A glass half empty: Assessing the impact of empty flowers on foraging behaviour in three bee species

Flower-visiting insects face the difficult choice of selecting which flowers to visit and which to ignore. Foraging becomes more complicated because flowers can sometimes stop offering nectar, either due to removal by other visitors or because of physiological changes in the plant. In humans, items that are unexpectedly unavailable at the time of choice are called ‘phantom decoys’ and have been shown to influence preference relationships between other items in the choice set. If phantom decoys occur in pollinating insects, then the presence of empty flowers could have community-wide impacts on visitation rates of neighbouring flowers. In my first chapter, we tested if European honeybees Apis mellifera were susceptible to phantom decoy-style empty flowers. We then tested the effects of empty flowers on Bombus impatiens when they were influenced by the choices of their conspecifics. Finally, we tested if stingless bees, Tetragonula carbonaria made use of floral colour generalisations to choose flowers when the best flower in the choice set had its nectar removed. Overall, while we saw minimal impacts on floral choice by empty flowers, we did show that social behaviour is a key driver in allowing bees to make effective foraging decisions in the presence of empty flowers, and empty flowers can result in the abandonment of patches

Insecture: interdisciplinary engagements in an emergent entomological design practice

This practice-based research defines an emergent, interdisciplinary practice with the central aim of reframing the insect through design. The research began as an exploration into how to use design to create a different appreciation of insects through an understanding of how we perceive them and manage our proximity to them. Subsequently, through an investigatory process of reflection, a deeper knowledge of design and how I design, reframed by these biological entities, has been unveiled. Two insights have emerged: firstly, knowledge of the proclivities imbued in my work; and secondly, the ways in which the integration of insects can draw out multimodal design outcomes. During the period of this research, projects were designed with and for insects: emblems, a shop concept, a habitat structure, and products including a viewing apparatus and insect terrarium. These key projects created aesthetic approaches to the framing of and interaction with these animals. Design consideration of the commercial industry applications of insects bioengineering, food production, and pet breeding has presented another approach to sustainability. I have defined this insect-based strategy to designing as Design Applied Environmental Entomology. While the design work was produced in Australia, Canada and Japan, it was the Japanese context that influenced the development of investigatory strategies. In particular, the orientation on Japan provided significant historical and contemporary precedents on the role insects can have in society. In all, the design processes and methodologies that were developed in this PhD have examined the use of insects as a vehicle for design ideation and practice. By integrating living insects into concepts, processes and prototypes, the research offers models for different forms of design interactivity, offering opportunities within the public milieu to demonstrate enthusiasm, care, and value for these animals. This work, ultimately, advances design's potency to elevate attentiveness to those things biologically small and overlooked

Inscription: the Journal of Material Text – Theory, Practice, History. Issue 1: Beginnings

Inscription is an innovative new journal which addresses the theme of the material text from a range of perspectives, bringing together the critical, historical, theoretical and creative. Inscription will be at home equally in the first century as the twenty-first and will feature work by practitioners – book artists, printmakers and writers – alongside academic discussion. Its focus is not just on the meanings and uses of the codex book, but also the nature of writing surfaces, the process of mark marking and printing. The journal’s theoretically aware, trans-historical and cross-disciplinary remit will break with the conventions of academic ghettoization, creating connections between areas that have much to say to one another –bibliography, the artist’s book, and media theory, for instance – enabling more wide-ranging conversation and unexpected juxtapositions. It promises not merely to add to the field but to set new agendas for the next phase of the development of the study of material texts

A poetics of repetition - theory and practice in/of printmaking: what are the methodological, epistemological and practical questions that arise from the a particular aesthetic practice

Why 'A poetics of repetition'? At its most crude, 'poetics' suggests a rule book with fixed protocols. The conventional institutional requirements of the PhD format comply with this part of the definition. However, at its best, a 'poetics' may be understood as performing that which it contains or describes. This is how the different elements that make up the present submission are conceived.The second part of the title identifies this submission within the broader field of printmaking and also emphasizes the main thrust of its contribution to knowledge. It accentuates the input of this project to a critical topology of the discipline through a discussion and development of relevant terms and processes. Above all, the subtitle signals that this PhD is firmly based in practice.The epistemological assumption of an inextricable link between theory and practice is methodologically demonstrated through the format of the submission. It consists of six parts. These interweave the visual documentation on CD of the production and installation of two solo exhibitions at the start and towards the end of the PhD with written sections which relate to the artistic practice.'Printmaking' is understood in the particular sense of my own studio practice in addition to its significance as a discipline in the wider artistic and cultural context. In terms of the former, the theory- practice relationship is exemplified through the emphasis on printmaking in the two solo exhibitions. Moreover, five chapters in Parts Ill and V respectively, including a report on the second exhibition, put printmaking at the centre of the debate.Another strand of the submission engages with issues posed by research in art and design. The question of the interrelationship between theory and practice is highlighted in two chapters of the submission (111.2 and V.2) in addition to a general contextual chapter on this topic (111.1). The concept of 'post- production serves to illuminate the role of time, writing, documentation and interpretation in a research process that is primarily focussed on the production of visual art.A lead -in to the multiple strands of the research is the concept of repetition. At one level, this key word refers to my particular aesthetic programme of the repetition of 'original' hand drawn marks through printmaking and the reproductive nature of prints in general. At another, repetition is understood more broadly in a Deleuzian sense as 'difference' and helps to conceptualise both the format and ethos of the submission