Creative Practice Dissertations and Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Browse

Recent Additions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 27
  • Item
    Analysis and practice of organic forms in ceramic arts
    (2023) Qi, Yang Yang; Unitec,Te Pūkenga; Te Pukenga
    Throughout history, organic forms can be found in various social contexts such as community rituals. Gradually, with the development and maturation of modern science, organic forms started to be employed in a more conceptually informed manner. In the mid-20th century, with the development of contemporary art, ceramics re-emerged as a medium for artistic creation and captured people's attention once again. This material complements the organic forms derived from nature, establishing a harmonious connection. In this research, organic form refers to refined and newly created artificial forms that combine morphological characteristics and colours derived from life forms in nature. From a visual standpoint, the vital force of an organism emanating is considered a significant organic characteristic that people strive to attain. This organic form, derived from life, possesses evident randomness, irregularity, and inherent sense of motion. The diversity of nature offers an infinite number of inspiring forms, providing an astonishing array of creative possibilities through the potential of limitless transformation. Symbolism and abstraction are commonly observed traits of expression in creative works that utilize organic forms. Artists conceptually extract form features, enabling them to find a foothold for emotion and thought and to make deliberate choices and combinations to clarify the purpose of their works. In my artistic work, the intensity of natural objects being extracted and transformed into organic forms gradually increases, transitioning from simple modifications and reassembling to abstraction and simplification. I conducted numerous experiments and creations, documenting my understanding of the chosen subject matter. Through the exhibition, I aimed to raise awareness of these relationships of transformation and to stimulate aesthetic contemplation. By showcasing the diverse and vibrant organic forms found in nature, I hoped viewers would have a deeper appreciation of the beauty of the natural world and a stronger sense of responsibility to protect it.
  • Item
    Kaupapa Māori music video production: How can bringing kaupapa Māori to music video production in Aotearoa guide creative processes and outcomes?
    (2022) Croul, Marcel; Unitec Institute of Technology
    An intention underpinning this project was to find a way to support the restoration of mātauranga Māori by bringing mātauranga Māori and my Māori self with me to my filmmaking practice. My chosen methodology for this project is therefore kaupapa Māori as the research approach that best enables the centering of mātauranga Māori, te reo Māori and Māori worldviews. Kaupapa Māori is centred in Māori reality and upholds the mana and integrity of the participants, where the concerns and needs of Māori are the focus (Jones, B., Ingham, T., Davies, C., & Cram, F., 2010), and will be elaborated on further in the methodology section. I’ve devised a theory of filmmaking practice which abides by a number of principles related to kaupapa Māori, such as kaitiakitanga, whanaungatanga, and manaakitanga. Specifically, this practice sits within the context of hip hop and rap music video making. Furthermore, by situating the practice within Aotearoa, I draw upon the history of this land - and reflect that in my filmmaking philosophy. Kaupapa Māori, at its essence is a way of being in the world that brings with it language, tikanga, ways of being and doing that centre Māori philosophy and work for positive transforming change for Māori. When applied as a research methodology to filmmaking, a practice which involves other participants, this filmmaking philosophy must necessarily reflect kaupapa Māori in the ways that those participants are integrated into the process. I’ve chosen to approach this by questioning the conventional methods of independent music video making, and foregrounding kaupapa Māori principles in the filmmaking practice. Through a reflective process, I have deepened my understanding of how kaupapa Māori principles have been able to further my practice as a Māori artist by integrating methods such as karakia and kanohi kitea into the filmmaking process. I shed some insight as to where these methods have led me in my practice and could possibly lead further; as I and others continue to pursue a more Indigenous future.
  • Item
    Seeing our like: Conceptualising a post-‘male gaze’ style of filmmaking
    (2022) Berry, Ingrid; Unitec Institute of Technology
    For over a century society has shown a huge appetite for Hollywood films. Hollywood films have been successful in reaching a wide and diverse audience. Despite the breadth of exposure, a dominant lens, that of the White heterosexual male prevails over this industry. Over time, conventions in filmmaking have been established that have placed this group in the centre; distancing, objectifying and ultimately dehumanising ‘other’ groups, such as; women, African American, Indigenous, and gender diverse people. Ryan Gosling’s character looks up at a massive hologram of a slim nude woman walking and crouching in slow motion in Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Lost in Translation (2003) opens with a partial shot of Scarlet Johansen’s bottom in underpants as she is lying on a bed, and a close up of Margot Robbie lifting her skirt to reveal her knickers in Bomshell (2019) are some examples that indicate that the ‘male gaze’ term that feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey introduced us to 45 years ago is just as relevant now as ever. Feminist film theorists identify dualisms that exist in the ‘subject’ – ‘object’ style of filmmaking, the power inherent in modes of looking, and the scope of representation of women in films. In my search for ways to put these theories into practice I discovered common concepts in the work of filmmakers such as Agnes Varda, Chantal Akerman and Jane Campion who have successfully disrupted patriarchal film constructs and offered alternative methods of film language. I have created a series of short clips applying techniques from a post-‘male gaze’ framework I have developed based on my practice-led research. The short clips along with my exegesis offer a collection of concepts that dismantle patriarchal film structures and present alternative methods of storytelling through a feminist lens.
  • Item
    Rust never sleeps: How can material exploration contribute to an understanding of time and place in contemporary sculpture and installation art?
    (2023) Laan, Michaela van de; Unitec, Te Pūkenga
    My project explores my ongoing investigation employing an amalgamation of processes in relation to an emergent discussion regarding the vulnerability and fragility of things; the passing of time and site as expressed in a sculptural and installation discourse. The temporal nature of installation art is a vital mode of art practice which allows me to continually question and explore the possibilities of how materials can shift and transform to inform a discussion surrounding memory and how the viewer experiences place as temporal when operating within an expansive field. This brings me to my proposed research question: How can material exploration contribute to an understanding of time and place in contemporary sculpture and installation art? Through researching contemporary artist’s Bosco Sodi, Claudi Casanovas, Jorge Otero- Pailos, Robert Rauschenberg, The Boyle Family, Antony Gormley and Robert Smithson along with alternatives to the white cube model (outside the white walled gallery space) I have uncovered numerous strategies that can be deployed in the making and showing of temporal artworks. Entropy is explored through continuous material experimentation, engaging with the transformative properties of materials, and applying processes associated with ceramic and sculptural practice in unexpected ways thus generating new propositions. Further to this, works produced will be considered in situ, referential of the transformation undertaken in order to activate a space and generate a re-reading of site. Implicit throughout is an inquiry into the role of the viewer as integral, for it is through experiencing the work that meaning can be established and an understanding of the temporal articulated.
  • Item
    (I’m)permeable: How can a contemporary installation practice provide understandings of permeability through the embodiments of rituals?
    (2022) Lee, Chang Hwan; Unitec Institute of Technology
    Artists, thinkers, and everybody, vaguely works under the same conditions we agree upon as life. As does the matter that composes them and their worlds. (I’m)permeable—is a body of shorthand long-form written observations in the form of the exegesis. A provisional response to the research question: How can a contemporary installation practice provide understandings of permeability through the embodiments of rituals? Working definitions of the ritual, embodying, and permeability, and their manifestations throughout contemporary landscapes are taken to be movements of currency through the ever-present precedents. The field of influences regard the intangible and physical materials in the same manner, realising a potential for them in present spaces and embodiments. While being present is becoming more of a checkbox, performance review, or mindfulness app interaction. An alertness, awareness, or an understanding solicits a keenness to the fore. The putting together of a thing, or an -ism, a bunch of references and touchstones cobbled together over time. Systems and frameworks, like symbols and their meanings, are expected to have their duration and powers, like trendy ingredients and far-right imagery they are fickle and rapidly phase between things and their embodiments. The architecture of the cobbling of touchstones imagery is more modular and serviceable, now with design flair. Readily available and more than inspired, understandings are available to all forms of bodies like fast fashion, and the selection of “clean cars” these days—systems of references have “finite” and almost disposable qualities, having. subsequent effects on their embodiments and signifiers. The research identifies the temporalities of states and spaces in which these movements and points of stasis occur through an identifying of permeability. Machinations of culture, craft, and the climates in which they operate, and how they produce and service the identities that comprise their relations, are focussed through an individual perspective. Applying personal experiences through an autoethnographic model is a process within the processes of understanding and embodying rituals —through which I have produced this body of research and the subsequent bodies of work.