This thesis explores the insights that the contemporary practice of neuro art can add to knowledge that is held over the construction of consciousness. This is done through considerations of the...Show moreThis thesis explores the insights that the contemporary practice of neuro art can add to knowledge that is held over the construction of consciousness. This is done through considerations of the work of Annie Cattrell and Helen Chadwick. In order to identify the added value of art, first an analysis is made of the current neuroscientific stance and its influence in society. Secondly, the thesis minutely demarcates the limits of the neuroscientific method. Here it is laid bare why its objective nature is inherently inadequate for a full understanding of consciousness, that is subjective per definition. The third chapter offers a concise introduction to neuro art. In the subsequent two chapters, the confrontation with the two artworks takes place. Through a reflection on how the artists employ their artistic means to conduct their research on the subject, insights on the construction of consciousness are deduced. The thesis is ended with a reflection on the position of art regarding science is present-day society. Art that engages itself with science enriches the ideas about the construction of consciousness.Show less
The thesis explores the consequences of the domestication of street art in the forms of institutionalization and heritagization through a multi- and interdisciplinary approach.
The present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight....Show moreThe present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight. Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, on June 1, 2017 and the recent refusal of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro to stop the exploitation of Amazon illustrate the emergence of a situation in which the notions of territory and nation-state no longer sustain the reality of our shared planet. The more climate change, global warming and the environmental degradation haunt the Earth’s inhabitants, the more it seems that we break apart the world as if boundaries of exclusion could prevent what is inside from perishing. In this thesis, I argue that, in the core of this issue, dwell precisely our ‘notions’ and ‘concepts’—enclosed in the huge monolith of Western modern thinking. To confront the planetary crisis, one needs a new strategy to access these problems—that would not consist in simply applying a dialectical method of discussion, but instead deploying a multidimensional approach, capable of penetrating that Western bloc from all sides. By taking on the notion of networks—whether informatic, political and biological—I critically analyse this concept and introduce the framework of the ‘swarm’ that I used in my own artistic practice as a way to allow a multiplicity of viewpoints. The art project Game of Swarms, which explores mainly the fact that the individuals of swarms work together without a locus of control, provokes the audience to rethink our current political structures and use the narrative of the game to imagine new forms of making politics and a new way to think our relation to the world. The biological self-organised model of swarms comes as a tool to create new narratives to face today’s planetary crisis and foster a more sustainable way of thinking.Show less
In the last two to three decades, throughout the world, urban and architectural spaces have been losing their identities over cities, driven mainly by commercial and economic interests....Show moreIn the last two to three decades, throughout the world, urban and architectural spaces have been losing their identities over cities, driven mainly by commercial and economic interests. Nevertheless, a number of artists have been escaping from their own traditional sphere of activity and exploring questions about space, the main tool of architects. These artists have been creating innovative hybrid works of art-and-architecture that highlight the singularity of places. Furthermore, they have also been focusing on the spectator’s bodily experiences using a phenomenological approach on their artworks. Recognizing these issues, this research opens discussions on how the adoption of phenomenological aspects in the creative process of art-and-architecture can contribute to an embodied experience through the artist Olafur Eliasson’s constructed work Fjordenhus (2018), in Vejle, Denmark, in partnership with the architect Sebastian Behmann. The main argument is that works embedded in a phenomenological bias can serve as a tool for resuscitation and vitality of architectural spaces in a relationship between architecture, space, and body. This study aims to contribute to the recent debates, concerning the tenuous limit of the interdisciplinary fields of visual art and architecture, with the participation of an artist in the conceptual process of an architectural project.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the role of Holocaust museums in the past, from when they were first instituted, and in the present, focusing on two Holocaust museums: the Jewish Museum in...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to analyze the role of Holocaust museums in the past, from when they were first instituted, and in the present, focusing on two Holocaust museums: the Jewish Museum in Berlin, in the perpetrators’ land, and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, situated in the victims’ country. This dissertation studies the geographic location of these museums because of its great influence on the narrative of these museums: Yad Vashem, being situated in Jerusalem, follows a Zionist narrative derived from the State’s national memory, while the Jewish Museum in Berlin sometimes falls into a guilt-induced narrative because it is in the capital of the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.Show less
This thesis aims to shed a new light on Torrentius’s Still Life with Roemer, Sheet Music, Flagon, Jug, Pipes, and Bridle (1614) and Watercolour with Star, Sky, Water, and Geometrical Figures (1615)...Show moreThis thesis aims to shed a new light on Torrentius’s Still Life with Roemer, Sheet Music, Flagon, Jug, Pipes, and Bridle (1614) and Watercolour with Star, Sky, Water, and Geometrical Figures (1615) via an integral and multidisciplinary approach. By incorporating elements from music, rhetoric, poetry, and Antiquity, as well as by incorporating all details from these two works, new views have been put forward concerning their interpretation.Show less
This thesis examines the role of the environment in the artworks of Dan Graham and Olafur Eliasson in Inhotim Institute of Contemporary Art and Botanical Gardens, in Brazil. This is done from the...Show moreThis thesis examines the role of the environment in the artworks of Dan Graham and Olafur Eliasson in Inhotim Institute of Contemporary Art and Botanical Gardens, in Brazil. This is done from the perspective of Environmental Aesthetics, which is the theoretical frame that allows the consideration of the environment not only as a subject matter for contemporary art. Rather, the important contributions of philosopher Arnold Berleant and Allen Carlson in the field, acknowledge our understanding and engagement with the environment as intrinsic elements of the aesthetic experience. Therefore, this thesis looks not only to the materiality of Dan Graham’s Bisected triangle, Interior curve (2002), and Olafur Eliasson’s Viewing Machine (2001-2003). It also sees the constitution of the relationship between the viewer, the artworks and the environment in Inhotim Institute as constituent parts of how we perceive them. By emphasizing the active relationality in/with the environment, the scope of this research is extended beyond the traditional foundations of aesthetics as, for instance, the idea of the contemplation of a landscape, the subjectivity of the viewer, and the pleasure associated with beauty. Finally, this thesis shows that when perceiving natural environments in relation to art we are invited to enter a space in which our perception is always in movement between our cultural beliefs, the environmental conditions that affect us and the artwork. In engaging in/with the environment in the aesthetic experience, Dan Graham and Olafur Eliasson offer us ways of disrupting our accustomed view, enlarging our experience in the world, and bringing art closer to the everyday life.Show less
The year 1979 marks the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and marks the beginning of the Islamic Cultural Revolution in Iran. The Chinese artist Zhang Dali and the Iranian artist Nastaran...Show moreThe year 1979 marks the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and marks the beginning of the Islamic Cultural Revolution in Iran. The Chinese artist Zhang Dali and the Iranian artist Nastaran Safaei both deal with the censorship in their country in their artistic work. What is the impact of this on their work with regard to the representation of the nude female body? What are the similarities and differences regarding this issue in the both countries?Show less
Een kritische diversiteitsbenadering van het examenonderwerp “De burgerlijke cultuur van Nederland in de 17e eeuw” van kunst (algemeen) aan de hand van academische publicaties, een analyse van de...Show moreEen kritische diversiteitsbenadering van het examenonderwerp “De burgerlijke cultuur van Nederland in de 17e eeuw” van kunst (algemeen) aan de hand van academische publicaties, een analyse van de instructiemethodes voor het vak en een museale case study, het Frans Hals Museum.Show less
Over the past few months, an increasing number of images and installations produced by artists using artificial intelligence (AI), have sold at major auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s....Show moreOver the past few months, an increasing number of images and installations produced by artists using artificial intelligence (AI), have sold at major auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s. This suggests that the artificial semi-automated production and reproduction of art is becoming part of established and recognized institutional art circuits. What remains less certain though, is the possibility of AI producing art fully autonomously, that is, without the artist’s input. There are currently several AI image-generating robots created with the aim to be as automatic as possible, among which is PIX18, built by the mechanical engineer Hod Lipson. Allegedly, this machine can apply physical pigment on canvas to make consistently diverse paintings with minimal human intervention. It is so skilled with the brushes, that its by-products have become practically indistinguishable from human-made paintings in aesthetic terms. With that in mind, the aim of this thesis will be to take PIX18 as a case study, and investigate the extent to which its depictions can be seen as artistically equivalent to human art. This will be done by comparing a painting called ‘Frightened Girl’ (2016) made by/with the robot, to another painting titled ‘Woman with a Flowered Hat’ (1963) made by the artist Roy Lichtenstein. In that fashion, this thesis will attempt to answer the following question: to what extent can PIX18’s ‘Frightened Girl’ (2016), be seen as artistically equivalent to Lichtenstein’s ‘Woman with a Flowered Hat’ (1963), and what does this say about current conceptions of art and future considerations of AI? Both paintings are reinterpretations of other images, and will be put in dialogue across two fundamental perspectives, those of the agent who made the paintings, and of the viewer who perceived or perceives them. Potentially, the insights reached in this thesis entail a reconsideration of contemporary art as an exclusively human phenomenon, and a reassessment of how far AI has come in the replication of complex human behaviors.Show less
From 1630 to 1654 the Dutch West India Company have succeeded in establishing a colony in the Northeast part of Brazil, then under the dominance of Portugal. Its most preeminent governor, Johan...Show moreFrom 1630 to 1654 the Dutch West India Company have succeeded in establishing a colony in the Northeast part of Brazil, then under the dominance of Portugal. Its most preeminent governor, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, administered the protectorate through slave and sugar trade, inviting artists, botanists and scientists to document the natives and new inhabitants’ daily life and customs. Johan Maurits’ collection of Brazilian representations and artefacts was mostly donated throughout his life in order to secure him alliances after his return from Brazil and most of the works made during the period are now in European museums, such as the Mauritshuis, in the Netherlands. As art is rarely dissociated from its appreciation, it is vital in the contemporary postcolonial world that we discuss, not only the production of these artworks, but also their display, their reception and more importantly, their role in present day societies. The role of Johan Maurits as a ‘benefactor of the arts’ has been broadly praised by scholarly research, and his effort in documenting the daily life in the ‘New World’ has been commonly seen as the work of a ‘humanist prince’ in the tropics. Nonetheless, I argue that precisely because of this mythification of Dutch Brazil, historiography has failed so far – with a few exceptions – in critically analysing the representations produced during the Dutch occupation. By considering these works as true masterpieces only possible because of the effort of a magnificent patron, the relationship between the artist, his commissioner and the object is overlooked. The social and hierarchical interpretations of what is depicted give room to formalist approaches, and the impact of this fruitful production in the imaginary of a European audience is again ignored. This thesis intends to analyse these representations and their impact on the understanding and the construction of an identity of Brazilian society as viewed by Europeans. Taking Frans Post's View of Itamaracá Island (1637) as a case study, it envisions to connect the postcolonial debate of representation with the museum practice in the contemporary and discuss the role of institutions as bearers of colonial legacies.Show less
This thesis follows the trajectories of two museums, the National Museum of Damascus and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, across the past two decades, to investigate the extent to which notions of...Show moreThis thesis follows the trajectories of two museums, the National Museum of Damascus and the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, across the past two decades, to investigate the extent to which notions of nation, national heritage and the public good have come to be evaluated before, during and after conflict. Charged with pride and burdened with pain, the material heritage of this region in many ways stood at the centre of the conflicts of the past twenty years, and would come to define the future of the nations of Syria and Iraq. Tracing the histories of the two national museums, from closure to reopening, through the vantage point of the antiquities in their collections, this thesis strives to illustrate how Syrian and Iraqi heritage has been appropriated and narrated in strategic and contested ways by a diverse network of invested actors, both locally and globally. Drawing on exhibitions and press material surrounding pivotal events in these museums’ biographies, this thesis argues that in suppressing the legacy of pain and trauma with which their patrimonies are inscribed, local and international culture professionals impeded post-conflict healing and inadvertently acted against the interest of the public good. Reconstructing the museum and its destroyed collections could serve to incite national introspection and to reconnect the peoples of Syria and Iraq with the heritage from which they have for so long been alienated, but if recent years’ heritage trauma remains unaddressed in the post-conflict museum, genuine healing may never be attained. In order to lay the groundwork for reconciliation, and to pave the way for the transformation of conflict, this thesis proposes agonistic dialogue as the means through which museum professionals and museum publics may collectively come to terms with the healing and hurting sides of their national heritage.Show less
The thesis explores how the nation builders in East Asia have deployed the western invention of the museum to facilitate nationalism in the context of modernization and globalization initiated by...Show moreThe thesis explores how the nation builders in East Asia have deployed the western invention of the museum to facilitate nationalism in the context of modernization and globalization initiated by European imperialist expansionism. By focusing on the past and afterlife of the National Central Museum of Manchukuo (1939-1945), we are offered more clues to unfold the complex and often paradoxical position that the Japanese imperialists and scholars took in their ambitious project of constructing an independent identity of Manchkuo in relation to the China proper.Show less
