The primary aim of this study in creative writing is research into an aspect of the writing process, namely the creation of spatial dynamics in a novel. This objective required the creation of an artefact. A novel titled Somersneeu was written in order to examine the very process of generating spatial dynamics in this novel in particular, as well as in the novel as such. Somersneeu was published by Human & Rousseau in 2010. Practice-based as well as practice-led research was fundamental to this study. An artistic creator registers intellectually whatever unfolds during the creative process and so new knowledge can simultaneously be created. The process of creating a work of art as well as the reflection thereon is fundamental to practice-led research. In other words, the creative process of an artefact like the novel Somersneeu is the source of a certain kind of knowledge that gradually emerges and can eventually be verbalised. Therefore a design concept for creating spatial dynamics may be articulated. It is a fact that a definite coherence exists between space and spatial dynamics. These two concepts are in reality inseparable and this cohesion is what is also being investigated in this study. Space actually consists of spatial dynamics since all the different facets of space, concrete as well as abstract, have definite and inseparable repercussions upon one another, causing a dynamic interaction among all facets of space. Apart from concrete or physical space, numerous abstractions of space take part in this interplay. These spatial abstractions are, for instance culture, identity, zeitgeist and the all-encompassing human psyche. The intense interplay among all the facets of space triggers spatial dynamics. This is the case in real life as well as in fiction. The above mentioned discussion of space and spatial dynamics is followed by an intense and heuristic view of the process of creating spatial dynamics. In order to create spatial dynamics in a novel, a novelist should have a strong sense of place. The essence of creating spatial dynamics in a novel consists mainly of the transformation of sense of place. The main aim of this study is then to present a design concept for the creation of spatial dynamics in a novel. This design concept may be used by other writers in order to create spatial dynamics in a novel. The novel Somersneeu as well as the questionnaire, reception documents and a list of publications of the writer are included as appendixes. / PhD (Afrikaans and Dutch), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The primary aim of this study in creative writing is research into an aspect of the writing process, namely the creation of spatial dynamics in a novel. This objective required the creation of an artefact. A novel titled Somersneeu was written in order to examine the very process of generating spatial dynamics in this novel in particular, as well as in the novel as such. Somersneeu was published by Human & Rousseau in 2010. Practice-based as well as practice-led research was fundamental to this study. An artistic creator registers intellectually whatever unfolds during the creative process and so new knowledge can simultaneously be created. The process of creating a work of art as well as the reflection thereon is fundamental to practice-led research. In other words, the creative process of an artefact like the novel Somersneeu is the source of a certain kind of knowledge that gradually emerges and can eventually be verbalised. Therefore a design concept for creating spatial dynamics may be articulated. It is a fact that a definite coherence exists between space and spatial dynamics. These two concepts are in reality inseparable and this cohesion is what is also being investigated in this study. Space actually consists of spatial dynamics since all the different facets of space, concrete as well as abstract, have definite and inseparable repercussions upon one another, causing a dynamic interaction among all facets of space. Apart from concrete or physical space, numerous abstractions of space take part in this interplay. These spatial abstractions are, for instance culture, identity, zeitgeist and the all-encompassing human psyche. The intense interplay among all the facets of space triggers spatial dynamics. This is the case in real life as well as in fiction. The above mentioned discussion of space and spatial dynamics is followed by an intense and heuristic view of the process of creating spatial dynamics. In order to create spatial dynamics in a novel, a novelist should have a strong sense of place. The essence of creating spatial dynamics in a novel consists mainly of the transformation of sense of place. The main aim of this study is then to present a design concept for the creation of spatial dynamics in a novel. This design concept may be used by other writers in order to create spatial dynamics in a novel. The novel Somersneeu as well as the questionnaire, reception documents and a list of publications of the writer are included as appendixes. / PhD (Afrikaans and Dutch), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This exegesis examines the proposition that playwriting is an entrepreneurial activity when combined with the role of producer. The thesis demonstrates that, when a playwright combines the two roles and considers the development of a network of relationships in the process, positive steps can be made towards the marketing of a work and the career progression of the playwright. The issues of marketing and career progression are considered in a regional context. The thesis comprises the creation of a full-length theatrical work through the MA (Research) Program at Queensland University of Technology and an analysis of that journey in the context of regional theatre practice in Queensland. Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory of the Relational Aesthetic is used as a way of charting my practice and of examining how this approach might be appropriate to theatre-making in regional Australia. The paper establishes strategies by which the playwright, when also undertaking the role of producer, might manage the complex set of circumstances and interactions between the work, the community and the industry. Using practice-led research methodologies, the exegesis examines the process of the creation of a new play, Sinking, and explores, through the use of an autobiographical case study, what the process has meant to the author’s development as a playwright over a fifteen month period. The paper uses a network map to explore the interactions created through a rehearsed reading of the first draft of the play in October 2006 and, in doing so, demonstrates how a close engagement with the community formed the basis of the entrepreneurial strategy. The exegesis demonstrates that Bourriaud’s work connects very closely with the author’s practice and examines how the approach might be useful for other regional arts practitioners, particularly those in the early stages of their careers. The research aims to identify how the creation of the play, and the subsequent interactions generated within a regional community, can lead to opportunities to create connections both within the author’s place of residence and in broader theatre industry contexts, nationally and internationally, in order to provide commercial and professional outcomes.

My visual art practice explores the point at which a sense of bodily humour and revulsion may intersect in the world of the monstrous-feminine: the female grotesque, presented as my own obese (and post-obese) body. This exegesis is a written elucidation of my visual art practice as research. As an artist I create performative photographic images featuring taboo or otherwise 'inappropriate' subject matter, situations, materials and behaviours including bodily fluids, offal, internal organs and my own post-obese body. Through these modes of working, I establish and investigate the subjectivity of flesh: Why are we repulsed by the female grotesque? How can this flesh be used to subvert readings of the female body? My research is informed by those understandings of the female body, sexuality and difference described in the work of feminist theorists including Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous, Ruth Salvaggio and Elizabeth Grosz. I explore the work of influential artists such as Eleanor Antin, Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman and Sarah Lucas. In this context, I present my own visual art practice as a point from which the monstrous-feminine can be given voice as sentient, intelligent flesh.

Lesbian Detective Fiction: the outsider within is a creative writing thesis in two parts: a draft lesbian detective novel, titled Fatal Development (75%) and an exegesis containing a critical appraisal of the sub-genre of lesbian detective fiction, and of my own writing process (25%). Creative work: Fatal Development -- It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dead body, but it didn’t seem to get any easier. -- When Dirk and Stacey discover a body in the courtyard of their Brisbane woolstore apartment, it is close friend and neighbour, Kersten Heller, they turn to for support. The police assume Stuart’s death was an accident, but when it emerges that he was about to take legal action against the woolstore’s developers, Bovine, Kersten decides there must be more to it. Her own apartment has flooded twice in a month and the builders are still in and out repairing defects. She discovers Stuart was not alone on the roof when he fell to his death and the evidence he had collected for his case against Bovine has gone missing. Armed with this knowledge, and fed up with the developer’s ongoing resistance to addressing the building’s structural issues, Kersten organises a class action against Bovine. Kersten draws on her past training as a spy to investigate Stuart’s death, hiding her activities, and details of her past, from her partner, Toni. Her actions bring her under increasing threat as her apartment is defaced, searched and bugged, and she is involved in a car chase across New Farm. Forced to fall back on old skills, old habits and memories return to the surface. When Toni discovers that Kersten has broken her promise to leave the investigation to the police, she walks out. The neighbouring – and heritage-listed – Riverside Coal development site burns to the ground, and Kersten and Dirk uncover evidence of a network of corruption involving developers and local government officials. After she is kidnapped in broad daylight, narrowly escaping from the boot of a moving car, Kersten is confident she is right, but with Toni not returning her calls, and many of the other residents selling up, including Dirk and Stacey, Kersten begins to question her judgment. In a desperate attempt to turn things around, Kersten calls on an old Agency contact to help prove Bovine was involved in Stuart’s death, her kidnapping, and ongoing corruption. To get the evidence she needs, Kersten plays a dangerous game: letting Bovine know she has uncovered their illegal operations in order to draw them into revealing themselves on tape. Hiding alone in a hotel room, Kersten is finally forced to confront her past: When Mirin didn’t come home that night, I was ready to go out and find her myself, disappear, and start a new life together somewhere far away. Instead they pulled me in before I could finish making arrangements, questioned me for hours, turned everything around. It was golden child to problem child in the space of a day. This time, she’s determined, things will turn out differently. Exegesis: The exegesis traces the development of lesbian detective fiction, including its dual origins in detective and lesbian fiction, to compare the current state of the sub-genre with the early texts and to establish the dominant themes and tropes. I focus particularly on Australian examples of the sub-genre, examining in detail Claire McNab’s Denise Cleever series and Jan McKemmish’s A Gap in the Records, in order to position my own lesbian detective novel between these two works. In drafting Fatal Development, I have attempted to include some of the political content and complexity of McKemmish’s work, but with a plot-driven narrative. I examine the dominant tropes and conventions of the sub-genre, such as: lesbian politics; the nature of the crime; method of investigation; sex and romance; and setting. In the final section, I explain the ways in which I have worked within and against the subgenre’s conventions in drafting a contemporary lesbian detective novel: drawing on tradition and subverting reader expectations. Throughout the thesis, I explore in detail the tradition of the fictional lesbian detective as an outsider on the margins of society, disrupting notions of power and gender. While the lesbian detective’s outsider status grants her moral agency and the capacity to achieve justice and generate change, she is never fully accepted. The lesbian detective remains an outsider within. For the lesbian detective, working within a system that ultimately discriminates against her involves conflict and compromise, and a sense of double-play in being part of two worlds but belonging to neither. I explore how this double-consciousness can be applied to the lesbian writer in choosing whether to write for a mainstream or lesbian audience.

Through creative and theoretical research, this practice-led PhD project investigates the conditions that facilitate embodied sensory awareness within digital inter-media installation. Central to this exploration are questions concerning ‘immersion.’ The research uses this term to describe a transformation in perception that allows us to shake off representational and symbolic meaning in favour of embodied, sensory and intuitive awareness within an installation space. Drawing from embodied memories of immersion in natural and spiritual environments, I consider the elements that contributed to these experiences and ask whether it is possible to create this sense of immersion in art. I then consider the elements that produce immersive, inter-media environments including space, sound, light, and projected moving images. Drawing on theoretical and artistic precedents, I propose a set of principles for producing a sense of embodied sensory immersion. The practical outcomes of the research - three digital inter-media installations included in the exhibition, in an other light - incorporate different combinations and treatments of these material elements to investigate and test the proposed principles.

The study is practice-led in visual art and it explores the impact of intermediality to validate that new knowledge emerges via processes that lead to possibilities of transformative hybridity. Intermediality was established and generated through a productive reciprocity between practice and theory as well as between analogue and digital art. The research created a community of enquiry through an exhibition entitled TRANSCODE: dialogues around intermedia practice (2011) in order to model innovative approaches towards improvement of transmedial artistic practice. The diversity of work by artists involved in this exhibition allowed exploration of a range of creative processes to investigate and understand characteristics of productive intermediality. The concept of transcoding in this study was derived from Deleuze and Guattari, which describes how one milieu functions as a foundation for another, implying an intermedial tension. TRANSCODE alludes to the mediation that transcribes meanings across boundaries and within complexity. Selected characteristics of narratives, space, embodiment and visual systems were researched through the lens of mediamatic thinking, which refers to thinking via media. The study proposes that intermediality is best seen as a construct of the tensional differences that become enriched within the grey areas. In applying Deleuze and Guattari‘s metaphor of the rhizome and Tim Ingold‘s concept of the mycelial mesh, the research project not only prompted structured collective thinking through practice, but also captured various case studies relevant to practice-led methodology. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

Text in English with abstracts and keywords in English, Afrikaans and Sesotho / This was a practice-led study, in which I critically engaged with my own video artwork alongside the video works of three other artists. Selected works of Penny Siopis, Anders Weberg, Maja Zack and mine deal with the notions of memory and trauma. I investigated which visual strategies and techniques derived from film theory are employed in video art to simulate traumatic memories from war conflicts. This research analysed specific theories of Gilles Deleuze and Sergei Eisenstein to identify how certain film strategies are used in video art to simulate grievous historical events. I explored the way that these events shape postmemory, as theorised by Marianne Hirsch and Cathy Caruth. The theories of Susan Sontag and Jean Baudrillard describe how memory relies on imaginative investment and interpretation, creating a simulation of the past, in which affect takes precedence over accurate and factual portrayal of traumatic events. / Hierdie studie was ’n praktykgeleide studie waartydens ek my eie videokunswerk tesame met diè van drie ander kunstenaars krities ondersoek het. Gekose werke uit my eie stal, diè van Penny Siopis, Anders Weberg en Maja Zack handel oor die begrippe herinnering en trauma. Ek het ondersoek ingestel na die visuele strategieë en tegnieke voortspruitend uit filmteorie wat in videokuns aangewend word om traumatiese herinneringe van oorlogkonflikte te simuleer. Hierdie navorsing het die spesifieke teorieë van Gilles Deleuze en Sergei Eisenstein ontleed ten einde te identifiseer hoe bepaalde filmstrategieë in videokuns gebruik word om smartlike historiese gebeure te simuleer. Ek het die wyse nagevors waarop hierdie gebeure post-herinneringe modelleer, soos deur Marianne Hirsch en Cathy Caruth geteoretiseer. Die teorieë van Susan Sontag en Jean Baudrillard beskryf hoedat herinneringe op verbeeldingryke belegging en interpretasie steun om ’n simulasie van die verlede te skep waarin affek voorkeur kry bo die akkurate en feitelike voorstelling van traumatiese gebeure. / Seno e ne e le thutopatlisiso e e eteletsweng pele ke tiragatso, moo ke dirisaneng ka tshekatsheko le tiro ya me ya botsweretshi jwa bidio ke e bapisitse le ditiro tsa bidio tsa batsweretshi ba bangwe ba le bararo. Ditiro tse di tlhophilweng tsa ga Penny Siopis, Anders Weberg, Maja Zack le tsa me di samagana le dintlha tsa kgopolo le manokonoko. Ke sekasekile gore go dirisitswe ditogamaano le dithekenini dife tsa pono tse di tswang mo tioring ya difilimi mo botsweretshing jwa bidio go etsisa dikgopolo tsa manokonoko a dikgotlhang tsa ntwa. Patlisiso eno e lokolotse ditiori tse di rileng tsa ga Gilles Deleuze le Sergei Eisenstein go supa ka moo ditogamaano dingwe tsa filimi di dirisiwang ka gona mo botsweretshing jwa bidio go etsisa ditiragalo tse di botlhoko tsa hisetori. Ke tlhotlhomisitse ka moo ditiragalo tseno di bopang segopotso sa morago go ya ka tiori ya Marianne Hirsch le Cathy Caruth. Ditiori tsa ga Susan Sontag le Jean Baudrillard di tlhalosa ka moo kgopolo e ikaegang ka peeletso ya ikakanyetso le thanolo ka gona, e etsisa dilo tsa maloba, moo e leng gore ditlamorago e nna tsona ditlapele go feta pontsho e e nepagetseng le ya nnete ya ditiragalo tse di bakileng manokonoko. / Art and Music / M.V.A.