Non-western rendition of ambient rhetoric of Khajuraho monuments.

This dissertation develops an ambient rhetoric: a living practice that is more disclosive than communicative, more entangled than intersectional, and more subtle than explicit and evidential. Rather than exploring the symbology, iconography, texture, and artistic integrity of Khajuraho monuments, I claim that Khajuraho monuments aim at convincing visitors with their persuadability and affectability inherent in their material bases, architectural panels, fractal design, allegorical cast, aura of attunement, and the environment in which the monument complex is nestled. Khajuraho groups of monuments in Central India, matchless in their monumentality, dynamic in their adjustment to the shifting socio-politico-cultural landscape in the world, fantastic in their amenability to entanglement, and susceptible to their intra-action with cutting-edge digital tools and technology, have proved to be a vibrant hub for those who—constrained by the deficit model of rhetoric as a logic of supplementation and also by the exploitative and extractive model of rhetoric that valorises human-centric rhetorical approach to persuasive assemblage—venture into exploring the holistic version of the rhetoric predicated on the principle of a third term. The monument complex’s persuadability rests not just on its symbology but on its enduring sandstone that lays the material basis for the construction of its majestic architecture, splendid sculpture, stunning superstructure, gorgeous ground plan, fractal design, strategic placement of the artifacts, the upward projection of the superstructure exposed to the four elements, the lapidary locale of the monuments nestled in an environment that escapes any intelligent guess as to when, how, and why it participates in revealing the monument complex’s rhetoricity

The Initiation of the Beautiful Uncanny

In recent years, there has been a movement in arts and one of the interests was in the uncanny where it was relating to surrealism. Previous artwork has addressed the Freudian uncanny concept as an unfamiliar, frightened emotion that is negatively disturbing. However, the concept of Nicholas Royal that uncanny can be strangely beautiful has opened up a new sight that been followed in this thesis. The artwork and art exhibition on fine art are mostly descriptive on creating acceptable uncanny artwork with a sense of beauty. To address the uncanny differently than what used to be and shed the light into the site of beauty to respond, a practice-based research has been carried out to highlight that uncanny can be perceived as beautiful in art. The fundamental aim of this research is to characterise a clear understanding of uncanny beauty. The three research exhibitions of this work were targeting the understanding of what I call“ beautiful uncanny”, as there is a reflective process in the relationship between the imagination of beauty with the uncanny feelings in a body of visual work. In the light of previous literature, related artwork and my understanding, a creation of human figures, hybrid with insects, through sculpture, based on photography have supported the theory of uncanny as being beautiful with further validation based on testing the responses of the viewers who attend the research exhibitions. The qualitative research has been used in this study to conduct the data of the questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The findings of the study have revealed that the importance of classifying uncanny as being beautiful without any rejection is to establish an artwork that increases attraction and curiosity toward knowledge through understanding the actual feelings of the presented artwork. Therefore, that has proposed an original contribution to the knowledge of the perspective of "The Beautiful Uncanny”

The potential of DNA structure to provide a resource for the creation of art

Art's search for new subjects and methods and science's need for effective communication have led to the creation of what is known as Sci-Art. It is the central argument of this thesis that collaboration between creative and scientific disciplines can play a useful role in society, but that this potential is held back by misunderstanding of the roles of art and science. The main purpose of this practice-based research project, which is also supported by a written thesis, is to determine the relationship between artists and scientists, focusing on the visualisation of DNA. The project will identify their shared approaches to its representation, and will explore the history of DNA as an iconic form. An additional purpose of this study is to analyse the importance of the role of collaboration between scientists and artists including its application to education. My method is to review Sci-Art work and analyze the benefit of collaboration between science and art. Part of this research will focus on the benefits of Sci-Art collaboration for education. This part of the research involved a case study at Trinity Catholic School, with a project called Laboratories. Collaborative artworks and exhibitions are the final outcome of this project; they explore the ways in which Sci-Art can be developed as a useful form of interdisciplinary practice. These creative methods provide a route to a deeper understanding of the relationship between art and science. The thesis demonstrates through a combination of theoretical argument and creative practice that Sci-Art has the potential to: Act as an aid to understanding difficult scientific concepts; add to debate about the ethical issues surrounding science and increase the effectiveness of education

Cyborg Art: An Explorative and Critical Inquiry into Corporeal Human-Technology Convergence

This thesis introduces and examines the undervalued concept of corporeal human-technology interface art, or 'cyborg art', which describes literal, figural and metaphorical representations of increasing body and technology integration. The transforming (post)human being is therefore the focus; who we are today, and who or what we may become as humanity increasingly interfaces with technology. Theoretical analysis of cyborg imagery centres on the science fiction domain, in particular film and television, as opposed to art. Yet a profusion of cyborg art and art practices abound within contemporary society; each differing art form (for example, performance, interactive, digital, sculpture or painting), offering possible 'symbolic function' and 'critical potential' concerning increasing cyborgisation. I therefore argue in this thesis that cyborg art has social value, and reveal throughout the way this artistic focus depicts key ontological and sociological themes of body-technology merger. Seventy-two artworks are examined in total, each demonstrating relevant concerns and aspirations regarding present and envisioned impacts of technoscience. The cyborg-inspired artworks included in this study are primarily situated within four fundamental dimensions of humanity: birth, death, gender and ethnicity; and within three main spheres of corporeal-technological developments: prosthetics, telematics and genetics. Key concepts and themes explored within these realms include ectogenesis, post-genderism, necrotic and ethno-cyborgs, augmentation and reconstruction, tele-erotics and tele-puppets, and transgenics. In addition, three new cyborgian concepts are introduced: the udopian cyborg, which is an aesthetic representing technology's paradoxical dimension - technology as evoking fear and yearning, and having the potential to benefit and harm humanity; the permeative gaze of technoscience, which is a new technologised gaze focusing on how human skin no longer serves as a boundary and barrier to the inner corporeal realm; and lastly, triadic convergence, which denotes the way artists are increasingly creating entities which are a melding of animal, technological and human components. Multimethod research serves as the methodological base for this thesis, as both qualitative and quantitative methods are incorporated into the research design. Hermeneutics is adopted as the analytical/interpretive perspective and approach. The empirical research includes semi-structured in-depth interviews, qualitative (artists') email questionnaires, and structured quantitative questionnaires. Triangulation is employed in order to obtain varied responses to, and perspectives on, technology and the technological epoch, art and cyborg art, and the cyborg. A theory of cyborg art is constructed by interweaving the collated findings with interview participants' responses to a selection of cyborg artworks, and theorists' perspectives on the aforementioned concepts, derived from visual culture, cyborg theory, and critical postmodern theory. The ultimate goal of this thesis is to present the underlying theoretical breadth and creative depth of cyborg art, and to demonstrate that cyborg art can act as a catalyst for increasing societal awareness of, and interest in, corporeal human-technology merger. I analyse the critical relevance of this under-examined artistic focus, and address why cyborg art should be recognised as a new postmodern art genre, and complementary to theoretical discussions of cyborgisation. I argue overall that cyborg art is a valid and critical sphere of inquiry into the increasing integration which exists between humanity and technology

From rituals to magic: Interactive art and HCI of the past, present, and future

The connection between art and technology is much tighter than is commonly recognized. The emergence of aesthetic computing in the early 2000s has brought renewed focus on this relationship. In this article, we articulate how art and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) are compatible with each other and actually essential to advance each other in this era, by briefly addressing interconnected components in both areas—interaction, creativity, embodiment, affect, and presence. After briefly introducing the history of interactive art, we discuss how art and HCI can contribute to one another by illustrating contemporary examples of art in immersive environments, robotic art, and machine intelligence in art. Then, we identify challenges and opportunities for collaborative efforts between art and HCI. Finally, we reiterate important implications and pose future directions. This article is intended as a catalyst to facilitate discussions on the mutual benefits of working together in the art and HCI communities. It also aims to provide artists and researchers in this domain with suggestions about where to go next

Event, Eventing, Eventuality: reflecting on the ‘fusion of horizons’ in works of art

The aim of this practice-based research project is an attempt to understand the perceptual space that occurs when a viewer encounters a work of art. More specifically, it reflects on the in-between space that occurs when viewers interact with artworks that draw on historical events to explore violent conflicts, death and commemorations. The thesis expands on contemporary notions of interpretations with a particular focus on the non-linguistic factors that may convene in the aesthetic experience. It has a dual outcome, consisting of creative and written components. The creative component, Shifting Horizons, is a body of work that was inspired by ancient Chinese burial sites. The artworks are a meditation on cross-cultural burial practices with a particular focus on interaction with the natural environment. As such, they engage with the tension between human transiency and the endurance of the natural environment. By evoking remains of the dead in the landscape, the artworks highlight the notion that landscapes are infused with significant historical dimensions. In its particular way, this body of work is an intermixing of symbolic means employed to point out that in contrast to the surviving fragments of the relics unearthed in the burial pits, the natural world is not a dead world, and perhaps it is most essential to the survival of human life. In making this body of work, I wish to suggest that works of art can act as a potentially transformative vehicle within a wide range of discourses. This is further explored in the written component - Event, Eventing, Eventuality. The text, which is concurrent to the creative component, applies the perspective of hermeneutical aesthetics to reflect on the determinants that may shape the encounter with a selected corpus of contemporary artworks. In addition to critically reflecting on these artworks, the writing draws on texts by a group of scholars – Heidegger, Gadamer, Benjamin, Serres, Deleuze and more - to examine relevant concepts that have been identified in the course of the research. Moreover, this thesis suggests that applying a hermeneutic approach in combination with other, perhaps incongruous, thinkers in the critical traditions, can enrich the processes of interpretations and understanding that are central to qualitative inquiry in general, and particularly so to the discipline of fine arts

Women Framing Hair: Serial Strategies in Contemporary Art

This thesis explores the complex and enigmatic motif of hair in the work of five contemporary women artists, Chrystl Rijkeboer, Alice Maher, Annegret Soltau, Kathy Prendergast and Ellen Gallagher, from the late 1970s to the present. The purpose of the research is to investigate why hair is such a productive and resonant site of meaning, how it is suggestive of and responds to serial strategies, and why it appears to be of particular significance to women who are artists. I explore the implications of hair as an embodied material, as well as its role as a haptic metaphor of the life cycle. I also discuss some of the divergent histories of hair as a rich marker of identity in cultural discourses of beauty, myth and femininity, and as a symbol of status and power. What might be seen as a darker, more liminal side of hair as a site of excess and body waste, and its ability to represent trauma and 'wounding', are also explored. As I argue, through its somatic connections hair can be positioned both of, and yet abjected from, the living body. Informed by a range of theoretical approaches, this research has drawn on Julia Kristeva's theorizations of the abject, Hélène Cixous's notion of écriture feminine, and a Deleuzian consideration of difference. A major concern is the different artists' strategies and negotiations with notions of seriality, which enable rich and compelling possibilities for writing the female body in imaginative and fluid ways. This, together with gender issues, identity and the body - specifically the head - and memory as a marker of biography, are key themes throughout the thesis. In combination with its historiography, the medium of hair and its simulacra in art practice are seen to have the potential to challenge and subvert conceptions of feminine identity and some of the bastions of traditional painting and sculpture

PERICLES Deliverable 4.3:Content Semantics and Use Context Analysis Techniques

The current deliverable summarises the work conducted within task T4.3 of WP4, focusing on the extraction and the subsequent analysis of semantic information from digital content, which is imperative for its preservability. More specifically, the deliverable defines content semantic information from a visual and textual perspective, explains how this information can be exploited in long-term digital preservation and proposes novel approaches for extracting this information in a scalable manner. Additionally, the deliverable discusses novel techniques for retrieving and analysing the context of use of digital objects. Although this topic has not been extensively studied by existing literature, we believe use context is vital in augmenting the semantic information and maintaining the usability and preservability of the digital objects, as well as their ability to be accurately interpreted as initially intended.PERICLE