Design and Visual Arts Dissertations and Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Browse

Recent Additions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 48
  • Item
    Justmytype: An exploration of documentary filmmaking for New Zealand typographic education
    (2021) Lamwilai, Peeti; Unitec Institute of Technology
    RESEARCH QUESTION How can an online multi-part documentary series on perspectives and approaches to typography be used as an educational resource to enhance the teaching and learning of the subject? ABSTRACT The purpose of this practice-led research is to examine conventional approaches to typographic education commonly employed in the New Zealand graphic design classroom and to investigate how the integration of multi-part documentary films into the teaching of typography can help to widen the discourses and perspectives related to New Zealand typographic design. Through this project, I draw upon my personal experiences as an undergraduate student of graphic design, and at present, an educator of the same field, to explore the democratisation potential of digital filmmaking and online distribution, specifically a dedicated online documentary series archive, and how it can enhance the graphic design student’s learning experiences in typographic studies. The expert subjects included in this research were deliberately selected to help illustrate as well as challenge the typographic canon commonly favoured in the delivery of a conventional New Zealand undergraduate visual communication curriculum, which stands as the motivation for this research project.
  • Item
    Apentimento
    (2021) King, Reece; Unitec Institute of Technology
    INTRODUCTION: I started this masters project (like most painters I believe) because I needed a studio. I like to have a studio because I value time away from people and because I enjoy the challenge of painting. Painting is a way of coping with the human condition, an answer to an existential problem. But then what painting does is present bigger existential problems.
  • Item
    'droplet' : [how can photography as a medium be extended beyond realism to highlight recent feminist issues in New Zealand?]
    (2020-11-27) Campbell, Sheyl; Unitec Institute of Technology
    RESEARCH QUESTION: How can photography as a medium be extended beyond realism to highlight recent feminist issues in New Zealand?’ ABSTRACT: I am an artist exploring mixed media practices, including photography and video, from a feminist perspective. My aim is to stimulate debate and discussion in parallel with the contemporary #MeToo movement in NZ. My photobook droplet raises a necessary conversation in NZ society about sexual harassment in the corporate environment. It critiques these problematic behaviours with the aim of cleaning it up, and also symbolically articulates a counter narrative of empowerment. In this exegesis I consider my choice of photography and the photobook as the medium for my work. I discuss the male gaze, and the values that stem from it, and the strategies some postmodern art theorists have advocated to effect change. Four postfeminist artists, Yvonne Todd, Amalia Ulman, Sarah Lucas and Cindy Sherman, were examined for their tropes, metaphors and representations which subvert the male gaze. The common elements of humour and shock informed the ironic, playful and parodic approach within this project. Sophie Calle’s photobooks were closely examined for their materiality (table 1), and for how the covers, scale, layouts, typefaces and different paper-stocks amplify the stories she tells. Drawing from various media sources about corporate sexual harassment in New Zealand, I responded by photographing in a range of genres – still-life, botanicals, tableaux and cityscapes to create a narrative of sexual harassment, and an appropriate and subsequent counter response. Using this material I then created an installation in the gallery with the photobook supported by two simple moving image pieces and two framed prints.
  • Item
    Exploring whānau knowledge and hybridity through typographical design
    (2020) Kapa, Jaime; Unitec Institute of Technology
    This exegesis documents and accounts for the development of a body text typeface designed by me, a hybrid practitioner. Using a practice-based approach with a focus on auto-ethnography, my research explores my own experiences of hybridity (coexisting cultures of Māori, Chinese, Pākeha) as well as my whānau knowledge focusing on the maternal line and my Grandmother. Our whakapapa, the lifeworld of my maternal Grandmother (whose parents were Māori and Chinese) in rural Pukekohe as well as our marae are key sources of discovery, inspiration and influence in the typographic design process. The resulting design gives ‘voice’ visually to this research, particularly the experiences of Māori Chinese wahine (both my Grandmother and I) in Aotearoa New Zealand.
  • Item
    Agar Agar : a practice and theory of cultural hybridity in contemporary art
    (2020) Leung, Brendon; Unitec Institute of Technology
    RESEARCH QUESTION: What can auto-ethnography and the concepts of Agar Agar and hybridity contribute to a contemporary art practice? ABSTRACT: The purpose of this research is to explore the ideas of Agar Agar and cultural hybridity within a practice-based and auto-ethnographic approach in contemporary art. Painting and artistic practice provide me with the means to work through and understand experiences of fluidity, difference and cultural identity within the context of New Zealand. The project and resulting body of creative work provide an answer to the question: What can auto-ethnography and the concepts of Agar Agar and hybridity contribute to a contemporary painting practice.