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Browsing Fine Arts by Author "Human, E. S."
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Item Open Access Die kunsmedia en herinnering: verlewendiging van die verlede(University of the Free State, 2007-12) De Beer, Carolina Davidina; Allen-Spies, J.; Human, E. S.English: This dissertation is closely related to my studio research, the product of which is an installation in the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery. The focus of my research is the ruptures that occur in the continuity of family memories. Seeing that my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, the preservation of private memories is extremely important to me. According to postmodern thought, history is not regarded as a single, uninterrupted timeline. Different versions or narratives are equally important in the compilation of history. Micro-histories and private experiences become meaningful to history and so is the preservation of these common documents in archives. Thus the apparent divide between private and public history is blurred. As a result of South Africa’s difficult political history and the particular part played by the Afrikaners, the experience of memory is complicated. “Remembering” and “forgetting” are eminent in the relationship with history – the wilful forgetting of incidents in the past, as well as the “excessive remembering” thereof (Ricoeur 2004: 452 – 453). Afrikaners are not allowed to forget certain past political events. The internalisation of the past is an attempt to suppress it, so that it may only be experienced in the public sphere of history. This suppression can, however, still be observed beneath the surface of private histories, as well as in art works that seem to focus solely on private experiences. The different art media that are investigated in this research (i.e. painting, photography, gum prints, artists books, wax casts and installation art) address aspects of the preservation of memory that deal with estrangement, anonymity, absence and mortality. The interplay between light and dark, exposure and concealment, are metaphors used to examine the discontinuities in history and memory in the private and public spheres. The structure of this paper is presented in various layers: layers of history, art history, private history, and art media. A group of art works have been carefully selected to further the argument and visually realise the mutual interplay of nuances. Each chapter focuses on a specific art medium that is used in the Nagedagtenis installation, as well as on questions concerning history, art history and private history.Item Open Access Patroonmaakprosesse en die resente skilderkuns(University of the Free State, 2009-12) Human, Phyllis Marjorie; Allen-Spies, J.; Human, E. S.English: This dissertation is an extension of my studio research. In my studio research I use the processes usually associated with the making of decorative patterns as an integral part of my work as a painter. In my paintings and in my dissertation those actions of pattern making that create an interplay between surfaces charming to the eye, and the menacing hidden meanings of degeneration, destruction and underlying aggression is investigated. This research focuses on the manifestation of the visual impact of decorative patterns on formal as well as the semantic levels. The meaning of patterns and motifs in patterns emerges and changes constantly as a result of formal creative making processes. These processes are influenced by cultural forces. Thus the transformations in patterns and pattern motifs point to the dynamic cultural forces in current South Africa. Decorative patterns from popular South African culture, in which pattern-creating processes are linked to the creative processes involved in recent visual art by contemporary artists, Beatriz Milhazes, Ghada Amer, Bronwen Findlay and Leora Farber as well as to my own paintings are analyzed. The research focuses on the ways in which patterns change and in which meanings are assigned to them. The importance of purposeful exchange of ideas in order to bring about transformations in patterns, is stressed. Writers such as Alois Riegl and William H. Goodyear have seen the exchanges of motifs and meaning in patterns as an organic and orderly pocess. In reality the meanings of pattern fluctuate and is constantly being transferred in a chaotic way. It is also fundamental that it should be considered within a specific social and cultural context as done by Alfred Gell. The ongoing and dynamic cultural influences will then become clear. This dissertation is structured in three sections, in which patterns and pattern motifs which are prominent and meaningful in the popular South African culture of the day are investigated. The ‘Victorian Rose pattern’, the Springbok motif and ‘Ndebele patterns’ are discussed. In each of these three sections meanings and transformations of meaning in pattern motifs are closely scrutinized. The ‘Victorian Rose pattern’ underwent numerous transformations in South African culture. Yet, the strong associations with its British origins still cling to it. The Springbok motif, which became part of South African heraldry during the British colonial period, on the contrary, has transformed into a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism. The underlying aggressiveness which developed to the motif led to its degeneration and later a come-back as a kitsch motif in current popular culture. In the case of the visually powerful Ndebele patterns, 87 the ethnic connotations they carried led these patterns to become artificial constructions subject to political manipulation and power struggle.Item Open Access Representing the sublime: interactions between spatial representation in new media and idyllic and mystic traditions in painting(University of the Free State, 2005) Raubenheimer, Landi; Van den Berg, D. J.; Allen-Spies, Janine; Human, E. S.English: The major image investigated in this study, is a cibachrome print entitled Pureland by Japanese artist Mariko Mori. The print is a still image from one of her 3D installations titled Nirvana. Throughout the text I refer to Pureland not as a pure image but as one appearing in different media, since the varied visual manifestations and reproductions of the image contribute to diverse aspects of the argument. The image is found in calendars and books, is exhibited as a large print and certain of Mori’s prints are even exhibited on lightboxes. This renders the prints a glowing computer or television screen quality, and suggests the notion of an advertising billboard. The “screen” qualities of the image are investigated throughout. The appearance of the image is pleasant, pink, even pretty, and this “eye-candy” could allude to the affirmative character of mass media images describing beautiful natural scenery. Sentimental images appear in Japanese manga and anime, but also in Western popular media such as Hollywood films. Furthermore Pureland seems reminiscent of landscape traditions that relate to idyllic yearning or nostalgia. This leads to the following question: is the pastoral tradition in its established conventions pertinent to the idyllic tendencies in mass media? What seems problematic in my view is that it appears as if something is omitted from the image on account of its pleasing character. This may indicate that what is not depicted (something extremely un-pleasant?) may also be relevant. This “un-pleasant” is investigated as a possible allusion to the digital sublime lurking beneath the smooth appearance of the image, only to manifest in brief moments of “suddenness”. The sublime is discussed in the context of the mystic landscape tradition and especially the work of artists such as Caspar David Friedrich in the mystic tradition, and, as it develops into the Abstract Expressionist movement in the work of Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and even the avant-garde art of Yves Klein. The mystic tradition is based on a negative stance grounded in the notion of kenosis, which is an emptying out resulting in transcendence. This tradition is fundamentally opposed to affirmative (idyllic) tendencies in both art and popular culture. The co-existence of the conflicting idyllic and mystic strands in the image is investigated throughout as an uneasy relationship which may result in a rupturing of the smooth pleasant appearance of the image, revealing the digital sublime. The “digital sublime” is derived from Jean-Francois Lyotard’s understanding of the sublime. It may manifest in cyberspace, virtual reality and other digital media that evoke virtual space, through seeming vastness and threatening character. Understanding the operations of viewing and representation implied by the computer and television screen is thus important in grasping the dynamic of the digital sublime. Do representations of space on the screen differ from perspectival representations of space and landscape in the fixed images of Western painting traditions? On the screen overlay and geometric principles are combined, urging the observer to penetrate and explore the layers, virtually or imaginatively entering the layered virtual environment. The notion of virtual depth as non-illusory depth may be comparable to Japanese viewing traditions and the diverse concepts of śūnyatā and “superflat”. The application of overlay and śūnyatā to contemporary painting is investigated in chapter three. I suspect that Pureland is a hybrid image, not only digitally composited from existing visual material, but also comprised of traces of disparate visual traditions and conventions. This is dicussed in conclusion.Item Open Access Die visioenêre verbeelding en die animering van die inheemse landskap(University of the Free State, 2016-02) Kruger, Louis Lodewyk; Allen-Spies, J.; Human, E. S.English: This study deals with the incomprehensible visionary experience and the possible relationships it may have with the indigenous landscape. It was motivated by artistic research (in the form of video art and digital photomontages) into the visionary potential that may be imbedded in the outstretched Northern Cape landscape. The problem regarding the representation of the visionary experience is firstly explored through the analyses of relevant image traditions in the history of art. These image traditions include: the mystical, the sublime, the apocalyptical, and the mythological. The diverse visual strategies, which are at work in these image traditions, reveal the various ways that the image of the landscape can suggestively act as a medium of visionary insights. Some of these revelations include: the use of the circle and saturated colours to suggest mystical power in the image and to sometimes facilitate a visionary revelation; the use of paradox, negation (like sombre light and obscurity) and synaesthetic combinations in images as a means to overcome the complexity and incomprehensibility of the visionary phenomenon; and the use of figures in the landscape to suggest the presence or expectancy of an active, chaotic eruption of visionary power in the landscape. The ability of the image of the outstretched landscape (specifically the desert that evokes allusions to eternity) to awaken a visionary eruption in the imagination is suggested through the implementation of the abovementioned visual strategies. In such cases it seems as if the image of the landscape jumps foreword, as though animated. Aby Warburg‟s notion of image animation is analysed to examine the image‟s ability to awaken a cultural memory of the landscape through the imagination. The ways in which the use of some visual motifs in images of the landscape is capable of promoting the animation process, is explored. These visual motifs include: the form of the vortex as visual and landscape motif, in the appearance of whirlwinds and whirlpools. The capacity of the vortex‟s features of constant movement, transformation, and instability to animate images of the landscape, is evaluated in association with the fascination with the vortex form in the history of the visionary phenomenon. For example it is a well-known motif that is experienced during hallucinations and near-death experiences. The use of other landscape motifs such as rocks, earth, lightning, clouds and astral constellations is evaluated in both mythological and Christian contexts, for example in the visions of Saint Jerome in the desert and in the practice of shamanism implied in the rock art of the Khoisan of Bushman people. Through this research of the vortex and other landscape motifs various manifestations are revealed: artificial marks in the landscape, which can suggest possible thresholds, and movements of upward and downward directionality, which are suggested over the landscape. The artist‟s discerning choice and use of the medium through which he/she aims to visualise the abovementioned motifs and underlying visual strategies, is also researched. Two factors that influence the medium‟s contribution to the animation of the image come to the fore – light and multi-layering. Light in the medium animates the image in the following ways: the discriminating use of light/lighting in installations can create immersive, deceptive places that stimulate the participant‟s imaginative flight to another reality or can refer to something absent or remote; and in the digital, video and film image light refers to the ignored mechanical aspects at work to create and exhibit images. Multi-layering in installations, digital photomontages and collages awaken visionary associations of imaginary flight through multi-layered spheres in the cultural memory of the landscape, while the discovery of hidden layers of meaning in the image also enables animation. Lastly, the capacity of relevant locations involved in the creation and exhibition of artworks to facilitate the visionary imagination is examined. For example, the studio of the artist can function in the same manner as the remote landscape in which the prophet finds refuge – it encourages a person to cast a visionary gaze over the world. Furthermore it seems as if the sensitive placement and lighting of the artwork in the gallery is capable of evoking a visionary experience in the spirit of the participant as a result of image animation and the productive imagination‟s ability to create a new reality.Item Open Access Visual transactions: image, theory, new media art and cross-cultural exchange(University of the Free State, 2009-01) De Jesus, Angela Vieira; Allen-Spies, J.; Human, E. S.Encounters between the Portuguese explorers of the fifteenth-century and the people living on the southern tip of Africa initiated interaction and trade between Europeans and Africans. My Portuguese heritage within a family of shopkeepers has provided me with a selective point of view from which to investigate the complexities involved in cross-cultural exchange, visual perception and image interpretation. The analysis of appropriated surveillance footage collected from CCTV cameras installed in the shop and the investigation of my own videos captured with hidden digital hand-held video camcorders, elucidates concerns related to intercultural interaction and exchange. In the shop the exchange of goods occurs, concomitantly with an exchange of vision and cross-cultural perception; the video camera surveys this exchange and translates it into images. It is argued that visual and intercultural processes have, with the aid of visual technologies and mediums (such as the panorama and digital video), become central to the ways in which cultures are perceived. This study proposes that interpreting images (for example in the photographs of Pieter Hugo and Zwelethu Mthethwa), like intercultural exchange, is paradoxical and ambiguous, as often these images evoke associations with conflicting meanings. It is argued that iconoclasm complicates image interpretation and visual perception further, as it is related both to destructive strategies and the vulnerability of the image. While the study argues that visual exchanges are by nature inconsistent and distorted, they still expose a common reciprocity and human vulnerability.