, particularly with the work of Auguste Perret, whom he greatly admired. As well, for Cormier, construction in the sense of building things, is inseparable from design, and finds sustained expression in his deep curiosity for how things are made, his investment in making at all scales across diverse métiers and media, and his exacting standards for all of his work to be well executed. Finally, keenly attendant to architecture’s communicative function, this dissertation examines the profound representational role played by the Cormier residence and the Université de Montréal in the construction of identity at the respective scales of the individual and that of a collective. / Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the applicability of aspects of Schön’s (1983) theories of reflection-in-action in relation to visual art practice. Schön’s (1983) theories demonstrate that whilst they are written with design disciplines in mind, they do not extend to consider the appropriateness of its use in visual art practice. Scrivener (2000: 10) draws the distinction that whilst Schön’s (1983) use of scientific language in reflection-in-action is considered applicable for problem-solving projects in design, aspects of it are problematic for creative production research projects and recommends focusing reflection on the underlying experience of creative production. This thesis proposes that this and other issues, such as the emphasis on problem solving, and particularly, a reliance on a conversational metaphor, is likewise problematic for visual art practice. This thesis therefore moves to examine what is distinct about the application of reflective methods in visual art practice, in relation to design and research in the arts, through a series of text-based and documentary case studies. Analysis of the case studies suggest that there is an emphasis on embodiment essential to visual art processes, which is experiential in nature rather than problem-solving. A thorough examination of recent theories of embodied mind, which provide empirical evidence from a broad range of knowledge fields for the pervasive role of embodiment in shaping human experience, is presented. The primary research method is a review of two existing sets of theories and a synthesis of aspects of them in an original context, a process offered as an original contribution to knowledge. The context in question is the assessment of the applicability of the resulting synthesis to visual art practice, a domain for which neither theory was written. Knowing-in-action (Schön, 1983) describes the tacit knowing implicit in skillful performance when practice is going well, reflection-inaction (Schön, 1983) takes over, and describes the processes cycled through, only when problems are encountered in practice. Through an analysis of theories of embodied mind, and the documentary cases studies, the conclusion is drawn that in addition to these descriptions there is a rich layer of non-verbal embodied experience shaping action, conceptual meaning and verbal articulations of practice. This thesis therefore suggests modifications to theories of reflective practice in the visual arts, by incorporating theories of embodied mind in the development of additional reflective methods to supplement Schön’s theories (1983). Two methods are proposed as worthy of further study. The first researches Mark Johnson’s (1987) theory of metaphorical projection, which is presented as a means of mapping aspects of visual arts practitioners' verbal articulations of practice, back onto source domains in their embodied experiences of practice. The second explores a recommendation from within theories of embodied mind (Varela, Thompson and Rosch, 1993: 27) that mindfulness training could help develop a mindful, open-ended reflection. Taken together, this thesis proposes that an Embodied Reflective Practice could be developed to the benefit of visual art practitioners.

Everyone interested in visiting Mexico should familiarize himself with its arts and crafts, for it has been truly said that "art is the expression of life,"1 and the whole Mexican civilization is inextricably interwoven with its arts. It is the purpose of this thesis, not to exhaust the subject treated, but rather to present the art of Mexico in such a way that students o f the subject, or prospective tourists, may feel the tremendous interest which Mexican arts warrant; that they may have a clearer view of the background, the civilization, both past and present, of our "next door neighbors," the development of which has produced these varied arts and crafts; and finally, to provide some guide, some criteria for the judgment and the selection of the best that Mexican art offers at the present time. I have drawn freely upon my own experience in traveling in Mexico in the hope that the reader may become aware of some of the highlights of the situation as it appears to the art student; that more people may become aware of the fascinating possibilities of travel in this nearby country which is not only easy and inexpensive to reach, but which holds forth a definite promise of delight to any visitor; and finally, that the reader may realize that civilization is playing a jig-tune in Mexico, and that, before many years have passed, much of the romantic appeal of the country as it is now will undoubtedly be dispelled in the web of industrialism.

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The Beat's Interior seeks to answer the simple question: What does the inside of a beat look like? This thesis provides a solution as an audiovisual projection-mapping project inspired by the song, "Pyramids" by Frank Ocean. It explores the relationship between music and architecture. Influenced by scientific theories of cosmic space and the philosophical ideas of space and rhythm, this installation becomes an immersive experience within a constructed form. Original video is mapped onto the skin of the dome using four projectors that are orchestrated through Madmapper. Eight individual parts of a single track are played separately on designated stereos located on the periphery of the room. Changes in the video and music are triggered by GyrOSC data filtered into Max/MSP/Jitter. / Master of Fine Arts

This thesis is an analysis of the decoration of a collection of metalwork artefacts excavated in Jordan, dating to the Early Islamic Period (661-900). I have compiled a catalogue of these metal objects which contains a through visual description of each item. These objects have then been organized into three groups of study: animate decoration, inanimate decoration, and the Mafraq brazier. The animate section contains animal and human forms; the inanimate is comprised of vegetal, architectonic, geometric, and epigraphic elements; and the Mafraq brazier is analysed alone due to its complex combination of decoration. Through the analysis of this catalogue of metalwork, I have shown that in the Early Islamic period the Umayyads were utilizing the existing forms of decoration common in the Late Antique period in new combinations and context which resulted in new meanings. This thesis also shows that it is likely that Christian, particularly Coptic, artisans were producing objects for the new Islamic elite.