Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo akademi, 1999. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes filmography/videography (p. 373-374), bibliographical references (p. 374-390), discography (p. 391-393), and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo akademi, 1999. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes filmography/videography (p. 373-374), bibliographical references (p. 374-390), discography (p. 391-393), and index.

The areas of investigation are the portrait, the gaze, the American filmmaker Errol Morris, representation of reality and subcultures. These are discussed within an historical, technical, cultural and social framework. Colour, the film theorist Bill Nichols, the filmmaker Errol Morris are discussed with reference to the central gaze and what constitutes reality. Taking on another identity, the role of subcultures and my influences as a photographer are explored within this context. Work for Examination Other Lives is a photographic work consisting of portraits including: civil war re-enactors who believe that the war between the northern and southern states of America still exist Elvis Presley impersonators and fans who believe that Elvis Presley still lives people who take on another identity as scarecrows in the context of a local festival people who take on another identity as medieval knights.

The areas of investigation are the portrait, the gaze, the American filmmaker Errol Morris, representation of reality and subcultures. These are discussed within an historical, technical, cultural and social framework. Colour, the film theorist Bill Nichols, the filmmaker Errol Morris are discussed with reference to the central gaze and what constitutes reality. Taking on another identity, the role of subcultures and my influences as a photographer are explored within this context. Work for Examination Other Lives is a photographic work consisting of portraits including: civil war re-enactors who believe that the war between the northern and southern states of America still exist Elvis Presley impersonators and fans who believe that Elvis Presley still lives people who take on another identity as scarecrows in the context of a local festival people who take on another identity as medieval knights.

Originality is an important social and cultural value. In pop music its influence is comprehensive: it shapes the economics of an industry through copyright law, and the temperament of musical culture through its place as keystone of the prevailing Romantic tradition. The concept extends beyond issues of artistic and technical innovation: a point of origin is fundamental to the stories we tell about pop. What these stories tell us about ourselves and the way we use music, though, may be more complex than the orthodoxy allows; while the moderns from Eliot and Frye through Barthes and Foucault have sliced and diced originality in text, its interrogation in popular music is overdue. This study seeks to address the social and cultural context, the implications for individual identity and the issues of creative intention, status, popularity and profitability that come into play at those moments when the cultural honours of “originality” are conferred. Working from archival and textual resources, the research explores the entry of “black music” into pop culture with the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, who can be seen both as the source of several cultural streams which remain influential in popular music, and as the source of a popular mythology which has become detached from historical fact. It then proceeds to three case studies. The problem of what it means to start something new is developed in the story of Elvis Presley and the foundation myth of rock & roll. The professional use of originality is interrogated in the work of the Beatles, a foursome with a strong claim to be the greatest plagiarists, if not the greatest originators in pop. And the artistic idea of originality and its contingencies are addressed through the case of Lou Reed and the changing status of his album Metal Machine Music. A final chapter assesses the conclusions which can be made from these explorations, and the implications for future research.

In the novel Elvis Plays Texas, which is my Thesis project to meet the requirements for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing/Fiction, a little town in far, far West Texas and its people are having a very difficult time and facing what promises to be a bleak future—a long, long drought has exhausted their water supply, oil has peaked and turned down, “fracking” threatens their way of life, friends and family and neighbors are loading up and leaving town. Then, Elvis Presley shows up. It’s the 40th anniversary of the day he died, August 16, 1977, and he, spiritually though appearing in every way to be flesh and blood, is visiting those who’ve continued believing in him and to whom he had been particularly important during their younger lives. My own long history in that part of the country has played its considerable role in informing the setting, the tone, the atmosphere. These are the kinds of characters—strange birds all—I grew up with. The country is the southwestern desert, hot, dry, empty, big sky—the kind of neighborhood that lends itself to oddities like Elvis throwing a benefit concert to help them out of the economic ditch.

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