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AI-generativa bildkonst verktyg använder sig av generative adversarial networks (GAN) för att skapa bilder. Generative adversarial networks blir desto bättre ju mer information den förses med. Denna studie undersöker hur teknologiskt accepterat det är med AI-genererade bildkonst verktyg med hjälp av modellen Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Syftet med studien är att undersöka om unga konstnärers syn och inställning på AI-genererad bildkonst och verktygets framfart samt om de anser att det är accepterat. Studien genomfördes med små n-studier med semistrukturerade intervjuer för att få en rik och detaljerad beskrivning om acceptansen kring AI-generativa bildkonst verktyg. Studiens intervjufrågor byggdes upp för att besvara TAM2s olika delar. Respondenterna var konstnärer från Sverige och valdes ut genom bekvämlighetsurval kombinerat med snowball sampling. Konstnärerna som intervjuades under studien var positivt inställda till att använda AI-bildverktygen som inspiration och hjälpmedel till deras egna konst, och de flesta konstnärerna ansåg inte att AI var ett hot för dem eftersom de höll på med fysiska konstverk, och såg AI mer som ett hot för digitala konstnärer. Dessutom tyckte de flesta konstnärerna i studien att även om det är en själv som har skrivit in instruktionerna till AI-bildverktygen för att få en genererad bild, så är det diskutabelt om man kan göra anspråk på verket. / AI generated visual art tools use generative adversarial networks (GAN) to create pictures and digital art. Generative adversarial networks get better the more information they are provided with. This study investigates how technologically accepted it is with AI generated visual art tools using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study was carried out with small n-studies with semi-structured interviews to get rich and detailed description of the acceptance of AI generative visual art tools. The study’s interview questions were built to answer the TAM2-model different parts. The respondents were artists from Sweden and were selected through convenience sampling combined with snowball sampling. The purpose of the study is to investigate how young artists view and attitude towards AI generated visual art and the progress of the tool and whether they believe it is accepted. The artists interviewed during the study were positive about using the AI generated art tool as an inspiration and aid to their own art, and most of the artists did not consider AI as a threat to them because they were doing physical artwork, seeing AI more as a threat to digital artists. In addition, most of the artists in the study felt that even if one has entered the instructions to the AI generating tools themselves to get a generated image, it is debatable whether one can claim the work. This thesis is written in Swedish.

This is a study that aims to investigate assessment and communication within visual art education. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to analyze how teachers and students perceive assessment, grading and communication. The study is based on empirical methods that consists of a survey that was answered by students in grade 9 and semi-structured interviews with 4 teachers that all teach visual art education. The theoretical starting point is supported by contemporary research about assessment and grading in the Swedish school system, assessment within visual art and the importance of teacher to student communication. The results found, show that the teachers that participated in the study, use similar methods for assessment where they document all processes and results to help for themselves. They also assess the process of learning as much as the result. The key to teacher to student communication is clear instructions and the need for repetition. The students’ perception of teacher instruction communication is that it is often done but less often as clear as the teachers try to make it. Assessment and grading are viewed as fair but the students also perceive that their behavior affects their grade, something that was not brought up by the teachers.

This study explored Visual Art creation by Grade 11 learners in the art classroom and the relationship with attaining creativity acumen. Creativity acumen in this instance is looked upon as the ability to visually conceptualize imaginative ideas and then translate that into an individual rendition of a concept presented. The learners first perceive an idea and then conceive a concept. Visual perception is a function of how the eyes and brain see whole images, but these images are broken down into their visual elements, such as lines and shading during Visual Art creation. The visual elements are then created in forming an art-work, which in turn lends itself to understanding complex concepts and themes. Creativity acumen involves two processes: having ideas (creativity-relevant processes) and then producing a visual exposé of such ideas. A literature review was conducted which provided useful insight into the components of the creative process and the contextual factors influencing creativity acumen within the school environment. An empirical study was conducted with six art learners in Grade 11, selected through purposive sampling. Creativity questionnaires were completed pre- and post-art creation as a self-assessment tool of how effectively individual implementation of the creative process occurred during idea development and artistic expression in attaining creativity acumen during Visual Art production, if at all. The art creations were observed from task presentation through to completion deadline. Photographic records of the art creations were captured as they were produced and completed. Interviews were conducted at the end of the art creative process. The data was descriptively tabulated into photo-sheets and tabulated for qualitative interpretation and description of findings and results. From the empirical study it can be concluded that there is a dialectic relationship between the creativity-relevant processes and art-relevant skills, as set out theoretically by Amabile (1996) when creating Visual Art. The relationship is intertwined and compounded by overlapping factors in acumen to be creative and creating an art-work. Both require openness to new ideas and perspectives and both need perseverance and effort to learn new skills and craftsmanship. The conclusion of this study is that creativity acumen and art creation have variation of outcome and expansion of ideas in common. Creativity acumen is a means of extending one’s outlook and ability to question, look for new information, develop ideas independently while art creation is a means of visual expression in learning to elaborate on a concept through externalised representation which guides further possibilities and understanding of new concepts and perspectives. There is a dialectic relationship between art creation and creativity acumen or ability as one possibly informs and develops the other. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

This thesis explores how burglars and burglary in London were understood in cultural, criminological, legal, political, and economic discourse during the period 1860-1939, demonstrating how the ideas about crime and the criminal circulating in these domains were mutually constitutive. Specifically, it identifies how characterisations of burglary in visual and written forms of media — encompassing legal and criminological documents, as well as those produced by the press and commercial advertising, and in fiction, theatre, and film — cultivated a range of attitudes towards the crime to a greater or lesser extent. Encompassing not only fear-mongering and sympathetic representations, but also those designed to be exciting, to challenge preconceptions, and to entertain, I argue that these conflicting attitudes towards burglary and burglars emerged in response to specific changes in the cultural landscape: the advent of mass literacy and corresponding interest in narratives of crime that reflected the social, cultural, and political concerns of an audience diverse of class, age, and gender; the commercial imperatives of the insurance and entertainment industries as the middle classes expanded, including the development of household insurance and the popularity of the ‘true crime’ genre; debates surrounding women’s increasing social and sexual agency and their alignment with particular crimes; and the evolution of new modes of policing and regulation. The thesis thereby uses the topic of burglary to illuminate a broader range of contemporary preoccupations and experiences with gender relations, class structures and stereotypes, and the moral authority of state and society. By approaching burglary as a focus of interactions not only between police, criminal, and victim, but also between the market, consumers, and the state, this thesis uncovers new terrain upon which crime intersected with everyday lives historically.

I examine Wilde’s Hellenism in terms of the specific texts, editions and institutions through which he encountered ancient Greece. The late-nineteenth-century professionalisation of classical scholarship and the rise of the new science of archaeology from the 1870s onwards endangered the status of antiquity as a textual source of ideal fictions rather than a material object of positivist study. The major theme of my thesis is Wilde’s relationship with archaeology and his efforts to preserve Greece as an imaginative resource and a model for right conduct. From his childhood Wilde had accompanied his father Sir William Wilde on digs around Ireland. Sir William’s ethnological interests led him to posit a common racial origin for Celts and Greeks; thus, for Wilde, to read a Greek text was to intuit native affinity. Chapters 1–3 trace his education, his travels in Greece, his involvement with the founding of the Hellenic Society, and his defence of the archaeologically accurate stage spectaculars of the 1880s, arguing that in his close association with supporters of archaeology such as J.P. Mahaffy and George Macmillan Wilde exemplifies the new kind of Hellenist opposed by Benjamin Jowett and R.C. Jebb. Chapter 4 makes a case for Wilde’s final repudiation of archaeology and his return to the textual remains of Greek antiquity, present as an intertexual resource in his mature works. Thus I examine the role of Aristotle’s Ethics in ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ and of Platonism in the critical dialogues, The Picture of Dorian Gray and ‘The Portrait of Mr W.H.’ I present The Importance of Being Earnest as a self-conscious exercise in the New Comedy of Menander, concluding that Wilde ultimately returned to the anachronistic eclecticism of the Renaissance attitude to ancient texts.

This research is an ethnographic case study that asks the questions “what is transformation?” and “how does art transform individuals and their communities?” The narrative describes key moments in the researcher’s journey to South Africa in search of answers to these questions. Findings describe the village of Hamburg’s developing art practice, and include the artists’ own voices and views on this topic. Hamburg is a Xhosa village in South Africa that has faced many challenges due to the spread of HIV/AIDS. One response to the impact of HIV/AIDS on family and economic structures has been the development of an extensive community-based art practice, including large communal tapestry work. To engage questions regarding how visual art transforms people, the researcher reviewed existing Western and Eastern literature on transformation, and compared this with the Southern ethnographic interviews conducted whilst living in the village of Hamburg, where she joined the women for two months as they made their art. The interviews, which were informed by feminist thinking and community based action research, are deeply moving, and form the data from which conclusions were drawn. It iii  was found that the gritty, embodied nature of this community’s experience with transformative art processes can perhaps stimulate more inquiry into transformative art practice within art education itself, that, to date, does not engage much with a deliberate practice for human transformation. Findings in this study can also broaden the existing, sometimes disembodied, academic understandings around transformation within educational, therapeutic and spiritual discourses, which, to date, include mostly linear, hierarchical models, as well as anecdotal descriptions from mostly White, male perspectives. As yet, there is not much inquiry outside of feminist discourse into women’s transformation, which tends to be more organic and community orientated. The researcher’s findings suggest that literature on transformation through art is needed within art education, which should include female, Black African experiences. The researcher’s conclusions are applied to classroom and studio practice, where she challenges educators, researchers and practitioners within art education to take the link between art and transformation much more seriously, as a powerful technology for growth, empowerment and resilience. Findings can also be applied to other disciplines such as feminism, art therapy, education, psychology and spirituality. / Graduate / 0273 / 0357 / 0621 / sadnams@uvic.ca

The aim of this thesis is to describe and review the visual art teaching profession from a wider cultural perspective. This can lead to a better understanding of how teachers in 2000s Sweden manage change and relate to their task. This is a starting point for the formation of question areas that are of concern: the importance of their own specific interests in various visual art media for the development of their professional knowledge; what conditions different types of schools provide for the development of the subject and the strategies visual art teachers (in the study) use to develop their teaching on the theme of contemporary art. The theoretical framework is based on a socio-cultural perspective. Analysis combine cultural semiotic and frame factor models. Institutional art theory focuses on art’s audience and the art institutions which are central to contemporary art manifestations. The thesis is based on two case studies conducted by three separate teacher-training days at Bildmuseet in Umeå. 14 Visual Art teachers from four different types of schools: compulsory school, years 7-9, upper secondary school, folk high school and volountary art school (Swe. kulturskola) participated in the study. The investigations has generated data produced through interviews, observation, self-reports and images. Contemporary Art is involved in society's constant change and mix of new medias. The changes concernes the visual art educational field. The opportunities different school contexts provides for education, has an impact on how knowledge is transformed. Conformity, solid structures, formes of assessment and low legitimacy shape resistance. Teaching in visual art is highly based on teachers' own choices. A fragmented knowledge-culture with focus on manual or digital mediations leads to different knowledge-selection. This study highlights resistances that affect applying contemporary art on its own terms. Contemporary art’s starting points and new perspectives represent other paradigms than traditional art classifications. This sigifies tension between the artworld and the educational field. To reducie the tension, a dialogue and interaction between the fields on equal terms is recommended. The study identifies a lack of procedures and resources for formal continuing professional development. There is a need of developing the collective body of knowledge, covering both the theoretical and practical knowledge in the visual art teacher culture.

This thesis concerns the function of fiction in the creation of an historical myth and the uses that that myth is put to in a number of periods and differing régimes. Its case study is the popular myth of August the Strong (1670-1733), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, as a man of extraordinary sexual prowess and the ruler over a magnificent, but frivolous, court in Dresden. It examines the origins of this myth in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and its development up to the twenty-first century in German history writing, fiction, art, and media. The image August created for himself in the art, literature, and festivities of his court as an ideal ruler of extremely broad cultural and intellectual interests and high political ambitions and abilities linked him closely with eighteenth-century notions of galanterie. This narrowed the scope of his image later, especially as nineteenth-century historians selected fictional sources and interpreted them as historical sources to present August as an immoral political failure. Although nineteenth-century popular writers exhibited a more varied response to August’s historical role, the negative historiography continued to resonate in later history writing. Ironically, the myth of August the Strong represented an opportunity in the GDR in creating and fostering a sense of identity, first as a socialist state with historical and cultural links to the east, and then by examining Prusso-Saxon history as a uniquely (East) German issue. Finally, the thesis examines the practice of historical re-enactment as it is currently employed in a number of variations on German TV and in literature, and its impact on historical knowledge. The thesis concludes that, while narrative forms are necessary to history and fiction, and fiction is a necessary part of presenting history, inconsistent combinations of the two can undermine the projects of both.

This thesis examines the intersections of the concept of pilgrimage and the visual imagination in Britain from the years 1790 to 1850. Historically, distinctions between understandings of pilgrimage as motif, metaphor, artistic process, and actual journey have been blurred to varying degrees, resulting in the creation of images that were at once narratives, memorials, and stimuli for contemplative journeys from pictorial space to imagination. In the first half of the nineteenth century, religious architecture, sacred landscapes, and the emblematic figure of the pilgrim with coat, hat, and scrip functioned as temporal reminders of a promised land to come, as mediated through artistic practice. Through a close analysis of a range of interrelated visual sources, I contend that pilgrimage, both in practice and as a form of mental contemplation, helped to shape the religious, literary, and artistic imagination of the period and beyond. This study draws out the various levels at which pilgrimage engaged the visual imagination. In doing so it offers a detailed perspective on the conjunction of content, form, meaning, and process for artists and theorists, as notions of the transfer of ‘spirit’ from sacred space to represented space re-emerged as a key aspect of the theological and artistic discourse of the period. Chapter 1 outlines the antiquarian dissemination of medieval pilgrimage texts and images. I suggest that an awareness of pilgrimage as embodying the real and imagined emerged with the recovery of allegorical texts, histories of actual pilgrimages, and an interest in pilgrimage souvenirs. The discussion moves on to intersections between pilgrimage and religious art in Chapters 2 - 4, including the idea of painting as pilgrimage, as demonstrated through specific case studies, and the refashioning of relics and religious ruins as contemporary sites of pilgrimage (Chapter 5).