Hayv Kahraman’s Bodyscreens: Skin, Depth, and Surface

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on August 11, 2015Thesis advisor: Cristina AlbuVitaIncludes bibliographic references (pages 64-66)Thesis (M.A.)--Department of Art and Art History. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015Hayv Kahraman is most widely known for her large-scale paintings of pale women with skin like silk and soft clouds of dark black hair. She often draws on her experiences as an émigré from Iraq to represent the challenges that surface as a result of one’s identity. Having observed in such works how the body is undermined by volatile abstractions like nationality and gender, I will argue that in introducing the operation of a scanning device into her practice, Kahraman comes to reconfigure these terms through what Christine Ross has termed “precarious visuality.” Destabilizing optical perspective requires that the interface of the viewing experience be reshaped, and seeing the female body threatened by a loss of agency, Kahraman reconsiders its very surface, turning body into a screen. This thesis will therefore examine what I will call “bodyscreens” made by Kahraman. The first chapter will argue that in meditating on surface and body, the artist is revising minimalist practices, such as those of Robert Morris, which confront the viewer with objects that emphasize their exteriority. In asking why Kahraman chooses to represent the body as a minimalist object with Icosahedral Body and Quasi-Corporeal, I will rely on the philosophy of Elizabeth Grosz to demonstrate that by inscribing her internal body on an object’s skin, the artist is showing that as a screen, the body’s significance can permute, dismantle hierarchies, resist categories, and expand the possibilities of subjectivity. The second chapter will discuss how this melding of inner and outer is also an explicit engagement with architectural spaces. Kahraman links together memories of mashrabiya screens; the category of sexuality; and the viewer’s immersion in architecture to produce what Giuliana Bruno describes as what can be called filmic spaces. This intersection of traditional Islamic media with the ongoing redefinitions of the screen in museographic spaces establishes new forms of dwelling and journey that contrast with the colonizer’s desire to enclose and fix. I will conclude by discussing Kahraman’s performance art and ask what relationship between evasion of identification and intersubjectivity she proposes in projecting her story onto the bodies of her actresses.College of Arts and SciencesIntroduction -- Havy Kahrman's geometric bodied and minimal art -- The filmic body as a new site of dwelling -- Self-effacement and intersubjectivity across Kahraman's bodyscreens -- Illustrationsmonographi

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ATM Limits Incorrect End Utilization during Non-Homologous End Joining of Multiple Chromosome Breaks

Chromosome rearrangements can form when incorrect ends are matched during end joining (EJ) repair of multiple chromosomal double-strand breaks (DSBs). We tested whether the ATM kinase limits chromosome rearrangements via suppressing incorrect end utilization during EJ repair of multiple DSBs. For this, we developed a system for monitoring EJ of two tandem DSBs that can be repaired using correct ends (Proximal-EJ) or incorrect ends (Distal-EJ, which causes loss of the DNA between the DSBs). In this system, two DSBs are induced in a chromosomal reporter by the meganuclease I-SceI. These DSBs are processed into non-cohesive ends by the exonuclease Trex2, which leads to the formation of I-SceI–resistant EJ products during both Proximal-EJ and Distal-EJ. Using this method, we find that genetic or chemical disruption of ATM causes a substantial increase in Distal-EJ, but not Proximal-EJ. We also find that the increase in Distal-EJ caused by ATM disruption is dependent on classical non-homologous end joining (c-NHEJ) factors, specifically DNA-PKcs, Xrcc4, and XLF. We present evidence that Nbs1-deficiency also causes elevated Distal-EJ, but not Proximal-EJ, to a similar degree as ATM-deficiency. In addition, to evaluate the roles of these factors on end processing, we examined Distal-EJ repair junctions. We found that ATM and Xrcc4 limit the length of deletions, whereas Nbs1 and DNA-PKcs promote short deletions. Thus, the regulation of end processing appears distinct from that of end utilization. In summary, we suggest that ATM is important to limit incorrect end utilization during c-NHEJ

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