Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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Neoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for...Show moreNeoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for various reasons, but usually rely on the notion of conveying to the viewer a certain set of skills. Since these media are therefore consumed for a specific purpose intended, the viewer already pre-establishes a certain attitude and understanding, and furthermore gains a reflective understanding of this phenomenon itself. This thesis aims to reconsider the notion of spectatorship through a lens of phenomenology, in order to reevaluate the idea of a spectator's own understanding of their experience of a medium, which this thesis names "cognitive spectatorship," and shows how the genre of instruction videos and this new viewing attitude play into the Neoliberal ideology.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores how composting can be a fruitful practice and concept in contemporary art. Current artistic practices resonate with the planetary problems that arise when people tend to feel...Show moreThis thesis explores how composting can be a fruitful practice and concept in contemporary art. Current artistic practices resonate with the planetary problems that arise when people tend to feel disconnected from soil. There is an increasing awareness that soil is not merely dirt but is in fact essential for human and other life forms on Earth; still, the understanding of soil as a resource prevails. Composting is one way to counter soil-exhausting systems, such as industrial agriculture, and work towards a soil-nourishing approach since composting is the transformative decomposition of organic waste into nutrient-rich humus. Composting offers a means of caring for and relating to soil instead of disconnecting from it. Material and speculative facets of composting can be observed in art and enable to expand and review the agricultural practice and understanding of composting. The material and speculative qualities of artworks can urge a reconsideration of human relations with earth, soil and our planet, by making them sensible and imaginable. Therefore, the question that guides this thesis is as follows: how can we humans re-imagine our relationships with earth through material and speculative forms of composting in contemporary art? Composting entails a web of interdependent relations between humans and many non-human actors, such as microorganisms and the environment. In her book Staying with the Trouble (2016), the feminist biologist and philosopher Donna Haraway engages with this idea of composting in a metaphorical way to imagine the world as one big compost pile. Hence, it is in this composting world that humans must learn other ways to be part of planet Earth’s web of relations. The material aspects of composting in art are examined primarily on the basis of the exhibition M for Membrane (2020) by the artist TJ Shin at the Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center in New York City. The speculative possibilities of composting are mainly investigated through the artwork Untilled (2012) by the artist Pierre Huyghe at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. In dialogue with complementary theories, the analyses of contemporary artworks aim to develop ways to replenish Haraway’s concept of composting and substantiate the idea that art can be fertile soil for a flourishing world: art as humus.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
2022-08-31T00:00:00Z
How can you conceptualise a multi-layered and chronologically dense case study in its entirety without losing focus on the parts, and vice versa? This methodological problem lies at the heart of...Show moreHow can you conceptualise a multi-layered and chronologically dense case study in its entirety without losing focus on the parts, and vice versa? This methodological problem lies at the heart of this thesis, in which the seventeenth-century Roman church of Domine Quo Vadis will be used as a case study. Using a palimpsestic framework, this thesis sets out to explore the historical and material dimensions of the Domine Quo Vadis while also acknowledging its status as a mediator of the divine.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis explores how a portable DNA lab (Bento Lab) can affect social ties between humans and objects. How do we perceive DNA research outside of the institutional realm? With script analysis...Show moreThis thesis explores how a portable DNA lab (Bento Lab) can affect social ties between humans and objects. How do we perceive DNA research outside of the institutional realm? With script analysis as the research method, I study the inscribed, subscribed and exhibited capacities of the Bento Lab and how each of these contexts affects the social. The social being the people and objects that are gathered in the momentum in which DNA research is used, or discussed. Throughout the study, it becomes clear that one object can have a large impact on how we, as humans, perceive DNA research and all of its ethical implications.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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At the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the...Show moreAt the beginning of the early twentieth century, various photographic societies were established such as the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring in England and de Nederlandse Club voor FotoKunst in the Netherlands, who profiled themselves as artists and promoted photography as a fine art. It is often argued that they solely produced images to evoke emotions or atmosphere, and that they exclusively looked back at painting styles to reach for the ultimate goal of including photography as a fine art. Moreover, the photographs are mainly described on the basis of art historical categories, techniques, or the biographies of the photographers. I argue that these perspectives neglect the crucial fact that the photographs are photographs, and that new perspectives are needed. Therefore, this research will take a more theoretical approach, by focussing on early Dutch photography from 1913-1927, the medium of photography, and the photo-theoretical concepts of light, straight and composed photography, and time. In this research, the focus will specifically be on two seemingly different photographs: a photograph which looks like a seventeenth-century genre painting by Richard Polak and a cameraless photogram by Henri Berssenbrugge. In this analysis, the attention will be aimed on the fact that these photographs are photographs, by moving to the heart of the medium, and eventually highlighting that within this core, the boundaries are blurred. By combining the earliest theories of photography, with more modern and contemporary arguments considering the medium, new perspectives on the two photographs will be provided, which gives revived attention to the neglected or forgotten early Dutch photography. By taking a different perspective, it is shown that the photographs are more than the reproduction of paintings, or more than just another painterly technique for creating figurative and abstract painting.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis offers an iconographic analysis of the architectural language with which the round church in the Ideal City of Urbino (unknown artist, c. 1480-1495) is depicted. With new insights on...Show moreThis thesis offers an iconographic analysis of the architectural language with which the round church in the Ideal City of Urbino (unknown artist, c. 1480-1495) is depicted. With new insights on the artist's most likely architectural as well as theological sources of inspiration for the round church's building structure and stylistic language, this research contributes to filling a gap in the vast literature on this Renaissance painting.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis analyzes the art performance The Modern Procession, organized by the Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Belgium-Mexican artist Francis Alÿs (1959), and performed on June 23,...Show moreThis thesis analyzes the art performance The Modern Procession, organized by the Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Belgium-Mexican artist Francis Alÿs (1959), and performed on June 23, 2002, in New York City. By using interdisciplinary literary research and comparative media research, this unique performance is first studied from an art performance perspective, with a focus on art performances held on the streets. Secondly the performance is placed in the context of definitions of religious processions, and in the third chapter, the Modern Procession is analyzed from an anthropological and social-geographical standpoint. This thorough analysis does not only reveal the many layers of the Modern Procession, but also what happens when art is taken out of the museum and presented in a new context. By presenting the collection of the MoMA on the streets of New York, the connection between collections and museums is made clear: it is namely art that forms the real heart of a museum, not the building where it is displayed.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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Abstract The German exhibition documenta is inarguably one of the most well-known perennial exhibitions worldwide and takes part every four to five years in Kassel (Germany). The topic discussed in...Show moreAbstract The German exhibition documenta is inarguably one of the most well-known perennial exhibitions worldwide and takes part every four to five years in Kassel (Germany). The topic discussed in this MA thesis, is the 14th edition of documenta and its partial re-location to Athens (Greece) in 2017. This thesis is a critical examination of stereotypical assumptions about Greece’s past that were included in the discourse of the exhibition, and manifested through the public program Exercises of Freedom and the artwork The Parthenon of Books by Marta Minujín. Additionally, these case studies were analyzed based on their common participatory factor using theories of spectatorship by Claire Bishop and Jacques Rancière. This research demonstrates that the documenta14, in the cases of these artworks, conceptualized greek past through the dominant Eurocentric framework.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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The societal role of museums has changed and is still constantly changing, the Museo de América in Madrid, Spain, is no exception. This research aims to capture the evolving role of museums by...Show moreThe societal role of museums has changed and is still constantly changing, the Museo de América in Madrid, Spain, is no exception. This research aims to capture the evolving role of museums by taking on the Museo de América as a case study. The Museo de América was chosen due to the limited international scholarly literature on the relationship museums in Spain, a once powerful and important colonial power, have with contemporary museological discourse. The research question is therefore, to what extent is the Museo de América able to create ‘contact zones’ and capture the changing narrative about indigenous communities in the Americas. This thesis uses Anthony Shelton’s methodology underlying critical museology as a set of tools as well as James Clifford’s concept of ‘museums as contact zones’. This research provides a better understanding of how an ethnographic museum in Spain addresses the colonial and authoritative practices in which museums were built on. The analysis of the Museo shows that some of the Museo’s underlying curatorial practices are consistent with Shelton’s methodological interdictions. However it also identifies a few limitations to the Museo’s capacity to navigate the challenges of bridging historical and cultural gaps across centuries. The most significant being the lack of an indigenous voice regarding the conquest itself. By including indigenous voices and presenting them as active participants, museums can play a critical role in providing visitors with the tools to better understand the evolution of modern society’s values.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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Rotterdam was een bloeiende koopvaardijstad in de zeventiende eeuw. Hoewel weinig bekend, was er een aanzienlijke groep kunstenaars actief. Aan de hand van kunstwerken die het dagelijks leven in de...Show moreRotterdam was een bloeiende koopvaardijstad in de zeventiende eeuw. Hoewel weinig bekend, was er een aanzienlijke groep kunstenaars actief. Aan de hand van kunstwerken die het dagelijks leven in de stad, in de kerk en op dan wel aan het water verbeelden, is een beeld geconstrueerd van een welvarende koopvaardijstad. Met behulp van teksten is nagegaan in hoeverre deze afbeeldingen een realistische impressie zijn. Onder het corpus is een schilderij aangetroffen waarop naakten te zien zijn die een bad nemen, terwijl een passagiersboot hen passeert.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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In the age of the Anthropocene, we are faced with unprecedented challenges; we have realized we are exploiting the Earth’s resources, society is becoming more complex, and urbanization is...Show moreIn the age of the Anthropocene, we are faced with unprecedented challenges; we have realized we are exploiting the Earth’s resources, society is becoming more complex, and urbanization is increasing at a rate never before witnessed. Understanding these challenges is loaded with uncertainty, both in defining the problems and how humanity should respond. One response is that of urban sustainability. Primarily addressed from the perspective of urban planning, urban sustainability focuses on infrastructural and technological solutions. This thesis posits that questions of sustainability in cities however cannot be disconnected from the cultural dimension. Using a comparative case study of two festivals – Burning Man and DGTL Amsterdam – the relationship between humans and their surroundings is explored. The analysis of the festivals focuses on the manifestation of ‘sustainability’ as a set of values through the artworks presented on the festival terrain and the framing of the festival experience. Political ecology theories are used as tools to explore the relationship between humans and their environment. Urban experimentation acts as a theoretical lens to understand the festival as a ‘microcosm’, a breeding ground for creativity and culture, and likening it to the city. The thesis presents a reading of urban festivals that outlines how culture can be introduced to urban sustainability research in response to questions to test political ecology in practice. In doing so, the thesis brings together the once disparate categories of human and nature.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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A study to the relation between the reputation of William of Orange and portrait prints for 1584-1702. I researched the changes in the reputation of the prince in this period, the different ways he...Show moreA study to the relation between the reputation of William of Orange and portrait prints for 1584-1702. I researched the changes in the reputation of the prince in this period, the different ways he was depicted in portraits and the iconography and texts on the cartouches of the portrait prints.Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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This thesis analyzes the rhetoric of the Van Gogh Museum and exposes its communicative strategies holistically. An extensive and multi-faceted analysis on the persuasive character of the Rietveld...Show moreThis thesis analyzes the rhetoric of the Van Gogh Museum and exposes its communicative strategies holistically. An extensive and multi-faceted analysis on the persuasive character of the Rietveld building, the Kurokawa wing, and modern media shows that the communicative strength of the Van Gogh Museum is situated in its awareness of different audiences, their varying needs, and plural museum experiences. In a museum landscape where collection-oriented purposes are increasingly shared with public-oriented functions, the only way through which the museum is able to exert and preserve its expertise is by catering to its audiences. Revealing the rhetorical strategies behind the VGM’s communication results in an awareness that the postmodern museum is capable of transforming its commercial activities into valuable dialogues, in which the visitor is treated as an equal, active, and indispensable participant. Commercial museological practices do not threaten the educative value of the museum but carry the potential to actively encourage inclusivity and accessibility. The VGM emits this message in all of its inherently communicative elements.Show less
