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Artist statement Nao Yamamoto The environment I grew up in allowed me to cultivate an appreciation for both contemporary art and traditional craft, and I still respect the Japanese culture. However, experiencing contemporary art based on a different society and environment changed my perspective and I felt like it took me beyond the narrow culture of Japan. Since I recognized my art as a way to represent myself, or even to have conversations with tnyself, I became devoted to a contemporary art practice. It has been so exciting to see my thoughts made visual and how I've been changed by creating my art. I have long created my pieces based on the simple beauty of glass. I was looking fof a way to emphasize what I see in it. During the glassblowing process, I would . sometimes see the molten glass as a creature that has a consciousness that tries to challenge my skill or mastery. This idea helped me to create a different body of work which represented my experience or relationship with glass sculpture rather than the materiality of glass. Now glass has become not only a material, but also my fickle friend which. reflects my inspiration and concentration. I believe that there is nothing that compares with the beauty of nature. For me it is overwhelming because any life form doesn't think about the meaning of life, but only thinks about surviving. When I am at a beach, in a forest, or in the middle of a desert, the simple, pure, clean force of life in nature inspires me to just live, strongly but simply. I believe we have lost that n~tion in complicated contemporary lives. What I atn trying to do is to reinterpret elements from nature to celebrate the power of life, both in its significance and in its insignificance.

This dissertation was inspired by the discovery of a machine in the industrial wasteland of Pretoria West. The machine, a flour mill built in 1908, has been extended and transformed and layered through time. Symbolic of the context, it now lies silent – its core has been removed long ago. With an odour of mystery, the fate of the complex remains vague as the body of history is lost in time. Rich in textures and details, the tectonics represent the values of function and process. Mysterious, uncertain and contradictory; facts [history, memory, experienced space] and fiction [imagination] begin to blur. The precinct of Pretoria West unfolds as a wasteland, static in nature and detached from civil society. Surreal in character, the condition manifests itself as a disembodied reality and reveals “a place lost in space, lost in time.” It appears that “…even history does not have its place here” [Webster, 2012]. In this context - without memory and deprived of imagination - the public lives in a liminal state of existence. Engulfed in a static condition of the now, the present becomes the only reality. Without roots in the past and projections to the future, the public realm remains indifferent to both. The proposed programmes form part of the investigation into the site’s fragmented past. A natural perfumery in alliance with a glassblowing workshop is explored within the urban framework proposal of the ‘Hard-boiled Wonderland’. Addressing not only the downfall of the artisan brought about by mechanised forms of production but also the static notion of dealing with remembrance, the project focuses on the inspiration of the imagination and collective memory. The hypothesis of a new interface between the public, architecture, memory and imagination is approached through the mnemonics of the everyday. In pursuit of a resolution, the sense of olfaction takes the central role in the formation of public space that invites rituals of remembrance through ordinary daily activities and events. The project explores ways to inspire and reflect on the site’s history and the memory of the civic society using a domain that leaves no trace in history – through the fleeting realm of scent. / Dissertation MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

To master any type of process, it is estimated ten thousand hours is needed to finely tune your craft. Whether it is wood joinery, music, culinary arts or glass-blowing, it is about making something that can be seen, heard, touched and/or used. Society seems to be losing an appreciation for craft as an idea. Especially in the US, materialism has reduced quality and craftsmanship to merely a luxury to those who can afford it. It seems that while mainstream society continues to "progress", the craftsmen see their client's loss of comprehension and appreciation of the true quality in their workmanship. While many schools and guilds around the country aim to keep "the crafts", i.e. material based mediums alive, each craft brings potential processes and applications to the architectural realm. The art of glassblowing and others hold something unique to be implemented into architecture. The primary goal of the project is to study of craftsmanship within the art of glassblowing vs. how it can be translated into an architect's design process as well as his or her product. I also wanted to look at how specific craft schools pedagogies use the process of glassblowing to exemplify craft as a "making" process. Structuring my Thesis around craft and its survival in today's contemporary world, I want to address three sub-topics: First, to create a cohesive ‘genus loci’, second, to propose program additions to help redefine the artisan agenda, and lastly how to accomplish this with a low impact/ biophilic architectural tool, that functions not only at an environmental level but also as an educational component. I have chosen the Pilchuck Glass School in the Pacific Northwest as the site of my investigation. Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education, nestled into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains on a former tree farm in Stanwood, Washington. Pilchuck offers a series of courses and residencies for established artists in all media. Combining a deep focus on glass, access to a variety of resources, and an ever-expanding international community of artists, Pilchuck is the most comprehensive educational center in the world for glass artists.

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In this master project I investigate materiality, transhumanism and alternative ways of producing knowledge and new discussions in the fields of glass craft, electronics and biotechnology. I make do-it-yourself glass computers and explore the relation between body/human-machine/computer with a hacker approach.

This paper is an investigation into the crossroads of traditional and contemporary glass craft techniques. Through innovative methods in the workshop I have set out to bring glass into the public sphere using the potential for handcraft in architecture.

A self portrait. With an auto ethnographic study method and my own craft; glass making I examine tacit knowledge. A portrait not only of me, but also the human in need of control. An invite to look at our society and see how the measurable is in charge and positivistic science have the leading position in knowledge production.  I aim for the subjective, the knowledge stored in my body which is passed on through making, in to the glass to be kept.

This work is about presenting the weave in a new and different context, by bringing textile and glass together. The work is characterized by material and shape experiments with silver and copper weave and hand blown glass. From experiments and sketches, the work has resulted in four sculptures, symbolizing four selected stages in a lifecycle; the birth, the development, the maturity and the death. One important part of the work has been to combine different materials and techniques. Studies of literature, sketching, handweaving and integration of silver and copper weave in the glass have been important methods in the working process. Inspired by the flower, the human being and the universe, a story about the life cycle has taken shape. The paper describes the working process with choices and analyses. It describes the experiments and the making of the sculptures. / <p>Uppsatsnivå: C</p>