Aesthetics and didactic intention: the meeting place of beauty and information transmission in the 2006 community theatre production of swamp treasures.

This paper is the outcome of qualitative research undertaken around a community theatre production presented at the Hamilton Fuel Festival 2006. Swamp Treasures was an attempt to articulate in a theatre aesthetic the plight of the wetland regions in the Waikato province. There were 80 participants, a choir, an orchestra, an elaborate set, lighting design and over 30 specifically made theatre masks. I invited a group of eight teenagers to watch the performance and they were then interviewed, answering specific questions. The data were then considered using Kant's theories of beauty, aesthetics and communication as a reference point for the production's development, delivery and effectiveness. As Swamp Treasures was designed as a montage of impressions and points of view, the research has been able to evaluate the artistic efficacy of the differing styles and the aptitude of these techniques to transfer information

Exploring Materiality in Graphic Design Through Creative Play

Graphic design can be investigated through the process of creative play where thinking and making are connected through materiality. This thesis explores three different methods of creative play that can be used by designers to generate concepts and challenge established ways of working. A research study on materiality and affect was conducted in the first phase of the thesis in order to locate a starting point for the visual explorations. From here, the process was divided into three different categories: improvisational, structured, and interactive play. Improvisational play can foster an understanding of materials and involves an intuitive way of working, without having a specific content in mind. Structured play focuses on how materiality can be manipulated to reflect content where materiality is used as a rhetorical device. Interactive play involves eliciting tactile engagement, where physical materials are implemented into the final design artifact and encourage engagement through touch

Emotion as visual image

I intend to explore the importance of object and image as symbols that visually express emotion. I am interested in the human condition and the influences and impressions that cause us to see things the way we do. Through the transformation of feelings and forms, I hope to relate emotional responses to situations we find ourselves in. I plan to use holloware techniques within a sculptural format, possibly combined with clay and other materials to achieve these images

Minimizing Chaos

The thesis works presented in this paper are mixed media paintings that explore the tension between artistic control and abandon in what is essentially an intuitive driven process of image making. With these thesis works I have sought to use additive and subtractive processes to create compositions that are as much an exploration of materials as they are an exploration of the formal elements of art. My work is focused on recreating the patterns, textures, and surfaces found in man-made objects and environments that I find in my daily life and I believe are often overlooked in their aesthetic value. In doing so, I hope to recreate for the viewer the moments of aesthetic discovery that I have found within the patterns, textures, and surface qualities of these objects

A Call for Planetary Kinship: The Development of New Forms of Subjectivity in Jeff VanderMeer\u27s Annihilation

This thesis joins a vibrant conversation on the importance of storytelling in an age of climate change through an analysis of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, a strange and prophetic novel whose environments and characters are confronted with significant ecological devastation and transformation. It explores the ways in which VanderMeer opens liminal spaces between the human and nonhuman through his usage of the New Weird genre, uncanny and abcanny imagery, and monstrous characters. In my first chapter, I will explore the emerging world of New Weird fiction and argue that this genre is uniquely suited to addressing climate change, namely because of its experiments with conventional notions of setting and character development. Rather than being clearly defined and bordered, settings and characters within New Weird fiction are blurry, shape-shifting, and permeable. My second chapter will then look at the kinds of images and creatures that are produced in VanderMeer’s Annihilation. I will use Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Noys’s and Murphy’s abcanny to analyze how VanderMeer opens readers up to a world in which the human and nonhuman connect in uncomfortable but opportunity-rich ways. In my final chapter, I will turn to Annihilation’s main character, the biologist, whose transformation throughout the novel signals to readers what we must do to survive and thrive in an age of ecological devastation. Through a physical and psychological evolution, the biologist develops a kinship with the entire world, human and nonhuman, and becomes a part of Area X. Ultimately, I argue that Annihilation creates a new kind of human, or new kind of creature, who has the potential to recognize its connection to the rest of the natural world, making possible a healing of the wounds that threaten to obliterate so much life on this planet

Echoes of Home

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Echoes of Home, held at the Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee on display March 15 through April 8, 2022. The author provides insight into concepts and influences relating to the creation of the exhibition with perspective on her intimate connection with place and memory. The exhibit features five installations addressing home, elusive memory, and the change and continuity of cultural traditions over time. The works consist of a series of large-scale wild clay vessels, gestural clay bookends, a wall installation of cups with a line drawing, suspended porcelain slabs, and video projection of clay materials “being breathed”. All works explore how the passage of time and the elusiveness of memory affect psychological connection to place. This exhibit is the culmination of iterative exploration of materiality inspired by exchange among the artist, the landscape, and Appalachian culture

Beyond the Electronic Connection: The Technologically Manufactured Cyber-Human and Its Physical Human Counterpart in Performance: A Theory Related to Convergence Identities

This thesis is an investigation of the complex processes and relationships between the physical human performer and the technologically manufactured cyber-human counterpart. I acted as both researcher and the physical human performer, deeply engaged in the moment-to-moment creation of events unfolding within a shared virtual reality environment. As the primary instigator and activator of the cyber-human partner, I maintained a balance between the live and technological performance elements, prioritizing the production of content and meaning. By way of using practice as research, this thesis argues that in considering interactions between cyber-human and human performers, it is crucial to move beyond discussions of technology when considering interactions between cyber-humans and human performers to an analysis of emotional content, the powers of poetic imagery, the trust that is developed through sensory perception and the evocation of complex relationships. A theoretical model is constructed to describe the relationship between a cyber-human and a human performer in the five works created specifically for this thesis, which is not substantially different from that between human performers. Technological exploration allows for the observation and analysis of various relationships, furthering an expanded understanding of ‘movement as content’ beyond the electronic connection. Each of the works created for this research used new and innovative technologies, including virtual reality, multiple interactive systems, six generations of wearable computers, motion capture technology, high-end digital lighting projectors, various projection screens, smart electronically charged fabrics, multiple sensory sensitive devices and intelligent sensory charged alternative performance spaces. They were most often collaboratively created in order to augment all aspects of the performance and create the sense of community found in digital live dance performances/events. These works are identified as one continuous line of energy and discovery, each representing a slight variation on the premise that a working, caring, visceral and poetic content occurs beyond the technological tools. Consequently, a shift in the physical human’s psyche overwhelms the act of performance. Scholarship and reflection on the works have been integral to my creative process throughout. The goals of this thesis, the works created and the resulting methodologies are to investigate performance to heighten the multiple ways we experience and interact with the world. This maximizes connection and results in a highly interactive, improvisational, dynamic, non-linear, immediate, accessible, agential, reciprocal, emotional, visceral and transformative experience without boundaries between the virtual and physical for physical humans, cyborgs and cyber-humans alike.College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Texas at Austi

Sharing and reusing rich media: lessons from The Open University

OpenCourseWare and Open Educational Resources comprise many types of assets including rich media. However dynamic rich media offer different opportunities and challenges for learners, teachers and higher education institutions alike than do more static items such as text. The Open University in the UK has been extensively developing and using rich media in its distance teaching programmes since it was established in 1969, often in partnership with the BBC. As new media technologies have arrived so has the capabilities of The Open University to create rich media. This paper describes these developments and then discusses the approaches required to guide them in a way that both serves the university and the wider higher education community. It concludes that rich media are an essential part of the developing OCW/OER landscape and that openly sharing them brings defined benefits to an HEI beyond their traditional student body