Amid recent developments, the legacy of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta lives on within museum walls and in the public consciousness, continually reopening the wound left by her tragic death...Show moreAmid recent developments, the legacy of Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta lives on within museum walls and in the public consciousness, continually reopening the wound left by her tragic death before she could bring her impressive oeuvre to fruition. Grounded in the human sensibility integral to her practice, this paper offers a poetic reading of a selection of Mendieta’s earth/body works, focusing on the central theme of the wound. It aims to reveal how the artist expresses, copes with, and transcends her traumatic memories of political exile and racial discrimination. At the crux of this inquiry, Mendieta’s practice is explored through the transformative dimension of the wound, inspired by the writings of contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben and the imagery of Christ’s Passion. Through this lens, her earth/body works emerge as powerful relics that authenticate and narrate her personal mythology of hurt and healing, offering solace and salvation to their beholders.Show less
This paper has researched what the power of a performance protest is when making use of artistic means. Artist Nan Goldin constructed performance protests against the Sackler family, a...Show moreThis paper has researched what the power of a performance protest is when making use of artistic means. Artist Nan Goldin constructed performance protests against the Sackler family, a pharmaceutical dynasty partly responsible for the opioid crisis in the United States. These protests served the purpose of getting museums to cut their ties with the Sackler family, thus also refusing funding from the Sackler’s. This paper has investigated how Nan Goldin has succeeded in doing so, using theories from performance studies to visual rhetoric. This research hopes to have illustrated how these previously mentioned powerful performance tools can help build a community to fight against big institutions.Show less
This research analyzes how play in artmaking can positively affect the well-being of the hobby artist. Ian Bogost’s theory on play and limitations is used to form the argument that boundaries allow...Show moreThis research analyzes how play in artmaking can positively affect the well-being of the hobby artist. Ian Bogost’s theory on play and limitations is used to form the argument that boundaries allow the artist to have control over their creative act. Keith Sawyer’s theory highlights the roles of problem finding and solving in the artistic process. Patrick Bateson’s evolutionary perspective demonstrates that creativity leads to the benefit of adaptability, whereas Mark Runco interconnects the theories by affirming that controlled play environments stimulate creative thinking and expressivity. Additionally, studies in the therapeutic field elaborate on the transformative role of play as art and positive health benefits such as fulfillment and healing. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory on flow shows similarities with Bogost’s play characteristic. It is argued that controlled environments may enhance flow states with benefits of mindfulness and distraction. Examples are illustrative of the theories and confirm how creative play could improve the amateur artist’s well-being.Show less
This thesis questions the relation between the painting Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906) by Paula Modersohn-Becker and the ideal of nature. By investigating the use of the concept of...Show moreThis thesis questions the relation between the painting Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906) by Paula Modersohn-Becker and the ideal of nature. By investigating the use of the concept of nature in breastfeeding discourses and critically assessing its relation to the painting, it will argue that Kneeling Mother offers a more complex view of the natural and nature than it might seem at first glance. This ambiguity will productively open new perspectives to study Kneeling Mother’s representation of motherhood. Taking the painting out of its original context and analysing it through a feminist lens will make it possible to account for the impact Modersohn-Becker’s maternal paintings still have today. The argumentation will build upon theories by feminist scholars Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Anne McClintock and Sherry B. Ortner to confront the painting with three facets of the conceptualisation of the natural: natural as easy, as related to nature and as being opposed to culture.Show less
This thesis explores the relationship between photography, play, and sound in Roy DeCarava’s photobook the sound i saw. Following the work of Peter Buse, the context for this exploration is the...Show moreThis thesis explores the relationship between photography, play, and sound in Roy DeCarava’s photobook the sound i saw. Following the work of Peter Buse, the context for this exploration is the dominant “melancholic paradigm” of photography studies. To move away from this paradigm focused on death, this article returns to the relationship between photography and theatre drawn by Roland Barthes, and goes in the direction of ‘play’, as opposed to death. It identifies three photographic sites: the photographer, the spectator, and the photograph, and argues for the presence of play at each site. By playing with the limits of the scene, the photographer embodies a playful relation to the world. Counterintuitively listening to the photograph, “seeing sound” the spectator advenes into the image as a playground of the senses. Finally, the photograph is rendered sonic through the feedback of overwhelming detail inherent to the medium. The article concludes by adjoining these three sites to see how DeCarava bridges the gap between practical and theoretical understandings of play in photography.Show less
Examining the relationship between private art museums and elite legitimisation contributes to understanding postmodern philanthropy. Private museums shape a new museum landscape, proposing a...Show moreExamining the relationship between private art museums and elite legitimisation contributes to understanding postmodern philanthropy. Private museums shape a new museum landscape, proposing a display of art no longer driven by public funding, regulations, or state approval. The rise of private museums is linked to a growing desire by economic elites to embellish their reputation and public image by offering a justification for their wealth. Founders use their collections or loan artworks from public museums for display in their museums to engage with the public under the guise of cultural philanthropy. Over the last twenty years, private museums have significantly increased in numbers. That increase brought to the fore private museums’ problematic effects on public museums, their influence on the public’s taste and the contemporary art world. This thesis examines how three private museums, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Leeum Museum of Art and the Boros Collection, craft a powerful sign value to legitimise their founder’s personal, social and economic status.Show less
This paper compares two feminist collectives that emerged shortly after each other. The first is the British Hackney Flashers, who formed in 1974 and disbanded in 1980. The second is the American...Show moreThis paper compares two feminist collectives that emerged shortly after each other. The first is the British Hackney Flashers, who formed in 1974 and disbanded in 1980. The second is the American Guerrilla Girls which started in 1985. The Hackney Flashers’ focus was the role of working-class women living in Hackney, a borough of London. These women had two jobs, a paid one working in the factories and an unpaid one as housewives. The Guerrilla Girls also focused on women but in the context of the art world, specifically the mis- and under- representation of women and female artists in museums. Both collectives used posters and humour to reach their different target audiences. This paper will analyse why both these collectives, which were seemingly unaware of each other, were drawn to these specific methods and which effect posters and humour have on the message they wanted to convey.Show less
Ecology and participatory art projects are relevant topics in current day artistic practices, yet how can art be of influence on the social matter of the planning and use of the public space in the...Show moreEcology and participatory art projects are relevant topics in current day artistic practices, yet how can art be of influence on the social matter of the planning and use of the public space in the urban environment? Commonly, ecological and participatory art practices and exhibitions take place within four walls of white cube galleries or project spaces where they reach an already initiated and versed art viewing audience. Meanwhile the public sphere is managed by city governments and cannot be intervened with by civilians who do live in the spaces as their everyday surroundings. This paper looks at two different methods of artistic practices and exhibitions that take place in curated environments made by artists as well as interventions in public spaces by inhabitants of an environment in order to understand how artistic interventions can play a role in the reclaiming livability in the urban landscape. These two approaches will be analyzed through two different case studies.The paper comes to the finding that artists and urban interventionists need to collaborate to build a sustainable and engaged practice.Show less
This paper applies Karl Marx’s definition of alienation to art produced by artificial intelligence system Dall-E. This is achieved by examining Dall-E’s productions through the lens of historic...Show moreThis paper applies Karl Marx’s definition of alienation to art produced by artificial intelligence system Dall-E. This is achieved by examining Dall-E’s productions through the lens of historic texts, namely Walter Benjamin’s text on ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility’ and Leo Tolstoy’s book ‘What is Art’, further supported by contemporary literature on artificial creativity in relation to the remaining role of the artist. The resulting analysis indicates that Dall-E’s production process is divided as framed by Marxist definitions, thereby making it difficult to trace artistic mastery. In the following section, the analysis of creativity results in the idea that alienation in Dall-E is better understood as a shaded artistic freedom. Contrastingly, in the final section Dall-E shows that it can overcome its own alienating aspects by becoming universal and multi-usable, aligning democratic results.Show less
In recent years, the Japanese anime industry has undergone a remarkable transformation in the academic world. In the past two decades, Japanese anime has evolved into a commercial success genre, as...Show moreIn recent years, the Japanese anime industry has undergone a remarkable transformation in the academic world. In the past two decades, Japanese anime has evolved into a commercial success genre, as it has allowed for films like Japanese director Makoto Shinkai's Kimi no Na Wa (2016) and Tenki no Ko (2019) to gain global recognition and breathe new life into the Japanese animated film industry. Thus, anime has become a cultural export of reflecting the unique perspectives and values of its creators and audiences worldwide. This research aims to explore how anime, specifically the two films mentioned above, portrays natural disasters and phenomena under the greater context of the Anthropocene. By examining the portrayal of the human-nature relationship, this investigation provides novel insights into the field of anime studies, specifically that of Shinkai. In particular, the thesis focuses on the themes of body and technology, offering an analysis that delves into the mesmerizing world interwoven with profound ideals depicted in Shinkai's works.Show less
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
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
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
