Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Konsthögskolan Valand

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Browsing Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Konsthögskolan Valand by Subject "conceptual art"

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    Jag hör röster överallt - Step by Step
    (2011-05-04) Gedin, Andreas
    I Hear Voices in Everything – Step by Step, is a practise-based dissertation in fine arts. It includes three art exhibitions, several independent art works and an essay. It discusses the role of the artist and the making of art mainly through the ideas of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1875-1975) but also by reflecting on similarities between the artist and the curator. Being a dissertation in fine arts, the aim is not primarily to develop any certain philosophy but to use theory to discuss art, and vice versa. In the first section, the methodological presuppositions are articulated and contextualised. The relevance of artistic research as a means to develop artistic practice and as a means to increase the understanding of artistic practice is also addressed, as is the reasonability of using the philosophy of Bakhtin in this specific context. Bakhtin is usually referred to as a literary theorist; however, his dialogical philosophy concerns man’s being as a whole, that is, it is through dialogical relations man is constituted. Here, man, and also art in general, is understood by Bakhtin as being temporary meeting places for art works, readers, artists, protagonists, history etc. The reflective text in itself also endeavours to be dialogical and polyphonic by including different voices such as fictional characters, real comments, emails, letters and quotes. In the second section the practice of making art is discussed in relation to Bakhtin and other writers. One main topic is if one, by using Bakhtin, can also regard an art work as a meeting place for language (in its broad sense) so as to include physical material, skill, and experience; and hence, if one could, or should, regard the artist as a kind of curator, and vice versa. Bearing this in mind, is there then any relevant difference between organising language into an artwork or into an exhibition? The third section focuses on the artworks that are a part of the PhD project; these include an exhibition and two planned exhibitions. The central theme of, or the catalyst for, the works of art is repetition. Published as one exclusive copy, and also smuggled into the Lenin library, Sleeper is a collection of essays on the ingredients of a tuna fish casserole. Thessaloniki revisited is a video of a reading of a short story. Spin-Off is a video where a curse is read by an actor. Sharing a Square is a documentary-based video of a ritual drumming session in Calanda, Spain, and Erich P. is an artwork based on an embassy to Russia in 1673 and on contra-factual archaeology. As a final part of the dissertation project these artworks will be shown in a solo exhibition, and there will also be a curated exhibition, which will include only other artists. The last part of the dissertation’s title “Step by Step” refers to a larger art project called Taking Over, which this dissertation is a part of. Taking Over deals with different aspects of power relations in five separate projects. Being an integral part of this larger and thematic art project, the dissertation also refers to different aspects of power, and even to the lack of power in relation to the artist’s position in research contexts, both inside and outside academia. It also underlines that artistic research is part of a wider artistic practice.
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    Spaces of Encounter: Art and Revision in Human-Animal Relations
    (2009-03-13T09:54:19Z) Snæbjörnsdóttir, Bryndis
    This PhD project explores contemporary Western human relationships with animals through a ‘relational’ art practice. It centres on three art projects produced by Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson – nanoq: flat out and bluesome; (a)fly; and seal – all utilize lens-based media and installations. Discourses on how humans construct their relationship with animals are central to all three projects. The first one looks at polar bears, the second at pets, and the third at seals, in a variety of different sites within clearly defined contexts and geographical locations. The thesis explores the visual art methodologies employed in the projects, tracing in turn their relationship to writings about human-animal relations. This includes both writings researched in the making of the works and those considered retrospectively in the reflections on each art project. These artworks engage their audiences in a series of ‘encounters’ with the subject through simultaneous meetings of duality, e.g. haunting vs. hunting, perfection vs. imperfection and the real vs. the unreal. These dualities are important in theorizing this relational space in which the eclipse of the ‘real’ animal in representation occurs and in formulating questions embedded in and arising from the artworks on the construction and the limits of these boundaries. The ‘three registers of representation’, as put forward by the artists Joseph Kosuth and Mary Kelly, have further helped to frame and develop the thinking, concerning both the mechanisms within the works and their perceived effects.
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    You Told Me – work stories and video essays / verkberättelser och videoessäer
    (2010-05-06T10:32:45Z) Bärtås, Magnus
    You Told Me is a practice-based research project and consists of three video biographies (the Who is…? series), and two video essays (Kumiko, Johnnie Walker & the Cute (2007), Madame & Little Boy (2009), an introduction with a contextualization and methodology of the field, and three essays. The dissertation is an observation and analysis of certain functions and meanings of narration and narratives in contemporary art, as well as being an experiment with roles, methods, actions, and narrative functions in an artistic medium – the video essay. Using the methods of “pilgrimage” (Chris Marker) and essayistic practices, and by revisiting and retelling biographies, this work tries to find a place in between collective and personal memory. During the practical process and the reflective theoretical work the different elements or instances of the video essay are identified: the subject matter, the images (the representation), the artist/author, the narrative/text, and the narrator/voice. In documentary film the lack of natural correspondence between these entities is often dissolved or denied – this work instead exposes the instances as separate units. A question arises: What alternative roles can be established between these elements, for example by negotiation and transference between them? The methodological part of the text focuses on the conceptual invention made during the process, which I have called work story [verkberättelse]. A work story is a written or oral narrative about the forming of materials, immaterial units, situations, relations, and social practices that constitutes, or leads to, an artwork. By discussing analogies between storytelling, collecting, and biographical accounts together with examples from conceptual art, the dissertation shows how the work story is not only crucial for the understanding of the artwork but that the act of making and the very order or sequence in which the making proceeds often have symbolic, metaphorical, metonymical, political, and even epistemological meanings. In an extended form a work story disseminates meaning rather than capturing it. This is the essayistic work story that permits a writer/artist to wander off and touch upon a subject as if in passing, reproducing its neglected genealogy and destiny in the detailed materiality of the work story.