Occlusion is a procedurally randomized interactive art experience which uses the motifs of repetition, isolation, incongruity and mutability to develop an experience of a Folie àDeux: a madness shared by two. It draws from traditional video game forms, development methods, and tools to situate itself in context with games as well as other forms of interactive digital media. In this way, Occlusion approaches the making of game-like media from the art criticism perspective of Materiality, and the written work accompanying the prototype discusses critical aesthetic concerns for Occlusion both as an art experience borrowing from games and as a text that can be academically understood in relation to other practices of media making. In addition to the produced software artifact and written analysis, this thesis includes primary research in the form of four interviews with artists, authors, game makers and game critics concerning Materiality and dissociative themes in game-like media. The written work first introduces Occlusion in context with other approaches to procedural remixing, Glitch Art, net.art, and analogue and digital collage and décollage, with special attention to recontextualization and apophenia. The experience, visual, and audio design approach of Occlusion is reviewed through a discussion of explicit design choices which define generative space. Development process, release process, post-release distribution, testing, and maintenance are reviewed, and the paper concludes with a description of future work and a post- mortem discussion. Included as appendices are a full specification document, script, and transcripts of all interviews.

This thesis examines the new theatrical form of cyberformance (live performance by remote players using internet technologies) and contextualises it within the broader fields of networked performance, digital performance and theatre. Poststructuralist theories that contest the binary distinction between reality and representation provide the analytical foundation for the thesis. A critical reflexive methodological approach is undertaken in order to highlight three themes. First, the essential qualities and criteria of cyberformance are identified, and illustrated with examples from the early 1990s to the present day. Second, two cyberformance groups – the Plaintext Players and Avatar Body Collision – and UpStage, a purpose-built application for cyberformance, are examined in more detailed case studies. Third, the specifics of the cyberformance audience are explored and commonalities are identified between theatre and online culture. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that theatre and the internet have much to offer each other in this current global state of transition, and that cyberformance offers one means by which to facilitate the incorporation of new technologies into our lives.

TITLE: Contemporary art at school - post internet age AUTHOR: Nikola Tora Dvořáková DEPARTMENT: Department of art education SUPERVISOR: Ph.Dr. Leonora Kitzbergerová, PhD. ABSTRACT: The thesis - Contemporary art at school - post internet age is about current arts occasions, concretely Post internet art. I try to state and define this kind of art and place post internet art to context with art education afterwards. Specific art pieces and their similarities in related zones of art are reflected in didactic transformations. The research is focused on difficulties, which can come into the art education lessons. It is realized with different methods, on different kind of school. In concluision my original art piece is bringing more comprehensive knowledge about post internet art. KEYWORDS: Contemporary art, post internet art, interpreter vs. consumer, new media

Cette thèse a été menée à bien grâce au soutien financier du Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (FRQSC), de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales de l’Université de Montréal (FESP) et du Département d’histoire de l’art de l’Université de Montréal. / À la fin des années 1990 et au début des années 2000, les musées cherchent à renouveler leur image de marque afin d’attirer des publics plus diversifiés. Dans la foulée d’un utopisme généralisé qui caractérise Internet comme une force démocratisante pour les sociétés occidentales, les musées voient une occasion de fidéliser de nouvelles clientèles sur la base d’une participation supposée dialogique et émancipatrice. Les institutions muséales font alors l’acquisition d’œuvres d’art internet et certaines, pionnières, en font même la commande. Pour quelles raisons ? Les cas analysés dans cette recherche permettent d’élucider cette question par l’analyse culturelle des œuvres inaugurales de cette pratique artistique et muséale : Ding an sich (The Canon Series) de Piotr Szyhalski, commandée par le Walker Art Center ; Uncomfortable Proximity de Graham Harwood acquise par la Tate ; IdeaLine de Martin Wattenberg présentée par le Whitney Museum of American Art. Nous constatons que, arrimées à des infrastructures en ligne développées en étroite collaboration avec et par l’industrie technologique, ces œuvres se situent à la rencontre d’intérêts convergents des mondes institutionnel et entrepreneurial. L’industrie technologique trouve dans l’espace muséal internet une opportunité de déployer son offre de service à des clientèles favorables – les œuvres sont un attrait ; l’institution discerne dans l’entreprise un partenaire d’affaires expert à même de raffiner son image en ligne auprès de spectateurs à conquérir – les œuvres sont un atout. Les productions qui en découlent s’immiscent dans des espaces hybrides : entre espace expositionnel et page informationnelle ; entre fonction artistique et discours démocratisant autour de l’œuvre ; entre objet de collection et distinction philanthropique. Au carrefour des relations entre institution et industrie, ces œuvres portent un regard acéré sur leurs conditions d’émergence et mettent au jour les dynamiques muséo-entrepreneuriales qui sous-tendent leur arrivée. Face à des ensembles discursifs connotés, elles sont à même de conceptualiser l’industrie technologique non pas comme une autorité commerciale hégémonique, mais comme un appareillage théorique riche de stratégies thématiques et de modes opératoires à même d’être démantelés, détournés, renversés, critiqués. / At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, museums sought to revitalise their image with the aim to attract increasingly diversified audiences. The general view of the Internet as a democratic force in western societies lead institutions to consider it as an opportunity to acquire new audiences through participation which was thought to foster emancipation and dialogue. Enthused, museums thus acquire internet artworks and some even commission them in order to inaugurate newly developed media arts programs. For what reasons? Our case studies provide an answer to this question, along with a cultural analysis of artworks, annual reports, press releases and other pertinent documents: Ding an sich (The Canon Series) by Piotr Szyhalski acquired by the Walker Art Center; Uncomfortable Proximity by Graham Harwood commissioned by the Tate; IdeaLine by Martin Wattenberg presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art. We found that these artworks are at the intersection of converging interests on the part of the institutional and business worlds as they are presented in online infrastructure developed in close collaboration with the technological industry. To this industry artworks are enticing as they offer an opportunity to expose a favourable clientele to its products; to the institution artworks are an asset to attract expert business partners able to enhance the online museum brand in the eyes of audiences. As such, artworks are located in hybrid spaces: between exhibition and information spaces, between artistic purpose and democratising discourse, between collection and philanthropy. At these crossroads, artworks take a sharp look at the conditions and dynamics that underlie their arrival. In the face of connoted discourses, they conceptualise the technological industry not as hegemonic commercial authority but as theoretical apparatus, rich with thematic strategies and operating modes ripe for dismantling, diverting, reversing, and criticising.

The Longest Journey is an experimental Master essay which consists of 27 images with accompanying texts. Part of the images are digital photographs and part of them are images created through a special process involving different software tools – mainly Adobe Photoshop and Google Earth. The texts comment on how the images themselves were created and how one might understand what they are and how they function as aesthetic objects and as potential catalysts for thought. / <p>The essay was published as part of a Master of Fine Art Degree exhibition with the same title. For an English translation of it and photographic documentation of the exhibition, please contact: markus.bowie@gmail.com</p>