Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2005. / Vita. Illustrations not reproduced. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-206).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Iowa, 2009. / Thesis supervisor: Sarah Kanouse.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-43). Also available in print.

"VIDEO HIROBA: Contingent Publics and Video Communication in Japan, 1966-1981" is the first major study in English or Japanese of the seminal 1970s video collective Video Hiroba (Video Plaza). Formed in the aftermath of both Expo ’70 and the late 1960s season of protest, Video Hiroba’s founding in 1972 coincided with a moment of crisis in public space. The combination of high economic growth, rapid industrialization and urbanization, and expansion of mass media in the 1960s also sparked a series of cultural debates around the effects of eizō (technological images) and media (both mass media systems and media technologies) under the highly-managed conditions of the information age, encompassed in the term kanri shakai (the managed or controlled society). Through encounters with North American video practitioners and engagements with these Japanese debates, the members of Video Hiroba developed video as an applied discourse centered on the idea of “video communication,” where video, counter to television but also to industrial capitalism, was positioned as process not product. Through individual and collective experiments with the possibilities of video, the members of Video Hiroba imagined contingent forms of community and experiences of urban space as alternative solutions to the failures of direct confrontation with authorities. Taking a cue from Video Hiroba’s concern with “video communication” over “video art,” this art historical study takes the framework of critical translation to investigate and articulate the forms of collectivity, the processes of mediation, and the systems of circulation with which Video Hiroba members experimented. After laying out the problems of visual culture and subjectivity in the arts from Japanese Surrealism through Expo ‘70, this dissertation devotes four chapters to examining Video Hiroba as a collective, charting their visions for video through their collective exhibitions, the circulation of their work domestically and internationally, the collective’s engagement with institutions, and their community-based work. Through these perspectives, it uncovers both a unique vision of video formed from the local context of 1970s Tokyo but with transnational aspirations, and an alternative lineage for contemporary Japanese socially-engaged art. The final two chapters look at the practices of individual members through a thematic lens to reveal different models of contingency in both urban space, and the discursive public space of media and culture. While these experiments chart possibilities for alternative ways of visualizing collectivity, in their attempts to make systems of media exchange both open and visible, they displace human authors. Combined with their aspirations to engage international art and video circles, in which Video Hiroba was seen as representative of “Japan” and “Asia,” this effect inadvertently played into a burgeoning techno-orientalist image for Japanese video in the early 1980s. This project thus charts competing possibilities for early video in Japan, as both a medium around which alternative modes of human-centered community could be formed, and a medium through which Japan could become, yet again, an empty image of reflection.

Storms Named After People is a coming-of-age film about loneliness, Florida's disposition during holidays, freedom within abandonment, and how one translates time and space when alone. I intend for this film to capture a unique and authentic representation of young women that I find difficult to come by in mainstream cinema. Some other things I plan to accomplish with Storms Named After people include subverting the audience's expectations, challenging tired stereotypes of women and various relationships among them, capturing loneliness from an optimistic point of view and embracing availability within a micro-budget filmmaking process. A final product that accomplishes all the above will be considered successful.

No description available.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript.

This thesis analyzes the relationship between Joan Jonas’s 1976 videotape Good Night Good Morning and the existing historiographical discourse on video art from the 1970s. I begin with a careful analysis and historical contextualization of Rosalind Krauss’s seminal 1976 essay on video art, “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism.” I then compare her essay with a number of present-day interpretations of video art that are in part motivated by a departure from Krauss and identify a range of presuppositions that have persisted through the art historical discourse on video art from the mid-1970s forward. Finally, I demonstrate that the terms of this essentially medium-specific discourse are too limited to offer a satisfying analysis of Good Night Good Morning and argue that understanding Jonas’s work requires an intermedial analysis. / text

My body of work involves photographic and video explorations around the concept that cinema has a great influence over who we are as a culture and as individuals. I use the tableaux technique to illustrate the archetypal language of film through fictional film stills. Congruously, I use video to interject myself into scenes from movies, referencing the way viewers mentally project themselves into movies as they watch them. I am interested in decoding visual stereotypes promoted by cinema through the lens of my own experience with movies.

Thesis. 1977. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaves 53-54. / by Martin Peter Moser, Jr. / M.S.