There has always been a fascination in death and violence present in our society. From public execution to war films, our society gathered around death as a form of entertainment. Photographs by...Show moreThere has always been a fascination in death and violence present in our society. From public execution to war films, our society gathered around death as a form of entertainment. Photographs by Weegee uncovered this fascination and he exaggerated it using various photographic techniques. Portraying the period of socioeconomic struggle of post-war America, his photographs exposed the raw human emotions which emanates from witnessing the extremity of murders. Weegee captured the process of individuals’ pains turning into the spectacle of the public through “Their First Murder” and “Balcony Seats At A Murder”. Us, as the viewers, then view the subjects depicted in the photograph as a spectacle, creating a chain of gaze. Using theories of Susan Sontag, Mark Seltzer, and the politics of gaze, the essay will investigate the intention behind Weegee’s exaggerated representation of his subject.Show less
This paper examines the interrelations between the collective memory, liminality, and landscape related to the Pinochet regime that had place in Chile between the 1970s and the 1990s. Focusing on...Show moreThis paper examines the interrelations between the collective memory, liminality, and landscape related to the Pinochet regime that had place in Chile between the 1970s and the 1990s. Focusing on the contemporary artworks of Enrique Ramírez, Patricio Guzmán, and Cecilia Vicuña, this study argues that the depiction of the memory of the military regime in the contemporary Chilean visual art is strongly related to the representation of the landscape with an impact of liminality. It also proves that the collective memory affects the perception of a site-specific landscape related to the regime. All discussed artworks: Los Durmientes, El Botón de Nácar, and Kon Kon present a different take on these concerns proving however, that the depiction of the collective memory in contemporary Chilean art is closely correlated to landscape and liminality.Show less
The Serbian artist Ivana Bašić (b. 1987) believes that her free-standing and humanoid sculptures which bear resemblances with a corpse are real, meaning alive and human. From an anthropocentric...Show moreThe Serbian artist Ivana Bašić (b. 1987) believes that her free-standing and humanoid sculptures which bear resemblances with a corpse are real, meaning alive and human. From an anthropocentric view, such a conviction may initially pose as difficult for the viewers of her work to agree with. The reason for that lies in the perception that certain power dynamics, which occur when a viewer encounters a statue, necessarily reduce the sculpture to a mere object. However, this hierarchy may also be challenged, particularly in the two aspects of materiality and visual qualities. This paper analyses Bašić’s sculptural work I will lull and rock my ailing light in my marble arms #1 and #2 (2017) through a posthumanist lens, using theories on materiality, the uncanny, and the abject. The focus therein lies in expanding the default notion on sculptures being “dead objects” by introducing a possible reality wherein they can be perceived to exist in a realm “in-between” being alive and dead.Show less
There is a pressing need for new articulation and tools to make the cloud more understandable. Data center visualization has become increasingly relevant for this purpose. The goal of this paper is...Show moreThere is a pressing need for new articulation and tools to make the cloud more understandable. Data center visualization has become increasingly relevant for this purpose. The goal of this paper is to investigate what photography can mean medium-wise by using it to represent the cloud through photographing data centers. The medium of photography for representing the cloud has not yet been researched. Central to this research is the analysis of the photography of Acid Clouds that photographs datacenter exteriors as a means to map the cloud. By the way in which photography is discursively embedded as both informative and desensitizing, photography of data centers as a form of visualizing the cloud can easily, instead of offering visibility, make the cloud more distractive but omnipresent, as well as reinforce ideas of security and complicity. This paper develops two concepts, "concealment" and "stability," that can be used by researchers and artists who want to work with the interplay between the medium of photography, cloud infrastructure, and the cloud.Show less
In the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz a group of selected prisoners were forced to operate on a daily basis the gas chambers and crematoria of the camp: the members of the Sonderkommando were...Show moreIn the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz a group of selected prisoners were forced to operate on a daily basis the gas chambers and crematoria of the camp: the members of the Sonderkommando were prisoners forced to kill and cremate other fellow inmates. In 1944 some members of the current Sonderkommando unit managed to secretly shoot four photographs showing their daily duties and smuggle them outside of the camp, in order to show to the rest of the world the hell on Earth that was the life inside of Auschwitz. This essay analyses these four images as essential elements in the context of the collective memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The focus is posed on the importance of exhibiting these photographs despite their characteristic of being “violence images”, and how crucial it is to exhibit them while maintaining their original narrative without compromising it or omitting some aspects.Show less
In dit essay wordt het vrouwenbeeld in Franse posters uit de negentiende eeuw onderzocht. Het doel van dit onderzoek is om te kijken in hoeverre het beeld van de new woman en de verleidelijke vrouw...Show moreIn dit essay wordt het vrouwenbeeld in Franse posters uit de negentiende eeuw onderzocht. Het doel van dit onderzoek is om te kijken in hoeverre het beeld van de new woman en de verleidelijke vrouw in de commerciële poster contrasterende beelden zijn. Door middel van interdisciplinair onderzoek waarbij er gebruik werd gemaakt van genderstudies, zijn verschillende vrouwentypen in negentiende-eeuwse posterkunst worden geanalyseerd. Uit deze analyse blijkt dat er opvallende overeenkomsten zijn tussen verleidelijke vrouwentypen en ‘progressieve’ vrouwentypen als de new woman. Het commerciële aspect van de posterkunst zorgt ervoor dat de verleidelijkheid altijd aanwezig is, maar dat dit niet betekent dat de vrouw in de poster geen intellectualiteit kan uitstralen. Daarnaast blijkt uit het onderzoek naar het nieuwe toeschouwerschap van het medium dat de poster een nieuw soort toeschouwer aantrok, waar ook vrouwen bij hoorden. De verschillende vrouwentypen in de posterkunst van de late negentiende eeuw blijken allemaal reflecties te zijn op veranderende genderrollen in de samenleving.Show less
De transi is een uiting van een bepaalde cultuur rondom de dood in de late Middeleeuwen. Deze lijkt te bestaan uit verschillende uitdrukkingen in de kunst en literatuur, zoals de ars moriendi:...Show moreDe transi is een uiting van een bepaalde cultuur rondom de dood in de late Middeleeuwen. Deze lijkt te bestaan uit verschillende uitdrukkingen in de kunst en literatuur, zoals de ars moriendi: Middeleeuwse stervenshandleidingen en gedichten over de dood. In deze scriptie wordt de cultuur van het omgaan met de dood in de late Middeleeuwen geschetst. Hiervoor is de volgende onderzoeksvraag opgesteld: Van welke cultuur in het omgaan met de dood in de Late Middeleeuwen is de transitombe van het echtpaar Brederode een uiting? Om de gedachte- en beeldwereld waar de transi onderdeel van is inzichtelijker te maken, is in dit onderzoek een greep gedaan uit de stervensliteratuur. Op basis van de stervensliteratuur is de gedachte- en beeldwereld van het sterven in de late Middeleeuwen geschetst, waardoor de cultuur waarvan de transitombe onderdeel van is inzichtelijker is gemaakt.Show less
This research aims to unveil the agency of the artwork “la Zoyd’s pataVerse” by Yvonne le Grand. By applying Wild’s take on Gell’s Art Nexus, three phases of the social biography of Le Grand’s work...Show moreThis research aims to unveil the agency of the artwork “la Zoyd’s pataVerse” by Yvonne le Grand. By applying Wild’s take on Gell’s Art Nexus, three phases of the social biography of Le Grand’s work are placed into a system that connects with four agents that mostly revolve around the interactions between them. This research laid bare that the agency of the artwork came into being because of (a) the Index, being an online platform that invited Recipients to participate in the artwork; (b) the Artist, deciding to (not) use the input by Recipients in Zoyd’s life; (c) the Recipient, willing to and being able to interact with the Artwork; and (d) the Prototype, offering another dimension to the artwork as it refers to the fact that online and offline identities are both versions of the self that are not fully separate.Show less
NFTs, after the recent boom in 2021, are increasingly exiting the online-only realm and are entering the physical space as museums and galleries are increasingly acquiring, displaying and...Show moreNFTs, after the recent boom in 2021, are increasingly exiting the online-only realm and are entering the physical space as museums and galleries are increasingly acquiring, displaying and commissioning NFTs artworks. Some of these NFTs are created precisely for a physical space and can be defined as site-specific NFTs. In particular, the digital media artist Refik Anadol (b.1985 Istanbul, Turkey) is a pioneer in creating site-specific NFTs for some of the most important art institutions in the world. The merging between NFTs and Site Specific art has never been discussed previously, and generally the literature on curating NFTs is still lacking. The aim of this paper is to find the tools to analyse a site specific NFTs artwork. To achieve this, Refik Anadol’s artwork Machine Hallucinations – Nature Dreams : AI Data Sculpture 2021 1/1, which was made site-specifically for König Galerie in Berlin, will be studied. The outcome of this research will serve as a tool that could be used to analyse other NFTs site specific works and eventually will be helpful for future re-locations of the artwork.Show less
Perishables is a photographic series that features the portraits of nineteen white women between the ages of fifty and seventy. Through its engagement with abject materials, namely its use of...Show morePerishables is a photographic series that features the portraits of nineteen white women between the ages of fifty and seventy. Through its engagement with abject materials, namely its use of animal skins and organ linings as garments for the photographed women, the series aims to enter into a generative relationship with its spectators, where the female ageing body is explored and re-negotiated through its abject exploration. Departing from a sociological, philosophical and feminist perspective, I frame Perishables as a powerful and poignant commentary on the social abjection of female ageing bodies that engages with the feminist tradition of body reclamation. The aim of this paper is to deconstruct and unveil the ageist and patriarchal notions inscribed in the female ageing body, and to showcase (theoretical and socially engaged) practices to refute them.Show less
During Bulgaria’s transition period (1990-2007), contemporary artistic practices were not seen as valuable symbolic capital, causing friction between the state and the contemporary artistic...Show moreDuring Bulgaria’s transition period (1990-2007), contemporary artistic practices were not seen as valuable symbolic capital, causing friction between the state and the contemporary artistic community. A museum for contemporary art did not exist, marking contemporary artists as invisible. In response, the artist Ivan Moudov expressed institutional critique towards the scarce state funding and the absence of a museum through the staging of a fake museum opening (MUSIZ) at an empty railway station. Moudov’s action amassed over 300 attendees who were unconsciously organised into a community. This thesis will argue that by affectively involving the attendees of MUSIZ into participation and granting the audience agency in relation to the setting and the public, Moudov created a ground for social engagement that empowered his audience. The presence of affect and social engagement are crucial agents in achieving positive social transformation for the contemporary cultural community, as will be discussed through the outcome of this performance.Show less
Especially in our contemporary material culture with mass production and consumer culture playing big roles, a deceased loved one leaves behind many possessions. These possessions can range from...Show moreEspecially in our contemporary material culture with mass production and consumer culture playing big roles, a deceased loved one leaves behind many possessions. These possessions can range from their IKEA bedside table that cousin Maddie can put to good use in her new dorm room, to their last shopping lists scribbled down on a crumbled up, sticky note. Seemingly unimportant objects like these will be a red thread throughout this paper. Still-life paintings have the ability to invert seemingly unimportant objects. By putting the focus of the artwork on the material objects, these seemingly unimportant objects become important. Rachel Grobstein’s series Bedside Tables shines light on the often overlooked aspects of daily life exploring questions related to memory, routine and identity. In this consumer culture we have so many items around us and in our possession, that the importance of many of these is often forgotten. When they are -subconsciously- brought together by a person they can start to tell a story, the life story of an individual. Without the body being present in the artwork, it leaves just the story of a person, the memory of them. When we take a closer look at her work through the traditional Vanitas Tradition these artworks start to remind us of how irrelevant and unimportant these material objects are once we pass; we cannot take these with us anyway. Yet, as these material possessions might not be important for an individual once they pass, these possessions stay important to the people they leave behind, for their process of grief, for keeping their memory alive in this material world. It goes further than our physical world but represents this right through material objects from this very physical world. It is not about the physical presence of the body or corpse, but about the memory of the person. However, it is this memory that is represented through the material objects/possessions of the deceased person. The series Bedside Tables represents something outside of our physical world, but does so through the physical objects of our consumer culture. Can the contemporary work by Rachel Grobstein allow us to combine both the still-life Vanitas tradition and the theories surrounding death, memory and material culture? In this paper I argue that our contemporary consumer culture shines a new light on the well-known Vanitas tradition, focussing on the seemingly unimportant objects produced for consumer culture and their role in memory after death in a western society. At the beginning of this paper there will be an analysis of Rachel Grobstein’s series Bedside Tables as well as the traditional Vanitas tradition and how this tradition has been adapted in modern times through art movements like Pop Art. As a theoretical framework I will be using Elizabeth Hallam and Jenny Hockey’s Death, Memory and Material Culture (2001) and Jennifer Owen’s Distancing material effects to reconcile loss: Sorting memories and emotion in self-storage (2020), both of which will help me reveal the importance of material objects in experiences of grief, mourning and memorialising. As I take a deeper look into death and consumer culture and the notion of grief through the theory of Owen and Hallam and Hockey.Show less
This paper is the first in-depth analysis of the digital artwork ‘Humanoid’ (2021) by Jennie Feyen. By utilizing primarily the theoretical frameworks of Laura Mulvey and Kai Baldwin in order to...Show moreThis paper is the first in-depth analysis of the digital artwork ‘Humanoid’ (2021) by Jennie Feyen. By utilizing primarily the theoretical frameworks of Laura Mulvey and Kai Baldwin in order to unpack the bodily portrayal of the figure in the name of ‘Humanoid’, this paper offers a distinctive reading of the artwork in relation to male gaze theory and the notion of digitized body. Through the multi-sensory analysis, the problematic representation of the female body and also an ideal representation of the genderless body in ‘Humanoid’ will be revealed. This paper will demonstrate the dualism of the digital space by referring to its power dynamics and also proposing an alternative body for representing the self.Show less
In recent years, the Western world has experienced a heightened interest in addressing troublesome heritage, especially with the rise of global anti-racism movements. In relation to the public...Show moreIn recent years, the Western world has experienced a heightened interest in addressing troublesome heritage, especially with the rise of global anti-racism movements. In relation to the public space it means that monuments that are connected to racial oppression often have become the target of iconoclastic acts of activists. An example of such a contested monument is the statue of James Marion Sims. Instead of attacking the actual statue, which is usually done in iconoclastic acts, artist Doreen Garner responded to the controversies surrounding Sims by harming a replica of his statue in her performance Purge (2017). This research paper investigates how the usage of this replica problematizes the existing definitions of iconoclasm and to what extent it can shed a different light on iconoclastic practices. To answer this question, anthropological theories on voodoo will be used, as the creation of a representation with the purpose of harming it, reminds of voodoo practices. By investigating the concept of iconoclasm in relation to voodoo, this research reveals the significant overlap between voodoo and iconoclasm, as both concepts function on the basis that a representation is targeted for its similarities with the referent.Show less
In this paper, the art project Circles of Focus (2011- ongoing) by artists Christine Borland (1965) and Brody Condon (1974) will be analysed and framed using theories on time-based art and...Show moreIn this paper, the art project Circles of Focus (2011- ongoing) by artists Christine Borland (1965) and Brody Condon (1974) will be analysed and framed using theories on time-based art and relational aesthetics. The presence of documents and research evidence in contemporary art will also be explored in this paper. With this ongoing project, Borland and Condon raise the status of human corpses donated to science by decorating them through hypostasis. Throughout the ongoing project, many connections are made, between people but also between several periods of time. This paper will argue that this project can be considered both a time-based as well as a relational artwork through the way it creates new relations between visitors, the artists, and other involved parties, and the way in which the work is heavily reliant on time.Show less
The emergence of HIV in Brazilian society challenged culturally-fundamental values, varying from institutional responses to discourses on identity politics. This paper introduces an intertextual...Show moreThe emergence of HIV in Brazilian society challenged culturally-fundamental values, varying from institutional responses to discourses on identity politics. This paper introduces an intertextual analysis of Rafael França’s enigmatic video work Prelude to an Announced Death, concluded two days prior to the artist’s own death. The artwork’s ambiguity seems to welcome potentialities of interpretations, such as that of the AIDS crisis in a 1990s Brazilian context. Considering the influence of the Catholic Church in Brazilian society, especially a Marxist strain that arose within the Church’s institution in opposition to Brazilian military dictatorship, the possibility of analysing the artwork through the lens of Catholic symbols brings attention to the practices that constituted the meaning of AIDS in 1990s Brazil. In addressing the practices that revolve around the virus, this text suggests that the (video-)text by Rafael França can be understood through a web of historical, cultural, social, amongst others, texts.Show less
Museums have been putting effort into making their collections accessible. However, for visually impaired people, the possibilities have not yet been explored. The method of 3D printing can provide...Show moreMuseums have been putting effort into making their collections accessible. However, for visually impaired people, the possibilities have not yet been explored. The method of 3D printing can provide haptic interactions with artworks for visually impaired people, yet museums have been hesitant in including 3D prints in their collection out of fear that the reproduction would threaten the authenticity of the original. This thesis explores the possibilities of using 3D prints of paintings in the museum space to achieve the inclusion of visually impaired people by using arguments based on studies in 3D printing technology, museum studies, authenticity studies and by reviewing previous exhibitions that include 3D prints. Eventually, the found results will be applied to design a 3D print of Girl with a Pearl Earring, creating a design that is not an exact copy of the original, but an interactive 3D print that triggers more senses than just touch to create an art experience as complete as possible.Show less
Dit onderzoek richt zich op de betekenissen en invloed van het in het Uffizi tentoongestelde schilderij Judith onthoofdt Holofernes uit 1620-21 van Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653) binnen...Show moreDit onderzoek richt zich op de betekenissen en invloed van het in het Uffizi tentoongestelde schilderij Judith onthoofdt Holofernes uit 1620-21 van Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653) binnen verschillende historische, sociale en culturele contexten. De verschillende betekenissen die zijn ontleend aan het schilderij worden onderzocht door een interdisciplinaire benadering van kunstgeschiedenis, waarbij historische analyse, iconografische interpretatie en discoursanalyse worden toegepast. Het werk van Gentileschi wordt vergeleken met dat van haar mannelijke tijdgenoten en beschouwd binnen de opkomst van de feministische kunstgeschiedenis. Daarnaast worden de keuzes door museumconservatoren met betrekking tot de interpretatie van kunstwerken onderzocht aan de hand van de vertoning van Judith onthoofdt Holofernes van Gentileschi naast het in 2012 gemaakte schilderij Judith en Holofernes van Kehinde Wiley (1977-). Deze studie maakt onder andere gebruik van de theorieën van Roland Barthes, Mieke Bal en Michel Foucault om de beeldtaal en constructie van betekenis te begrijpen. De analyse van het schilderij en de contextuele benadering dragen bij aan een dieper begrip van dit kunstwerkShow less
In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argues that even the most flawless reproduction cannot prevent the decay of aura of the artwork. This article...Show moreIn his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argues that even the most flawless reproduction cannot prevent the decay of aura of the artwork. This article as a comparative literary research challenges his viewpoint by proposing that VR experiences can surpass the limitation of mechanical reproduction. Moreover, it suggests that the real-life art experience is more just its original context, and that it also has a social side to it. Although this argument is supported by articles tackling the influence of visitors’ surroundings on how museum goers look at art, it concludes that the authority of an artwork’s authenticity cannot be overcome by such modes of multimedia.Show less
The aim of this paper is to investigate cozy video games and their implementation of care into their mechanics, narrative and aesthetics with a special focus on how it can influence their target,...Show moreThe aim of this paper is to investigate cozy video games and their implementation of care into their mechanics, narrative and aesthetics with a special focus on how it can influence their target, primarily female, audience. Cozy games, as a very new phenomenon, have not been thoroughly explored and it is important to analyze what influence they could have on the forming of their players’ gender identities. The second chapter contributes to the ongoing debate around the nature of cozy games and their defining elements. This paper uses Spiritfarer (2020) and Adorable Home (2020) as a base for the analysis of the incorporation of care in cozy video games. The findings of this analysis indicate that games targeted towards women have an unintentional tendency to perpetuate traditional, patriarchal values surrounding care. However, there are examples of games which use these values intentionally to foster empathy and existential self-reflection.Show less
