My thesis experimentally submits Olafur Eliasson’s — what I dub — watery projects frame ongoing motion or changeability similarly to the cinematic image, particularly the selected projects Big Bang...Show moreMy thesis experimentally submits Olafur Eliasson’s — what I dub — watery projects frame ongoing motion or changeability similarly to the cinematic image, particularly the selected projects Big Bang Fountain (2014), Still River (2016) and Fog Assembly (2016), yet transgress the customary image. I ask how to transgressively read the projects by their cinematic potential, or, how to analyze how constructed watery splashes, melting ice cubes or evaporating foggy clouds amplify the viewer’s sense about temporality, and space and self-existence. I set my experiment against a cinematic backdrop constructed by multiple considerations and analyses on Anthony McCall’s ‘solid light film’ series (1973 - 1975). My thesis experimentally demonstrates the cinematic potential productively inquires into the selected watery projects.Show less
ABSTRACT: Videographic criticism has emerged as an innovative form of critical analysis of film since the digital innovation brought about by the online film sharing websites YouTube and Vimeo in...Show moreABSTRACT: Videographic criticism has emerged as an innovative form of critical analysis of film since the digital innovation brought about by the online film sharing websites YouTube and Vimeo in the early 2000’s. However, videographic criticism, although popular has made slow progress in its attempts to assert itself in the world of contemporary film criticism. This thesis seeks to locate videographic criticism in contemporary film criticism by examining the state of contemporary film criticism by using Kevin B. Lee’s 2014 video essay, Transformers: The Premake as a case study. This thesis will begin by demonstrating that videographic criticism is a reflexive and relevant method for the production of film criticism. It will further examine how videographic criticism uses techniques associated with compactness and condensation to create arguments. In examining these methods, this thesis will finally interrogate the relevance of videographic criticism to contemporary media analysis and film criticism. Thus, this thesis finds the videographic criticism to be an effective and innovative way to produce meaningful, rich film criticism.Show less
The thesis looks closer at vernacular photography, a record of the everyday created by common people, as one of the most common ways in which photographic images are created. By using the specific...Show moreThe thesis looks closer at vernacular photography, a record of the everyday created by common people, as one of the most common ways in which photographic images are created. By using the specific example of the family photographic collection of John “Zbyszek” Jagla, a Polish refugee born in Uganda, the thesis examines different dimensions of photographic meaning. The analysis draws on research from within the field of photographic theory and applies those theories and approaches to demonstrate the ways in which photographs carry their own meaning, both as images and as objects, and how that meaning changes not just over time but also depending on their context and who is viewing them and why.Show less
This research addresses the consequences of a shift from analogue to digital filmmaking on storytelling strategies in contemporary cinema. The drastic changes in the technology of representation...Show moreThis research addresses the consequences of a shift from analogue to digital filmmaking on storytelling strategies in contemporary cinema. The drastic changes in the technology of representation had a pivotal impact not only on the visual style of film, but have also lead to a rupture in the classic narrative tradition. Cause and effect strategies have been substituted by an inversely enthused logic of new media objects; consequently it is only viable to analyze contemporary cinema from this angle, addressing newly emerged complex narratives that have risen to the occasion in response to the ever-growing popularity of video games and the omnipresence of various web-based environments.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate documentation of the world. A world that is never transparent or simple, conflicts and situations that are never black or white. For this I will look at the photographs by documentary photographer/artist Richard Mosse, as an example for the wider phenomenon in contemporary documentary, and investigate what strategies he uses to address the problems of documenting atrocities in Eastern Congo and narrating its complicated story to the viewers. I will investigate how the boundary between documentary and art in these strategies (and because of these strategies) is shifting, what the implications are and what effect this has on the viewers. For this thesis I will examine three main strategies Richard Mosse uses in his photographs: first, the use of a certain pre-determined concept and the negation of the decisive moment, as was long (at least until the 1980s) the characteristic of documentary photography and photojournalism. Second, the aesthetization of the documentary photograph and its increasing relationship to art and, third, the presentation of the work in both an installation form as well as the placement of these projects within a cultural and art institutional environment.Show less