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Visual Studies Commons

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Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Visual Studies

Relational Viewing: Affect, Trauma And The Viewer In Contemporary Autobiographical Art, Matthew Ryan Smith Aug 2012

Relational Viewing: Affect, Trauma And The Viewer In Contemporary Autobiographical Art, Matthew Ryan Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the communicative relationship between contemporary autobiographical art and the viewer. By analyzing the work of six artists, Richard Billingham, Jaret Belliveau, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Lisa Steele and Bas Jan Ader, I maintain that lived experience and personal history condition the way viewers respond to autobiographical art. I turn to literary theory as a critical methodology to argue that autobiographical art operates as a catalyst for identification, memory and self-discovery. I use affect and trauma theory to demonstrate how artwork produces meaning and discourse through the viewer’s feelings, emotions and bodily sensations. Consequently, I survey the importance …


Some Things Last A Long Time, Matthew Ryan Smith Jul 2012

Some Things Last A Long Time, Matthew Ryan Smith

Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D.

Relational viewing is also linked to poststructuralist theory, which has provided a framework for shifting away from the idea that the author is the creator of meaning to instead consider how readers interact with texts to produce meaning. Some Things Last a Long Time considers the connections between autobiography and relational experience. With this exhibition, I propose that contemporary autobiographical art can operate as a site where social encounters are created and where self-discoveries become possible. I encourage viewers to use their own lived experiences and personal histories to interpret the artworks in the exhibition.


Installation Art - Frenzy Episode | Contact | Raising The Dead, Agnieszka Golda, Martin V. Johnson, Ruth Fazakerley Jun 2012

Installation Art - Frenzy Episode | Contact | Raising The Dead, Agnieszka Golda, Martin V. Johnson, Ruth Fazakerley

Agnieszka Golda

This monograph presents a series of three exhibitions developed collaboratively by Agnieszka Golda and Martin Johnson. It describes a wonderful tracery of not quite recognisable anthropomorphic creatures who inhabit oddly constructed and disjointed spaces. Together Golda and Johnson have utilised crocheted and printed textiles, carved wood and painted aluminium to form strange dwellings, figures and passages. Dr Ruth Fazakerley's research and art practice span Australian contemporary urban public art, painting and sculptural installation. In her essay here she positions Golda and Johnson's work in a wider context. The distinctive aesthetic force of collaborative process is underpinned by Golda's discerning scholarship …


Women And Video Games: Pigeonholing The Past, Allison Perry May 2012

Women And Video Games: Pigeonholing The Past, Allison Perry

Scripps Senior Theses

Academic work dealing with the overlap between video games and female representation is limited in both volume and proper research. Most texts agree on three supposed flaws with video games: they alienate female participants, there are no games for female players, and female players cannot relate to female characters. This thesis sheds light on these points, not only citing specific counter-examples, but also showing how many of these issues reflect on a larger societal problems.


Defining Industry Expectations And Misconceptions Of Art And Technology Co-Creativity, Vanessa C. Brasfield Apr 2012

Defining Industry Expectations And Misconceptions Of Art And Technology Co-Creativity, Vanessa C. Brasfield

Department of Computer Graphics Technology Degree Theses

The primary purpose of this study was to establish whether or not students and industry professionals share the same views about what students should be learning in animation education, what skills are necessary, and whether or not students graduating with a bachelor’s degree would be adequately prepared for an entry level position. To establish where misconceptions lie, surveys were issued to three groups: undergraduate students, post-graduate students, and industry professionals. These surveys were then analyzed using paired t-test for validation and question relevance, and ANOVA models to establish whether or not groups shared viewpoints. These data established significance within the …


The Participating Witness: A Conversation With Jaret Belliveau, Matthew Ryan Smith Dec 2011

The Participating Witness: A Conversation With Jaret Belliveau, Matthew Ryan Smith

Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D.

Jaret Belliveau is a Moncton-based photographer and filmmaker whose photographic work addresses illness and loss. Arguably, Belliveau is best known for his series Dominion Street (2003-2008), which began as a visual investigation into family dynamics and the hegemonic balances of power that maintain it. However, ten months into the project, Belliveau’s mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Soon after, the disease spread throughout the rest of her body and in time it took her life. Upon the recent staging of Dominion Street at Fredericton’s Beaverbrook Gallery (April 26, 2012 - June 10, 2012), I conducted an e-mail exchange with Belliveau …


Karin Doleske: The Drama Of Abstraction, Matthew Ryan Smith Dec 2011

Karin Doleske: The Drama Of Abstraction, Matthew Ryan Smith

Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D.

Karin Doleske’s most recent series Embedded Paintings from 2012 maintains a heightened interest in placing the viewer as an arbiter of knowledge. With these works, Doleske has manipulated poetic narrative for the visual sphere so that viewers may experience her paintings as they would written texts. However, in a twist of semiotic mischief, each painting formally characterizes an empty page to be filled by the viewer’s thoughts and imagination. For example, the horizontality of "Ten" subtly points to the lines of a written novel yet alphabetical letters are clearly absent. By doing so, it is as if Doleske has created …