Contemporary European narrative jewellery: the prevalent themes, paradigms and the cognitive interaction between maker, wearer and viewer observed through the process, production and exhibition of narrative jewellery

The focus of this research lies within the field of contemporary studio jewellery, a discipline that has a variety of strands that includes the purely aesthetic, technique led, through concept based to architectonic. A further hybrid of contemporary jewellery is the narrative genre. More specifically this research examines how narrative might be defined and takes a position viewed from a European perspective. Chapter 1, Rationale & Contextual Review, examines contemporary studio jewellery and positions a definition of narrative jewellery within this wider framework. Chapter 2, Defining the Field, identifies global paradigms. The interrogation of the subject examines the correlation between themes and subject matter and the ethnographic factors that influence creative outcomes. The hypothesis proposes that these creative outcomes are universal in their translation whilst reflecting a relationship between environmental influence and ethnographic origin Chapter 3, Narrative Themes, presents an overview of current European makers. Through the author's role as exhibition curator, this chapter identifies prevalent themes and preoccupations selected from the exhibition ‘Maker-Wearer-Viewer’ which surveyed the work of over seventy makers from twenty European countries. Chapter 4, Source, Process & Practice, locates the author’s self-reflective practice within the field by examining the correlation of narrative subject matter, source material and the creative process employed. The importance of source material and its influence on the creative process is examined through reflexive practice. Further research examines the interactive relationship between the maker and wearer, and the response of the viewer. Through practice-based research, the design and making process, the authors’ narrative jewellery is clearly defined within a wider context

Seeking Vocal Alignment

Analyzing his own research-creation over the years, the author uses a framework around a heuristic notion of alignment to analyze the quest for coherence between his sense of self and his artistic practice. Although this quest has characterized his personal and artistic trajectory, the model offers a distinct potential to help other research-creation artists locate and address areas of misalignment (friction points between their art and their self), prompting or framing their own processes of seeking alignment. Seeking alignment is both a process of self-reflection and a research-creation method that leads to discernible shifts in an artist’s life and practice. The author has evolved this notion of alignment from the more specific term vocal alignment, commonly used in vocal technique and pedagogy. His conception of vocal alignment includes and goes beyond the physiological alignment of different body systems designed to optimize the production of vocal sound, giving equal importance to both semantic interpretations of the word voice. It asks: how can an artist align the vocal sounds their body produces with their artistic, personal, social, and political voice? This thesis investigates the author’s process of seeking vocal alignment through his voice-based artistic work. Each of the three core chapters is preceded and followed by sections called “Alignments,” in which self-reflexive and auto-ethnographic writing provides insight into his research-creation process. The reader is invited to engage with these artistic works through sections called “Exhibits” (Lip Service, Anthropologies imaginaires, and Bijuriya). Chapter 1 investigates the author’s critical stance on musical, social, theoretical, and practical aspects of musical life in the Canadian new music scene, highlighting the colonialist assumptions, cultural prejudices, and power imbalances that impact it. Chapter 2 is an analysis of the author’s project Anthropologies imaginaires (2014). He analyzes how his use of voice, body, satire, deception, humour, and laughter formulates a critique of coloniality. Chapter 3 focuses on the author’s solo interdisciplinary drag performance Bijuriya (2021-22). He analyzes the different musical, vocal, and performative strategies that coexist in the piece, and his exploration of different relations to the body and the voice, in line with the concept of vocal alignment

Reading Feminism, New Materialism and Post-colonial thought through Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body

This PhD by Publication enables the advancement of the research methodologies and theoretical positions that underpin the development of Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body, a book that critically explores potentialities of agency through the ways in which costume, itself, performs. Drawn from selected and interconnected past and contemporary costume-led performances, this thesis addresses how these may account for the capacity to both empower and oppress, focusing on contexts of colonialism and neocolonialism. Engaging in a wider and ongoing process of decolonising of the subject, it brings to bear key transdisciplinary theoretical advances that enable expanding beyond the ideas set out in the book to articulate intersecting ethical entanglements, while building on the implicit feminist, post-colonial position taken by it. In this process it considers costuming as a phenomenon that is critical, active, situated, material, temporal, spatial, in motion and embodied. Placing costume within post-humanist ontologies, I intend to make it an object of feminist, new materialist knowledge, that furthers thinking around performance as much as addresses social and environmental concerns, while offering a myriad of creative possibilities for future ethical interdisciplinary research, practice and pedagogy

Wellesley Magazine Summer 2018

Featured in this issue: The #MeToo Reckoning / by Alison Stateman ’91 Building for the Future The Heart of a Pet / by Lisa Scanlon Mogolov ’99https://repository.wellesley.edu/wellesleymagazine/1023/thumbnail.jp

Enhancing children’s early years mathematical creativity through the visual arts

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstract.D.Phil. (Education

Haute games : innovative self and self-identity blendings

This thesis introduces the original idea that it is possible, and productive, to consider the ‘blending’ of (or deliberate creative combining of methods from) the fields of fine art practice and science practice, using selected empirical research methods to investigate constructions of self and self-identity that emerge between disciplines. In particular, the thesis investigates how the scientific aspects of modern computer games, for instance, can be seen to affect emotional responses from viewers and how those responses are, in turn, affected by the ‘blending’ of aesthetic concerns with consideration of alternative cognitive processes that induce relaxation to connect with participant-players’ self-identities. This process created a method to access cognitive processes, hitherto unexplored by computer-game developers. This research locates its arguments primarily in and between the disciplines, Art and Game Studies and supports the findings with examples taken from art practice and with theories of Psychology and Gaming. This thesis documents the creation of the author’s original hybrid ‘art- work-game’, known as ‘Star World’. It describes the process of ‘Star World’s’ creation, with analysis of the efficacy of this environment as a space where the mapping of narrative, and where perceptual and interactive ‘blendings’ of self and self-identity were employed and tested, with both qualitative and empirical studies of the experiences and perceptions of participant-players. The research focuses on how the distinctive abstract environment, ‘Star World’, affords and facilitates personal expression and interaction for computer-game players. It reveals specific cognitive processes undergone by participant-players; evidence that supports and validates the conjecture that participant-players use personal frames of reference when navigating, exploring and interpreting computer games. Teach-back protocols and their impact are shown to improve the interactivity and immersive potential of the environment. Overall, this thesis classifies ‘haute game’ rules that are formulated to identify virtual environments creating unique, alternative ‘blendings’ with participant-players and assembles a framework for developers to pursue, when producing original computer-game genres. It offers an innovative case study of value to future scholars of Game Studies, as well as to game developers, with cautionary examples provided to assist in dealing with situations where emotional states are accessed by game play. This thesis highlights the potential of interactive art and game design to produce beneficial outcomes for its participant-players, moreover, it demonstrates, with empirical evidence, the effect of the virtual environment on its participant-players.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Evading do-re-mi: Destruction and utopia: A study of Einstürzende Neubauten

This thesis represents the first comprehensive examination in English of the work of the Berlin-based music collective, Einstürzende Neubauten. It intends to offer evidence that the sonic forays of this group have not only defined a particular cultural moment but have also created new musical possibilities (to appropriate words from Brandon LaBelle). It does this by investigating why the work of these musicians is important within contemporary music, what cultural concerns their music reflects and how the music is created, performed and disseminated. These questions are explored through a range of contexts, including post-war Berlin, Germany’s problematic relationship with music, the development of Musique Concrète, Noise/Music and strategies for creative independence. There is a detailed analysis of Neubauten’s performance and textual techniques. This thesis argues that Einstürzende Neubauten are one of the few examples of ‘rock-based’ artists who have been able to sustain a breadth and depth of work over a number of years while remaining experimental and open to development; that their work offers evidence that they are one of the most complete examples of Artaudian practice in contemporary performance and that their Supporter Initiative (2002-2007) provided a unique working strategy for independence of the consumerist model of music. Finally, it argues that their work helps to present the case for the re-evaulation of European, non-English language contemporary music. Note -this version contains German spellings, corrected after final submission at the author's request.University of Chester Gladstone Research Fellowshi