This M. F. A. thesis exhibition consists of painting, sculpture, and video completed over the last five months. In support of the exhibition, an artist's statement outlines my exploration of the interaction between artist and audience, stylization and mass production of image.

Thesis (B. Arch.)--Roger Williams University, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 3, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B. Arch.)--Roger Williams University, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 17, 2010) Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

No description available.

Some art educators working in communities exemplify an alternative to the more common and stereotypical notion of the artist as autonomous, self-focused, and neutral. They view art-making and education as vehicles for social justice, and in some cases for social and political activism. In these broader social functions, the boundaries between art, education and activism fade. Drawing on perspectives from community art education, sociology, art criticism, critical pedagogy, and social justice education, and based on in-depth interviews with participants, this study examines the motivations, perspectives, development, and experiences of five artist/educator/activists who work in community-based settings in Tucson, Arizona. Common characteristics, as well as questions and implications for further research, are presented and discussed.

Computers are being employed in a variety of ways by a variety of individuals to create imagery. Much work has been done to accurately model natural phenomena in the context of computer graphics as well as model specific artists' tools and techniques. Focusing on the dynamics of water flow across surfaces, it is the goal of this work to develop a physically inspired texturing tool that allows artists to create interesting staining and wearing effects on surfaces. Weathering or the wearing down of materials by natural forces can create complex and beautiful patterns on a variety of surfaces. In this process lies the very essence of the creative act. To distill the essence of the elements of the water staining process, we employ a computer generated particle system in a phenomenological model. The motion of these particles is controlled by physically based constraints, such as wind, gravity, mass, etc. The way in which each particle interacts with or modifies the look of the surface is further controlled by parameters such as surface roughness, surface color and surface hardness. Each particle can remove or deposit material as it flows across the surface, creating complex patterns.

This thesis will seek to examine the parallel which it will argue exists between the theorising of artistic inspiration and the resulting conception of the figure of the artist in the works of Joyce and Nietzsche. Recent critical work on the relationship between Joyce and Nietzsche has tended to focus exclusively on the question of influence. In ‘The Struggle against Meta (Phantasma)-Physics: Nietzsche, Joyce and the “Excess of History”’, for example, drawing his reading in particular from The Use and Abuse of History, Joseph Buttigieg gives a broad account of Nietzsche’s conception of history, but, in effect, uses his reading of Nietzsche to simply augment his reading of Joyce, arguing that his conception of the ‘postmodern’ Nietzsche can ‘illuminate and give depth’ to the works of the ‘modernist’ Joyce. In The Aesthetics of James Joyce, Jacques Aubert discusses what he calls the ‘Nietzschean overtones’ of Joyce’s work. Aubert focuses on what he argues is Hegel’s crucial influence on Joyce and appears to align Nietzsche, and Nietzsche’s influence on Joyce, with what he allusively refers to as ‘post-Hegelian’ or ‘Neo-Hegelian’ philosophy, though it is never clear precisely what he intends these to denote. In ‘Beyond Truth and Freedom: The New Faith of Joyce and Nietzsche’, Joseph Valente gives an illuminating account of Joyce and Nietzsche’s mutual rejection of metaphysics, but focuses exclusively on the later Joyce and Nietzsche. Again, Valente frames his argument specifically in terms of an influence, drawing on an idiosyncratic reading of the concept of the ‘superman’ and identifying Stephen Stephen as ‘recognizably Zarathustrian’. The central problem with the critical approach these accounts share in common, which concerns itself with the question of influence, is that it obliges itself to attribute a detailed and philosophically thoroughgoing reading of Nietzsche’s works to Joyce, one not always necessarily in evidence in the criticism itself. It must thus be at pains to stretch available biographical information on Joyce’s reading of Nietzsche, as well as examples drawn from Joyce’s texts, in order to fit a partial, incomplete or inaccurate characterisation of Nietzsche’s thought; threatening to transform Joyce into some kind of ‘Nietzschean’ and Nietzsche into some kind of anticipatory ‘Joycean’. By contrast, then, this thesis will seek to set aside the problematic question of influence from the outset, instead seeking to examine the mutually illuminating parallel which it will argue exists between the theorising of artistic inspiration and the resulting conception of the figure of the artist in the works of Joyce and Nietzsche. It will argue that this parallel has mutually illuminating consequences for an understanding of both Nietzsche and Joyce’s relationships to metaphysics and, through this, to Romanticism. It will be the task of this thesis to explain the way in which both Nietzsche and Joyce retain the key terms of Romantic accounts of artistic inspiration, whilst rejecting the metaphysical claims at stake in them.

Ngaromoana Raureti Tomoana is a painter from the East Coast of the North Island. In more than 30 years she has produced and shown a large body of work, like many other women artists concurrently juggling motherhood and artistic performance. Over approximately the last 10 years, she has formalized her education completing the Advanced Diploma for Maori Visual Arts at Toihoukura in Gisborne as well as a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Maori Visual Arts at Massey University. The artist, who identifies as an Indigenous Village Artist, is hardly known outside her local area of Northern Hawkes Bay, and, apart from a short feature in Mataora , a picture in Te Ata , and various catalogue entries, little has been written about her work. This thesis introduces Ngaromoana Raureti Tomoana and explores the notion of an indigenous village art. I incorporate feminist and postcolonial discourses into a political and critical engagement with her art, which addresses issues of village and land based cultural identity as well as race and gender. I argue that her work is politically motivated and important in the context of contemporary Maori art. Furthermore, based on a holistic world view, it simultaneously reaches out into the wider, global community. Intertwining local and personal history, her oeuvre is the manifestation of a female path and a female perspective, of identification with her village and beyond.

No description available.

Denna uppsats grundar sig i kommunikationens värld där det konstant byggs nya varianter av kommunikationsmedel. Music branding är ett kommunikationsmedel med musik som sitt verktyg. Med sin emotionella kraft används music branding av företag för att marknadsföra och bilda varumärken. Syftet med denna uppsats är att ta reda på vad music branding innebär, och hur musik kan bära budskap för varumärkesprofilering. För att ta reda på innebörden av musik som ett kommunikationsverktyg har musikartister blivit uppsatsens andra stora ämne, vilket flyter samman med music branding processen då erfarenheter har visat att artister faktiskt i sig är budskapsbärare och ger effekt på hur ett varumärke profileras. Arbetet avgränsas till sändarperspektivet i kommunikationsprocessen och tre olika respondenter har valts ut för att besvara lika många centrala frågeställningar. Respondenterna har varit en artistgrupp, en music branding-konsult, och en produktmanager på ett skivbolag. Frågeställningarna har varit: hur varumärken kommuniceras med musik? Vad har artister för roll i varumärkesprofileringen och vilka effekter eftersträvas? Hur ser artister på det egna varumärkesbyggandet? Resultaten är baserade på kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer och litteraturstudier på tidigare forskning kring ämnet, och kan sammanfattas med att musiken är en viktig del av människors liv och något som berör oss dagligen emotionellt. Just därför har dess funktion betydelse för hur våra känslor, uppfattningar, och tolkningar skapas, och slutligen att varumärkesprofilering behöver musikens närvaro.