This dissertation explores the complex entanglements of an artistic traffic between two distinct 'visual economies' in eastern India, c.1772-c.1795. Both late Mughal and early colonial cultures were undergoing transformation, to the extent that during this era the nascent colonial artistic diaspora collapsed. Three inter-related areas will be interrogated: the prestation and commercial circulation of imagery between London, Calcutta and Murshidabad, the dichotomies of political and aesthetic spheres, and colonial representations of late Mughal culture as embroiled by such frameworks. Chapter one examines India-painted subjects in a metropolitan aesthetic sphere, thus acting as crucial juxtaposition for the refiguration of British art in Calcutta, which is the subject of the following section. Hastings' regime wielded British art as part of an intensely spectacular colonial governmentality, but his successor Cornwallis, took a tougher line with devastating effect. A diversity of competing, derivative idioms ousted professional colonial painting forever; its artistic schema penetrated to 'grass-roots' level through the creation of a 'Company School' which transposed the practice of the patua caste. Chapters five to seven investigate nawabi perceptions of British imagery. Hastings introduced the gifting of large-scale portraits; artefacts ill-suited to Indian interiors and aesthetic interiority - perhaps not even viewed as 'art'. The final chapter, through representations of the nawabs of Murshidabad and Lucknow, traces the evolution of British pictures as accoutrements of Mughal sovereignty. By 1795 both courts possessed permanent if 'hybrid' expositions of colonial imagery which transgressed established Indian and British classifications, as well as indicating more profound redefinitions of Indian comportment, consumption and taste. The intersection of 'visual economies' by way of an exploration of diverse zones of transculturation and processes of translation, provides a vital lens for recovering Indian and British agency - both elite and subaltern, in the oft-uneasy formation of a colonial aesthetic forum.

This thesis deals with the two partially interlocking aspects of female patronage and female spirituality in Italian art during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. My aim has been to expand the knowledge of this subject not through a detailed examination of one female patron, her spirituality, and how it affected her commissions, but through a number of representative examples in order to show the breadth and diversity of women's influence over art, both active and passive. I have therefore surveyed previous assumptions on female patronage and the opportunities that existed for it, taking a number of smaller examples so as to lay a base for my later arguments. One of the main problems that emerged was a misunderstanding of the clothes depicted as being worn both by the subjects of the paintings and by the donors, and also the subjective use of clothes in order to put across a message. This aspect also bears on the variety of women's religious experience which underlies the whole of this investigation. It forms a base for my chapters on commissions by and for the Poor Clares and the female Vallombrosan order. Finally, I have looked at two examples of lay female patronage only one of which takes a woman as its subject, and examined the reasons for the choice of subject in relation to the spiritual influences of the commissioner and also the ways in which the direct influence of the patron can be assessed. My research has indicated that both lay women and nuns were not only capable of paying for ambitious projects but that they could also positively affect their iconography. Women's influence over art during this period, and the impact of their spirituality on it, both actively and passively, has only previously been investigated in a few instances. The aim of this thesis is to provide an overview of the female patronage and female spirituality in art and to show that women's influence over art was present in many spheres of society and was not an exception to the rule.

Siekiant pagaminti stabilias smulkiadispersines emulsines sistemas, naudojant mažas emulsiklių koncentracijas (0,1-0,4%), optimizuojant technologinį procesą, tiriamos naujų emulsiklių panaudojimo galimybės. Poliakrilo rūgšties polimerai (Pemulen™ TR-1 ir TR-2 )-universalūs a/v emulsijų emulsikliai, nepasižymintys toksiškumu aplinkai bei žmogui, kuriuos naudojant mažomis koncentracijomis – 0,1-0,4% - gali būti pagamintos įvairių formų stabilios emulsijos. Šio darbo tikslas ištirti ir įvertinti poliakrilo rūgšties polimerų Pemulen™ TR-1 ir Pemulen™ TR-2 bei pagalbinių medžiagų, nejonogeninio emulsiklio Span 80 ir Carbopol® Ultrez 20, įtaką emulsijų a/v stabilumui, tyrimo rezultatus panaudoti, kuriant pusiau kietų preparatų receptūras. / In order to prepare stable dispersive emulsion systems using low concentration of emulsifiers (0,1-0,4%) optimizing technological process, the use of new emulsifiers is investigated. Different kinds of stable emulsions can be prepared using polyacrylic acid polymers (Pemulen™ TR-1 and TR-2) while using low concentrations - 0,1-0,4% – environmentally non-toxic and human friendly universal o/w emulsion emulsifiers. Goal of this thesis - to analyse and evaluate the influence of polyacrylic acid polymer Pemulen™ TR-1 and Pemulen™ TR-2 and auxiliary substances nonionic surfactant Span 80 and Carbopol® Ultrez 20 for o/w emulsion stability and to use results of analysis in designing semi-solid formulas.

Post-production facilities deal with large amounts of digital video, which presents difficulties when tracking, managing and searching this material. Recent research work in image and video analysis promises to offer help in these tasks, but there is a gap between what these systems can provide and what users actually need. In particular the popular research models for indexing and retrieving visual data do not fit well with how users actually work. In this thesis we explore how image and video analysis can be applied to an online video collection to assist users in reviewing and searching for material faster, rather than purporting to do it for them. We introduce a framework for automatically generating static 2-dimen- sional storyboards from video sequences. The storyboard consists of a series of frames, one for each shot in the sequence, showing the principal objects and motions of the shot. The storyboards are rendered as vector images in a familiar comic book style, allowing them to be quickly viewed and understood. The process consists of three distinct steps: shot-change detection, object segmentation, and presentation. The nature of the video material encountered in a post-production fa- cility is quite different from other material such as television programmes. Video sequences such as commercials and music videos are highly dy- namic with very short shots, rapid transitions and ambiguous edits. Video is often heavily manipulated, causing difficulties for many video processing techniques. We study the performance of a variety of published shot-change de- tection algorithms on the type of highly dynamic video typically encoun- tered in post-production work. Finding their performance disappointing, we develop a novel algorithm for detecting cuts and fades that operates directly on Motion-JPEG compressed video, exploiting the DCT coeffi- cients to save computation. The algorithm shows superior performance on highly dynamic material while performing comparably to previous algorithms on other material.

This thesis is concerned with multi-media performance and installation art practices which foreground the live body in combination with mediatized images. The research is conducted through the making and examination of a number of the researcher's own art works. Practical multi-media performance and installation projects are analysed within the context of specific performance and visual cultural theories in order to advance their contribution to critical and cultural fields. The research champions a symbiotic relationship between theory and practice. Practical works were undertaken and exhibited as solo or collaborative art projects. These works then formed the basis for individual ‘case studies' and were subjected to a critical review informed by a variety of theoretical frameworks including feminist, psychoanalytic and poststructuralist philosophy. This practice-based methodology is contextualised by the mapping of historical and contemporary critical discourses for the field of multi-media performance. The ‘reflection-on-action' results in an understanding of the mechanisms and effects of multi-media performance as a cultural practice. Specifically this thesis aims to answer the question as to whether multimedia performance can form the basis for an ‘interrogation' of our contemporary media dominated society? Through a practice-led enquiry it unpacks the dynamics between a meeting of live bodies and mediatized images, concentrating on the differences and similarities of their experiential sensory qualities. The research then extends these findings into social and political contexts through a comparison with other ‘reality' and ‘identity' re/producing cultural practices. The study concludes that cameras and recorded images used within live and/or time based art contexts can counteract the conventional constitution of mediatized images. To the extent that mediatized images can also be said to reflect and in turn constitute human subjectivity, multi-media performance, therefore, can provoke a re-evaluation of culture and its associated human activities and behaviours.

This thesis is a critical examination of my own creative practice through my published works in the moving image: a short film, commercials and a television series title sequence. My creative approach has been to use a hybrid of digital and heritage practices to create original works for television, advertising and film. I define ‘heritage' as traditional, analogue and handmade practices that predate or overlap digital technology. I consider ‘digital' as a description of the means of production and also a medium of communication. Educational research, as a qualitative and quantative study in lens-based media also contributes to this thesis and forms an argument for future directions in art and design practice. The thesis explores the ways I fused heritage and digital practices to create works that were original at publication. A second aim is to recognise the different skills required by artists and designers to embrace a multiplicity of technologies, skills which can provide sites of resistance to technological and socio-economic change. Lastly, the thesis proposes a pedagogical imperative to ensure that heritage skills do not atrophy, but develop and are reinvigorated with new possibilities combined with digital practices and platforms of communication. Many of my works have been broadcast to a global audience, but I have also published through traditional academic journals. In the thesis I analyse the production methods that created the range of work presented here. My narrative of production unmasks the processes of illusion and argues that hybrid techniques can offer a more ‘human' expression that carries greater ‘authenticity' and a broader capacity of meaning than an entirely digitally created technique. Stimulated by a range of theoretical discourse I examine human relationships with technology in the creative industries. I also examine the conditions of production from a political economy perspective. The reflective and critical commentary on my published works argues for an urgency to this study. I conclude that to avoid ‘sleepwalking' into a digital conformity, heritage processes must be celebrated and advocated as areas of difference particularly in education. Taken together, I consider my creative practice and my educational work as a pedagogic intervention to explore a multiplicity of creative expression rather than enclose moving image in a solely digital medium.

Using my family experience as an auto-ethnographic case, I consider how photography creates postmemory and counter-memory and how it has come to adopt the position it currently holds in funereal rituals in Athens. My historical examination begins from the Byzantine creation of the cult of relics and the cult of saints. Through the history of the Orthodox religion and the creation of the Neohellenic state, I regard concepts of visual representation of death and identity. I examine the trends and tensions which have shaped death practices in relation to the semantic nature of and cultural impositions in the photographic artefact. These are the dominant factors which have constituted the photograph as a representation of death and counter-memory. I consider the cultural need to create visual representations and I examine such images as cultural products of communicating the thoughts and anxieties of the group which installs them; as such, photographs are representative of the mutability of death. In a secular age, the photographs of the deceased are treated by the living so they become quasi-sacred representations of symbolic capital and operate under a different system of values, according to the era in which they are produced. I argue that the way photographs in graveyards are currently transcending the roles Orthodox funereal doctrine bestowed upon them and the manner in which the photographic installations are accelerating in funereal practices, is a compensatory reaction to the postmodern disaffection of urban death. Keywords: photography, death-ritual, post-memory, identity, individualisation, Orthodoxy, Athens.

This thesis interrogates partnership working between galleries and youth organisations involved in a four-year, Tate led programme called Circuit (2013-2017). This programme sought to build sustainable networks with youth organisations and services across England and Wales in order to ‘improve access and opportunities for harder to reach young people’ who may not otherwise engage with galleries and museums (Circuit, 2013a). Reflecting on the similarities and divergences that characterise practice in gallery education and youth work, this research untangles the historic barriers and tensions that have affected relationships between practitioners, organisations and the youth and visual art sectors. Mobilising Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, galleries and youth organisations are conceptualised as part of distinct ‘fields’, and their particular traditions, customs and internal contests are analysed. An exploration of the fields’ development under successive governments and changing policy priorities reveals that art organisations benefit from a greater affordance of agency and autonomy than youth organisations, which contributes to the uneven power dynamics that often exist in these cross-sector alliances. Reports from engagement with sector events also highlight how concepts of art and creativity frequently deviate between the fields. Through an ethnographic approach to the research context, participant observations and interviews produce data about Circuit’s programmatic decisions, and its efforts to shift problematic habitual practices. A series of in-depth site studies illustrate different ways for organisations to work together, as well as the challenges of collaboration in pressured political and economic circumstances. Cross-site analysis allows for further deliberation on the compatibility of Circuit’s wider peer-led programme agenda with the comparative agenda and practice of youth organisations. The ambition for young people to continue an independent relationship with the galleries’ programmes is shown to be hindered by a number of sometimes-misrecognised factors that unintentionally alienate certain communities of young people, particularly from working class backgrounds. The final stage of the analysis studies the identity, attitudes and positions of various youth sector agents working and participating within Circuit, and the specific ‘capital’ they bring to the temporary programmatic field. In discussing the implications for practice and research, this thesis asks whether (beyond programmes such as Circuit) it would be possible to establish a permanent collaborative or cooperative field between the youth and gallery sectors. I argue that this would only happen if a range of systemic changes were made, such as the development of national and regional structures to support integrated practice sharing; deeper engagement with the meaning and repercussions of partnership working; a determination to work collaboratively to address social urgencies facing young people, and a fundamental commitment to shift pervasive inequalities in the visual art sector.

Conventional 3D imaging techniques such as laser scanning, focus-stacking and confocal microscopy either require scanning in all or a subset of the spatial dimensions, or else are limited by their depth of field (DOF). Scanning increases the acquisition time, therefore techniques which rely on it cannot be used to image moving scenes. In order to acquire both the intensity of the scene and its depth, extending the DOF without scanning is therefore necessary. This is traditionally achieved by stopping the system down (reducing the f/#). This, however, has the highly undesirable effect of lowering both the throughput and the lateral resolution of the system. In microscopy in particular, both these parameters are critical, therefore there is scope in breaking this trade-off. The objective of this work, therefore, is to develop a practical and simple 3D imaging technique which is capable of acquiring both the irradiance of the scene and its depth in a single snapshot over an extended DOF without incurring a reduction in optical throughput and lateral resolution. To this end, a new imaging technique, referred to as complementary Kernel Matching (CKM), is proposed in this thesis. To extend the DOF, in CKM a hybrid imaging technique known as wavefront coding (WC) has been used. WC permits the DOF to be extended by an order of magnitude typically without reducing the efficiency and the resolution of the system. Moreover, WC only requires the introduction of a phase mask in the aperture of the system, hence it also has the benefit of simplicity and practicality. Unfortunately, in practice, WC systems are found to suffer from post-recovery artefacts and distortion, which substantially degrade the quality of the acquired image. To date, this long-standing problem has found no solution and is probably the cause for the lack of exploitation of this imaging technique by the industry. In CKM, use of a largely ignored phenomenon associated with WC was made to measure the depth of the sample. This is the lateral translation of the scene in proportion to its depth. Furthermore, once the depth of the scene is known, the ensuing artefacts and distortion due to the introduction of the WC element can be compensated for. As a result, a high quality intensity image of the scene and its depth profile (referred to in stereo vision parlance as a depth map) is obtained over a DOF which is typically an order of magnitude larger than that of an equivalent clear-aperture system. This implies that, besides being a 3D imaging technique, CKM is also a solution to one of the longest standing problem in WC itself. By means of WC, therefore, the DOF was extended without scanning and without reducing the throughput and the optical resolution, allowing both an intensity image of the scene to be acquired and its depth map. In addition, CKM is inherently monocular, therefore it does not suffer from occlusion, which is a major problem affecting triangulation-based 3D imaging techniques such as the popular stereo vision. One therefore concludes that CKM fulfils the objectives set for this project. In this work, various ways of implementing CKM were explored and compared; and the theory associated with them was developed. An experimental prototype was then built and the technique was demonstrated experimentally in microscopy. The results show that CKM eliminates WC artefacts and thus gives high quality images of the scene over an extended DOF. A DOF of ∼ 20μm was achieved on a 40×, 0.5NA system experimentally, however this can be increased if required. The experimental depth reconstructions of real samples (such as pollen grains and a silicon die) imaged in various modalities (reflection, transmission and fluorescence) were comparable to those given by a focus-stack. However, as with all other passive techniques, the performance of CKM depends on the texture and features in the scene itself. On a binary systematic scene consisting of regularly spaced dots with a linear depth gradient, an RMS error of ±0.15μm was obtained from an image signal-to-noise ratio of 60dB. Finally, owing to its simplicity and large DOF, there is scope in investigating the possibility of using the same CKM setup for 3D point localisation applications such as super resolution. An initial investigation was therefore conducted by localising sub-resolution fluorescent beads. On a 40×, 0.5NA system, a mean precision of 148nm in depth and < 30nm in the lateral dimensions was observed experimentally from 4, 000 photons per localisation over a DOF of 26μm. From these experimental values, a mean localisation precision of < 34nm in depth and < 13nm in the lateral dimensions from 2, 000 photons per localisation over a DOF of 3μm is expected on a more typical 100×, 1.4NA system. This compares favourably to the competition, therefore we conclude that there is scope in investigating this technique for 3D point localisation applications further.

This practice-based research sets out to explore new ways of visualizing and conceptualizing the notion of aura in art. It departs from Walter Benjamin’s widely known critique of aura, the thesis of which is that aura as ‘uniqueness’ of an artwork decays with the rise of technological reproducibility. Benjamin affirms with the decay of aura also the loss of the transposition of religious projections of distance onto fascist politics. His thesis had a major influence on contemporary critical theory where aura is still approached with great reservations. These concern a relapse into religious structures, which mirror, so the thesis argues, the fact that aura has been, also in Benjamin’s ambivalent conceptualization, left ‘territorialized’ in a regime of transcendence in art. The main research question has been: What could aura mean for painting in the expanded field, especially in relation to digital imaging? The outcomes of this research are paintings, works on paper (both involving the input of digital sources), digital films and writings. The thesis develops a reading and visual ‘mapping’ of aura in the framework of Gilles Deleuze’s (and Félix Guattari’s) ontology of immanence where difference and its repetition as differentiation replaces the static metaphysics of ‘origin’ or ‘essence’. Splendor Solis, a series of book illuminations from the Northern Renaissance proved to become a major visual source for experimentation. Aura is introduced in this alchemical work as the ‘splendour’ of Becoming, the deframing power of the differential processes that accompany individuation. As a sensation experienced in intuitive art practice, aura affects and is affected by a field of interacting multiplicities and the potentiality of temporal differentiations, which reach beyond any ascertained subjectivity into virtual collective questions and problems. Aura suggests as an ‘echo’ of Becoming an involvement with affects, and the research follows strands between qualitative intense moments that activate a ‘wound’ and extend to what Deleuze calls a ‘wound that existed before me’, an experience related to the synthesis of future, which confronts an individual with its emerging double. Constructing, or ‘mapping’ aura as visuals on an axis that involves media of ‘uniqueness’ and digital technology gives those outcomes an ontological status of ‘simulacra’ or assemblages, far from the traditional associations aura would evoke. Touching both experience and experiment, so the thesis argues, aura in immanence can provide an access to the virtualities of the ‘new’ in art practice. The research introduces a visual scenario or ‘conceptual persona’ for intuition, which as method of this research folds both practice and writing. Friedrich Hölderlin’s unfinished play Empedocles at Etna, provides a metaphor or metamorphosis encompassing aura’s and intuition’s involvement with immediacy and duration. The practice documentation of the thesis reflects the strands of the research as plurality of its differentiations, allowing the dynamics of its method in action to reflect the dynamics of aura.