As art historians uncover the many sources and catalysts that have contributed to the emergence of black contemporary art in South Africa, one of the principal influences is that derived from the Christian mission churches and breakaway separatist groups - the African Independent Churches (AICs). Histories of African art have failed adequately to consider the art that emerged from these contexts, regarding it perhaps as too coerced and distinctive – merely religious art subject to the rigours of liturgical or proselytizing function. The purpose of this dissertation is to foreground this art and its position in the development of both pioneer and contemporary South African art and to identify the many features, both stylistic and thematic, which distinguish this work. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

No description available.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English

The United States Civil War continues to be an intriguing aspect of history to both scholar and layperson. In light of this broad interest, the relatively small amount of scholarly study of music created by American composers during these years is conspicuous. One of the war's significant composers, both in relationship to the composition and publication of songs in America, was George Frederick Root. Not only were Root's compositions numerous, several pieces assumed major positions in the ongoing sociopolitical musings of a nation seeking to process these turbulent years. This document explores Root's development and productivity as a Civil War era composer and publisher. It also considers his music as representative of the scores of popular compositions that reflected the spirit, artistry, politics, religion, and social processing by the people of the United States of America during one of the most defining periods of its relatively short existence.Chapter one serves as an introduction. It identifies the context, scope, methodology, and delimitation of the study.Chapter two provides a brief overview of the social and cultural climate of the country at the time of the Civil War. It identifies how various forms of artistic expression carried the war directly into private parlors and public squares. More specifically, it discusses the role of parlor songs not only as an important cultural expression for the nation, but also as a valuable commodity for composers and publishers of music such as George Frederick Root.Chapter three describes the developmental years of Root as a composer and businessman. From Willow Farm to the first Normal Music Institute, Root built a foundation of experience and skill that set the scene for a significant impact upon American culture. Influenced by musicians such as Lowell Mason, Louis Gottschalk, and Stephen Foster, his musical landscape was diverse and deeply rooted in the language of popular culture. George Root partnered with his brother Ebenezer Root and business associate Cauncey Cady at the Chicago-based publishing firm of Root and Cady to provide a production and delivery system for music that infiltrated all areas of the country.Chapter four is a collection of Root's thirty-six vocal Civil War parlor songs published by the Root and Cady Publishing Company. The songs are reproduced from the original sheet music. Each song is summarized and the entire collection is analyzed based upon musical and textual considerations.Chapter five provides a summary of this project as well as questions for further study. / School of Music

The autobiographical nature of my work deals with the space between the innocence of childhood and the wisdom of adulthood. I explore the complexities of personal experience, old and new landscapes and the scar tissue of memory. The work deals with beginnings and departures, relationships and conflict of power and vulnerability in the quest to make sense of life. My work connects with moments of childhood that I try to retain as a touchstone for authentic experience. The images are derived from personal and familial experiences, moving through to the universal to tell the human tale, using the human body as a metaphor. The body becomes the subject matter for expressing ideas about our universal and personal concerns. I explore the gulf between the real and the unreal through examining themes such as identity, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, alienation, abandonment, loss, corruption of innocence, love and death within a contemporary urban framework. These emotions are played out against the backdrop of daily domesticity and reflect the physical reality of the world around us, often exposing the contrast between the orderly veneer of our daily lives and our emotional reality. My work methodology uses narrative found in books, films, fairy tales or fables to explore the conflicting emotions which structure human identity and interaction. I use the stories as a way of approaching ideas or emotions and exploiting the story as a focus of cultural knowledge. In the search for emotional truth I draw parallels between my art practice and the search for authenticity within the theatre. My work is an attempt to explain my own creative process in relation to the artists who have influenced me, my childhood, its rich tradition of storytelling and my passion for theatre and literature as well as a search for meaning in my own relationships and life's journey. This is conveyed through a series of paintings and works on paper.

The research project uses still life as a means of exploring current events of violence and oppression. These events are represented through juxtaposing plastic toys with organic objects. The toys include a range of popular generic toys such as army men, cowboys and Indians and toy soldiers. The organic objects were selected for their relationship to the specific event being represented. The toys and organic objects were positioned to create interesting and logical compositions. Themes of the series include opposing objects and ideas pitched against each other such as plastic/organic, perpetrator/victim, violence/peacefulness and destruction/sustenance. Within each work the plastic toys take on the demeanor of the tyrant(s), whereas the organic objects adopt the role of the victim(s). The research project uses these themes to convey the message that violence is both a barbaric way of dealing with conflict and a senseless form of self-expression. I have used symbols and metaphors to build a visual language. For the language to be translated accurately a great deal of research has taken place into the appropriate still life objects for each work. Each work incorporates metaphors and or symbols for both the oppressor and victim within the event being represented. The studio outcome of this research project, Silent Bang, includes a series of highly detailed finished paintings of various scales. Silent Bang as a body of work is colourful and aims to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to conveying a powerful message that incites interpretation.

This thesis will examine the practice of relational aesthetics as it involves the viewer, as well as the way in which it plays out within and outside of the institutional setting of the museum. I will focus primarily on two unique projects: that of The Machine Project Field Guide at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 15, 2008, produced by Machine Project, a social project operated out of a storefront gallery in Echo Park; and David Michalek's Slow Dancing at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City, July 12-29 2007.

Through an exploration of both sculptural and thought processes undertaken in making my Masters exhibition, ‘Hippocampus’, I unpack some possibilities, instabilities, and limitations inherent in representation and visual perception. This thesis explores the Hippocampus as image (seahorse) and concept (brain-structure involved in cognitive mapping of space). Looking at Gilles Deleuze’s writings on representation, I will expand on the notion of the map as being that which does not define and fix a structure or meaning, but rather is open, extendable and experimental. I explore the becoming, rather than the being, of image and concept. The emphasis here is on process, non-representation, and fluidity of meaning. This is supportive of my personal affirmation of the practice and process of art-making as research. I will refer to the graphic prints of Maurits Cornelis Escher as a means to elucidate a visual contextualization of my practical work, particularly with regard to the play with two- and three-dimensional space perception. Through precisely calculated ‘experiments’ that show up the partiality of our visual perception of space, Escher alludes to things that either cannot actually exist as spatial objects or do exist, but resist representation. Similarly I will explore how my own sculptures, although existing in space resist a fixed representation and suggest ideas of other spaces, non-spaces; an in-between space that does not pin itself down and become fixed to any particular image, idea, objector representation.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished