Kōlams in Graph Theory: Mathematics in South Indian Ritual Art

Kōlams are a ritual art form found in India, most commonly in the southern stateof Tamil Nadu. Comprised of different interlocking knots, these women-drawn designs are placed on the entrances to people’s home to showcase the household’s emotional state and ask the earth goddess Bhūdevi for forgiveness. More aesthetically pleasing kōlams are considered latshanam, where the design permeates beauty; monolinearity is one such aspect that implements latshanam. Using graph theory, we examine one style of these drawings, the labyrinthine variety, to identify if a given kōlam is monolinear and how to construct monolinear kōlams

Exploring traditional and metropolitan Indian arts using the Muggu tradition as a case study

The past century has witnessed fervent debates about dichotomies in Indian art, articulated variously as high and low art, art and craft, and fine and decorative art. The current avatar of such dichotomies is expressed as a divide between metropolitan and traditional art. The former is understood to be that which is displayed and marketed in urban art institutions and associated with individualism; the latter is generally qualified by terms like folk, religious, ritual, rural or tribal, displayed and sold in non-institutional contexts and associated with a collective identity. Despite frequent attempts to resolve the above-mentioned dichotomies, such hierarchies persist. Indian art is currently experiencing a resurgence, which some see more as a by-product of a rapidly growing economy, rather than as an explicitly artistic maturing. Notwithstanding this recent boom, many writers and artists lament the state of Indian cultural institutions. One such critic is Rustom Bharucha, whose essay on Indian museums provides one of the starting points for this study. The difficulty of reconciling the modern and the traditional appears to lie at the heart of these issues – a problem that both metropolitan and traditional artists face. In this project, I consider myself as an example of a metropolitan Indian artist and the issues I encountered as possibly characteristic of those that other metropolitan artists face. As a case study of traditional arts, I look at muggus, floor-drawings made by women in Andhra Pradesh, south India. Their ephemerality, ritualism and aesthetics furnish relevant instances for a discussion on metropolitan and traditional arts, challenging existing stereotypes and prejudices in the display, production and discourse of traditional arts. This study crosses the academic boundaries of anthropology, art-practice, art history, cultural theory, ethnography and visual culture to allow for a more layered exploration of Indian metropolitan and traditional arts

At Play in the Fields of Pattern: Theorizing Pattern Thinking in a Museum of Islamic Art

This dissertation examines the interaction between a museum-going subject and a patterned museum object from two perspectives: scholarly writing about pattern and the experiences of visitors to the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada. Patterning is fundamental to human meaning-making, but in Euro-American theories of art, especially in categories of decorative art or ornament, it tends to be overlooked and under-theorized. In museology, visitors are rarely if ever asked about their responses to the patterned objects that they view. I combine situational analysis methodologies with digital humanities methods of data mining and data visualizations to compare my findings from my interviews with AKM visitors to scholarly writing about pattern. My argument arising from the comparison is that visual patterns on objects do not fulfil a mere decorative function, but have a narrative power that moves in the space between object and subject via their unique histories, interacting with the subjects histories and prior experiences to produce meaning that is situated, contingent, and embodied. Specifically, I highlight visual patterns on objects as transdiscursive, a term which describes their paradoxical nature as signifiers of meaning. I argue that they are fixed and fluid at the same time: fixed to the technical properties of their objects, but apt to appear on objects spanning many geographies and time periods. By approaching them in this way, I assign new prominence to patterned objects as conveyors of stories in museum gallery viewing. Finally, beyond this study, the methodological pairing of situational analysis and data mining that produced my new understanding of patterns has possibilities for future research beyond museology and pattern studies to pursue a broader set of questions

Rules for Making: Kinematic Design, Shape and Structure

The thesis examines the role of making rules, within the creative exploration of kinematic design spaces. As a process of searching within a conceptual space, creative exploration can be described using rules. When applied to design, this model for creativity affords the application of computational techniques. In shape grammars, shape rules for ‘seeing’ and ‘doing’ apply a descriptive approach to the visual recognition, composition and modification of pictorial representations. This formalism can provide generative specifications and reveal the synthetic reasoning underlying iterative trajectories of design development. Making rules extend this approach to the tactile-visual representations of physical models and prototypes. When instantiating design representations within the material world, actions to construct and alter descriptions are grounded in material algebras. This thesis has a focus in Kinematics, where physical models provide a synthetic alternative to analytic techniques for modelling motions. In this context, making rules describe how to construct designs, make alterations, and manipulate models. Kinematic connections afford variable spatial relations between kinematic parts, and rules for physically manipulating models elicit their motions. Single closed-loop kinematic chains with full cycle mobility provide case studies for experimenting with making rules in design exploration, using both physical models and abstract geometric descriptions. An existing design creates a point of entry, where rules then afford the exploration of a surrounding kinematic design space. Applying alterations and transformations to physical models can identify the boundaries within which kinematic properties are preserved. The experimental cases inform theoretical development of exploratory making, with special reference to the variable spatial relations in kinematic designs and the integration of visual and tactile sensing. The main conclusion is that: as making rules construct models, rules are abstracted into schema by comparing properties of similar designs. The schema explain the results of exploration, initiating new explorations and new designs

SS Xantho: towards a new perspective. An integrated approach to the maritime archaeology and conservation of an iron steamship wreck

The assessment and excavation of the wreck of the iron-hulled SS Xantho (1848-72) has shown that otherwise unobtainable information about both materials and people can be found in the archaeological study of iron and steamship wrecks. One important development has been the initiation of full pre-disturbance studies of a shipwreck's biological and electrochemical properties, giving insights into the condition of the site and its materials of value to both the archaeologist and conservator. Conducted by diving conservation specialists at the request of the archaeologist, this was the first such comprehensive study to be performed on any underwater site. It is now recognised as an essential element in any modem maritime archaeological project. Site inspection revealed that Xantho was powered by a former Royal Navy gunboat engine, of a type that was evidently the first high pressure, high revolution and mass produced marine engine made. Despite these advances, they were suitable only for use in a naval context. The ship itself was a former paddle-steamer built in the formative years of iron shipbuilding. After 23 years of service it was sold to a scrap metal merchant who joined the hull to the second-hand screw-engine and offered the revamped hybrid for sale. That the ship appeared on the sparsely populated and poorly serviced Western Australian coast, far from coal supplies and marine engine repair facilities, posed an immediate question; what sort of person would use it in this manner? Thus the Xantho program came to focus on Charles Edward Broadhurst and how he came to make the apparently strange decision to purchase such an odd and apparently unsuitable vessel. Archival study and an excavation of the stem section of the wreck were conducted for these purposes. The study of Broadhurst was completed in 1990, the subject of the author's Masters thesis, resurrecting and analysing the entire business career and life of one of Western Australia's forgotten, but most active and controversial colonial entrepreneurs. This thesis centres on the excavation of Broadhurst's ship and describes the recovery of the ship's engine from a highly-oxygenated salt-water environment. The recovery of the engine was followed by conservation treatment and an archaeologically-based 'excavation' of the heavily concreted engine in the laboratory. Begun in 1985 the deconcretion was completed by mid 1995 with the opening up of the last of the internal spaces and the freeing of all working parts in preparation for the engine's reassembly and exhibition. The successes of the two 'excavations' have confirmed both the place of the conservator on the sea-bed and the archaeologist's place in the conservation process. the disassembly of the engine, where nearly two tonnes of concretions were removed, evidence was found of technical significance and of the way Charles Broadhurst, the vessel's owner operated the ship. I also describe commonalities evident in the formation of iron and steamship wreck sites. This enables anomalies noted at the Xantho site to be assessed and quantified against a broader sample, leading to a focus on the behaviour of steamship owners in a frontier environment and the postulation of a number of testable propositions about the material residues of such behaviours

Science in the Forest, Science in the Past

This collection brings together leading anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and artificial-intelligence researchers to discuss the sciences and mathematics used in various Eastern, Western, and Indigenous societies, both ancient and contemporary. The authors analyze prevailing assumptions about these societies and propose more faithful, sensitive analyses of their ontological views about reality—a step toward mutual understanding and translatability across cultures and research fields. Science in the Forest, Science in the Past is a pioneering interdisciplinary exploration that will challenge the way readers interested in sciences, mathematics, humanities, social research, computer sciences, and education think about deeply held notions of what constitutes reality, how it is apprehended, and how to investigate it