Thesis (M.A. (Drama)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A half-thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Drama.

This thesis is an exploration of some of the defining characteristics of performance art, and an investigation of how such characteristics relate to ritual. It highlights some key notions, such as that of the “Real” and the live, which are introduced in the first chapter. This chapter explores the theories of Peggy Phelan, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan in its attempts to conceptualize the Real. It assesses how performance art as ritual attempts to revise traditional apparatuses of representation. It argues that, through a transgression of representation, performance art has the potential to challenge and revise established discourses on identity, culture and violence. The second chapter of this study is an attempt to provide a history and subsequent conceptualization of performance art, based on its exposition of the live. I have taken into consideration certain strategies that performance artists employ to evoke the live, referring specifically to the manipulation of the body. It is through abject encounters with the unsymbolizable “Real” that the performance artist reaches the borders of his/her subjective constitution, and performs a transformation of his/her identity that transcends the mechanisms of representation. The third chapter of this study attempts to find the connections that exist between performance art and sacrificial ritual. I will refer specifically to the theories of Rene Girard. Girard‟s notion of the “violent sacred” and its significance within sacrifice as an antidote to community crises will be explored in relation to collective transformation within the performance event. I choose to focus specifically on the role of the performer as surrogate victim/pharmakon, and the spectators/witnesses as part of the community. The fourth chapter explores how two South African performance artists, Steven Cohen (1961) and Peter van Heerden (1973), perform the abject body as the monster. Kristeva‟s notion of the abject will be examined in terms of the transformation of the individual performer as subject within performance art, and how, through the assumption of an “othered,” monstrous identity, the performer becomes the surrogate victim. The fifth chapter will entail an examination of Peter van Heerden‟s 6 Minutes. I will attempt to draw parallels between performance art and ritual through using this performance piece as a case study. I will focus on the strategies that Van Heerden implements to resist theatrical representation. 6 Minutes will be observed in terms of its link to sacrificial ritual, and it presentation of the live, and the Real. In light of these discoveries, I aim to locate performance art within politically-driven modes of art-making, and how such an endeavour relates to South African modes of theatre and performance.

In this essay I analyze the performative aspects relating to Marina Abramović's The Artist Is Present, which took place in spring 2010 at MoMA in New York, from the context of the artist and work, institution and documentation. In this performance work, for the duration of the exhibition, Abramović sits completely still opposite another chair where anyone from the audience may sit. The art arises through this participation. The audience are not only viewers, but also the observed, thus becoming part of the work and the negotiation of this exchange of living gazes. The performative pervades this work on multiple levels. The Artist Is Present reached a surprisingly large public, of over 500,000 visitors and continues to circulate in the form of blogs, documentary film and photography long after the exhibition duration. In order to conduct a performative analysis of The Artist Is Present I apply the theories of Peggy Phelan, regarding the relationships between the political and representative visibility in contemporary culture. Phelan's explanation of the unmarked field reveals the importance of the 'other' to see oneself. This is especially relevant in Abramović's performance which challenges and revolves around self reflection in the other. Phelan's theories are also pertinent in analyzing what Abramović as the performer and her work create for re-negotiations around positions and the gaze. The assertions of Carol Duncan in considering the Art Museum as a place of ritual are applied to the ritualistic context of The Artist Is Present, which may well build up a form of liminality. Duncan's claims of the museum as ritual in combination with Phelan's theories provide interesting grounds to further investigate the effect and eventual mythology of the performance work and artist. How do these contexts of institution, documentation, artist and art, which I propose contribute to a kind of myth creation, operate in a ritualized performance art work? This essay analyses these contexts together in order to find a connection between the performative aspects and the effect that they have on the viewer and receiver, which have contributed to the public success of this exhibition. Despite that we now live in an era of reproduction, perhaps the wishes of our era still revolve around a cult value? That even in this post industrial age of reproduction, new needs are recreated for mythology and cult? Or can it be that the reverse is true, that the rites and symbols speak to us before the mythology has fully arisen?

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As a figure in the American period of California history, Mr. James D. Phelan's achievements were an outstanding example of what an honest man can do in politics. First of all, I have endeavored to show his contributions to the city of San Francisco. There is hardly any field of San Francisco life in which James D. Phelan did not leave a tremendous influence. The politics of his term as mayor were a shining model of clean and progressive measures. As senator he kept the interest of California at heart. Through his work at the World's Columbian Exposition, he made known to the world the progress and culture of California, then almost unknown. Besides being a man of great accomplishments in the government, he had a vastly interesting personality, while a quiet, reserved man, he on the other hand never backed down if he felt the issue was right, His keen witticisms always followed a merry twinkle of his eyes, within his family he was found to be very strict and demanding; more so than with his business associates, he had great affection for his sister, Mary Louise. His individuality perhaps attracted my attention in the first place by being one that could be described as "the perfect gentleman of the old school" that is rarely found in politics. The fact that he was a poet also does not suit a political career, his character was an odd one, combining many characteristics which are not often found together. He was the first modem dictator in San Francisco. Control of the city government was practically all in his hands; showing a good example of what can be done by this method with the proper type of man. Also, as his will showed, he was a rood capitalist who subscribed to the theory of "division of property." His enormous estate was divided so as to do the most good possible in the city of San Francisco in the hope that by its enrichment he might aid in turn California—a true pioneer of California was he! Thus, I have endeavored to portray the character of a man whom I felt was an outstanding Califoranian, a personality different and rare, but worthy of imitation.

Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der thermo-mechanischen Beschreibung und Bewertung von keramischen Filtern für die Metallschmelze-Filtration mithilfe der Finiten-Elemente-Methode. Infolge des zellularen Aufbaus des Werkstoffs handelt es sich um ein Mehrskalenproblem. Grundlegende Aufgaben der Arbeit waren deshalb die geometrische und mechanische Modellbildung sowie die Untersuchung verschiedener effizienzsteigernder Methoden zur Gewinnung einer akkuraten numerischen Lösung. Dabei wurden sowohl verschiedene Verfahren aus der Fachliteratur implementiert und kritisch bewertet, als auch neue Ansätze verfolgt. Die Untersuchungen konzentrierten sich auf das effektive elastische und elastisch-plastische Verhalten von Kelvin-, Weaire-Phelan- und Voronoi-Strukturen. Insbesondere die entwickelten Methoden und Werkzeuge zur automatisierten Modellbildung gestatten in einfacher Weise die Umsetzung von Parameterstudien und Optimierungsaufgaben. Aus darauf aufbauenden Sensitivitätsstudien wurden Empfehlungen hinsichtlich der geometrischen und mechanischen Modellbildung für zellulare Werkstoffe abgeleitet. Diese betreffen auch vielfach eingesetzte Methoden zur Modellreduktion für diese Werkstoffe und tragen somit zukünftig zu einer effizienteren Bewertung von Filterstrukturen bei.

This essay considers the interplay between character narrators, the implied author, and the authorial audience in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents. The aim of the study was to investigate how narrators, the implied author, and readers position themselves in relation to each other and in relation to the novel’s ethical dimensions. The theoretical framework is based on James Phelan’s theories on the rhetorical and ethical aspects of fiction. The essay argues that the implied author’s communication to the authorial audience is one of the reasons that the novel, like its prequel Parable of the Sower, often succeeds to function as warnings to the audience of dangers ahead. This is especially true regarding one of the implied author’s most consistent messages to the audience throughout the Parable novels: every choice has consequences, and those consequences need to be considered when we decide how to act and react in different circumstances, both as individuals and as a society.

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