Research Articles (Visual Arts)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/2479

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 152

Male patients communicating restored mental health by their facial expressions and gentlemanly persona at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890-1907
(Deakin University, 2024-04) Du Plessis, Rory
During the medical superintendence of Dr Thomas Duncan Greenlees at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, from 1890 to 1907, he was watchful of his patients’ appearances, facial expressions and conduct. Of particular interest, Greenlees would closely monitor the patients’ faces to identify if there were any involuntary expressions that were indicators of underlying emotional unease or mental distress. Greenlees thus regarded involuntary facial expressions as a litmus test of a patient’s recovery, but it was the patient’s conscious facial expressions, as well as their presentation of upstanding behaviour and conduct, that signalled to the staff that they were self-composed, and hence on the path towards convalescence. In this article, I explore how three white male patients of the Asylum communicated their convalescence and/or restored mental health to the staff by posing for their casebook photographs and by presenting a gentlemanly persona. To this end, I interpret the photographs of the three men alongside entries from their casebooks as an interface to explore dimensions of time that lie outside the split second that was captured by the camera lens. In doing so, the glimpses of a patient’s agency and appearance in a photograph can be understood and compared with their performance of a gentlemanly persona that was recorded in the casebooks.
(Inter)facing empathy : interrogating our tragic love affair with screens
(Deakin University, 2024-04) Lauwrens, Jennifer
Screen technologies, ranging from the cinema to the smartphone, are taken for granted in the contemporary screen landscape. This landscape has been referred to as the “screen-sphere” (Sobchack 2014) owing to the fundamental ways screens affect how people understand and relate to the world around them. It is particularly their structural and operative functioning as interfaces that influence not so much how we use screens, but, more importantly, how they affect our communication with and feelings towards others. In so doing, the screen as an interface profoundly transforms people’s capacity for empathy. This article exposes the intersection of the screen and the face of the celebrity persona in an artwork by Candice Breitz titled Love Story (2016). Since the installation focuses attention on the faces of its subjects, it utilises the enormous power of the face in generating empathic responses. More specifically, the face of the celebrity persona cultivates both fascination and empathy in this work. Through a close analysis of this installation, I aim to show how empathy can be controlled and manipulated just as much as it can be compromised due to our screen-based day-to-day practices and our interactions with the faces of others. This article also demonstrates the crucial role that an artwork can play in raising awareness about the consequences of screens on our empathic resonance with others.
Inter(facing) personas
(Deakin University, 2024-04) Du Preez, Amanda
In this introductory essay to the special issue on “Persona and Inter(face)”, the problem of collapsing or imploding inter(faces) is explored. The basic argument is that the inter(face) needs to remain in-between or mediating between face and persona on the one hand, and digital technology on the other hand, for inter(facing) as an encounter to exist. The dilemma of the imploding inter(face) is discussed through the examples of the outdoor mirror selfie and the data-driven persona. By doing so, the politics involved in the dissipation of the mediating gap is exposed. In short: it is proposed that inter(face), as unpacked here, may contribute to future debates and concerns in persona studies.
Legacy — the studio pottery of Ian Glenny (1952–2023)
(National Museum, 2024-12-05) Watt, Ronnie
Scholarly attention to South African studio pottery of the later twentieth century has been negligible, succeeding at best to provide an overview of its rise in the 1960s, the emergence of a fraternity of studio pottery practitioners, and the development of individual expressions. There is a lack of in-depth scholarly accounts of the lives and oeuvres of the more eminent studio pottery figures of that era. The posthumous disclosure of his own works in the personal collection of the studio potter Ian Glenny (1952–2023) presents not only the opportunity to illustrate the development over the span of five decades of his oeuvre but also to reflect on the cultural pottery traditions that the studio potters referenced in the later twentieth century. In the case of Glenny, his preference to borrow from the cultural pottery traditions of Japan, China and Korea and the manner in which he adapted those influences as distinctively personal expressions, can now be detailed and illustrated with reference to works in his collection. The essay provides further substance to the dismissal of the randomly used discriminatory label of the twentieth-century South African studio pottery for its assumed adherence to the Anglo-Oriental tradition of studio pottery. This discourse on Glenny’s oeuvre shows that influences were not summarily copied but that their essences of form and intent were attentively studied to enable the re-representation of that in forms that would appeal to a consumer and collector base.
Visiting Hannah Arendt : reflections on the civic affordances of storytelling in design education
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Cassim, Fatima; fatima.cassim@up.ac.za
In this article, I consider the role of storytelling as a civic act, which is made visible through a reflection on the storytelling processes that informed the underpinning of a curriculum project showcased during the Stories Worth Telling exhibition (2023). To this end, I focus on how the stories worth telling are shaped, archived, and celebrated through participatory engagements and experiences by fourth-year Information Design students at the University of Pretoria. Underscored by Hannah Arendt’s notion that storytelling serves as a bridge between the private and public realms, I highlight the civic affordances of the storytelling process that may ultimately augment the students’ critical thinking and not only their technical design capabilities.
Between memory & fantasy : autofiction & worldbuilding in autobiographical comics
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Roodt, Octavia; Fossey, Natalie
This ar ticle locates the practice of creating autobiographical comics (autobiocomics) as products of autobiographical fiction (autofiction) and imaginary worlds. Autobiocomics is a comics genre characterised by imaginative and subjective representations of the autobiographical self. Autobiocomic stories attempt to convey an emotional truth by depicting the author’s authentic reactions to people, places, or events. With this research, we intend to contribute to the existing autobiocomic scholarship by demonstrating that autofiction and worldbuilding theories can deepen the analysis of specific autobiocomics when instrumentalised in tandem. This provides the oppor tunity to read autobiocomic texts for their shared characteristics and generate insights on the author’s relationship to their representations of self and the textual world wherein the self is revealed. In this article, we review autobiocomics, providing a brief chronological overview and identifying relevant concepts to position the analysis and discussion thereafter. The analysis suggests future research into the implications of the authors’ embodiment of their textual avatar and how they inhabit the textual world. Three autobiocomics are read, discussed, and analysed to demonstrate the characteristics of the medium as it pertains to both these theories: Drieman (2020) by Wide Vercnocke, La mer à boire (2022) by Blutch, and Fluctuat et Mergitur (2020) by Conrad Botes.
Designing with words : writing as design
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Rath, Kyle A.; Lange, Jacques; kyle.rath@up.ac.za
Writing for design has, over the past few decades, seen steady appreciation. Literature on design writing refers to it as a mostly technical vocation centred on the craft of writing in and of itself. Moreover, the suggestion seems to be that while writing is beneficial to, it is also distinct from the practice of communication design. Elsewhere, writing in the context of communication design is viewed as a specialisation – a skill that is typically reserved for a specialist writer who helps craft a tone to complement a predominantly visual design. In this article, we argue that writing for design is a far more complex and foundational skill for communication designers. In doing so, we explore the interdependence of narrative and writing, as a systematic design process and so highlight the importance of creative writing as design in an educational context and emphasise how integral writing is to the designer as a storyteller. To demonstrate this, we explore a selection of student work from an editorial project that has, for the past 21 years, been delivered to fourth-year Information Design students at the University of Pretoria (and which formed part of the 2023 Stories Worth Telling retrospective exhibition).
Storytelling, belonging and identity in the graphic design classroom : a critical reflection
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Van der Merwe, Marguerite; marguerite.vandermerwe@up.ac.za
In a diverse student cohort, learning can be designed to encourage belonging and celebrate identity in the classroom. However, in increasingly international student cohorts, international students can find themselves displaced, living and working in new environments, and might struggle to find their voice and express their heritage in the context of their studies. By designing curricula to encourage storytelling, educators can help students to find their voice and identity as designers, and create a space for safety, vulnerability, and belonging in the classroom. As such, this paper is situated in the context of graphic design higher education and takes the form of a critical reflection, comprising a self-evaluation of the use of storytelling in the classroom based on the author’s teaching experience. Rhizomatic learning (Cormier 2008) is discussed in relation to its application in the context of a graphic design classroom and its relevance in a curriculum designed to support storytelling. The critical reflection follows Brookfield’s (2017) model for critically reflective teaching and takes the form of a series of vignettes featuring student projects – part of an editorial design project run annually for final-year students in the BA Information Design programme at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. In addition to these vignettes, the critical reflection references a design research workshop run for students of MA Graphic Design at the University for the Creative Arts in the United Kingdom.
Postcards of “Cape girls” : telling an Edwardian story of Cape Town
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Van Eeden, Jeanne
Picture postcards originated in the nineteenth century as an efficient, cheap, and democratic form of mass communication that encompassed many functions, including entertainment. As bimodal texts, comprising a visual image, a nchoring textual c aption, a nd (sometimes) th e w ritten m essage by the sender, postcards assumed the power to communicate complex ideas and ideologies in a compact format. Under the influence of cultural studies in the 1960s, which stated that culture itself is the site of struggle for social meanings expressed in class, race, and gender relations, postcard studies (deltiology) has become an important interdisciplinary field since the 1980s. The postcard exposed millions of people to visual culture and predated the functions of mobile phones, the Internet, and social media platforms such as Instagram. In this article, I focus on a series of artist-drawn, lithographic postcards by Dennis Santry (1879-1960) in Cape Town in 1904. They depict six so-called “Cape Girls” engaged in leisure activities against the backdrop of iconic Capetonian sites. My interpretation of the postcards suggests that a selective story privileges the tastes of a white, middle-class, English-speaking, imperial audience.
A framework for creating and analysing wordless picturebooks
(School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, 2024) Van Os, Maria; Haese, Adrie; Pretorius, Deirdre; adrie.haese@up.ac.za
Wordless picturebooks are texts that convey a narrative through a series of images with little or no written information and have gained popularity among academics, readers, and illustrators. These books have evolved from purely educational tools to complex and experimental works, attracting prominent artists and addressing challenging themes. Described as “crossover”, wordless picturebooks frequently defy traditional age, addressing and attracting readers of all ages. While research on wordless picturebooks is growing, literature generally focuses on wordless picturebooks as educational tools for a younger readership and the aesthetic qualities of the finished picturebook – rarely examining the complex process of creating a wordless, visual narrative. In this article we reflect on the creation of a wordless crossover picturebook to gain insight into this process from Maria van Os’s perspective as a practising illustrator and illustration lecturer. The practice-based approach sheds light on the wordless crossover picturebook as an artefact and the process under taken by an author-illustrator when creating a wordless narrative. A framework for creating wordless narratives was conceptualised by distilling the findings from the practice and framing them within narrative theory. The framework is intended to aid students, lecturers, and practitioners in creating and analysing wordless picturebooks.
Between eco-anxiety and solastalgia : aspirational and exiled astronaut eco-imaginaries
(Routledge, 2025-01) Du Preez, Amanda; amanda.dupreez@up.ac.za
Although space travel is not often discussed in relation to the environmental crisis, it is proposed here that how the core agent of space travel, namely the astronaut, is imagined is of cardinal importance to environmental issues. Two astronaut types are identified in the analysis: the aspirational astronaut planning to escape Earth out of a looming sense of eco-anxiety amidst increasing signs of ecological disaster; and the exiled astronaut who experiences overwhelming environmental distress or solastalgia as home becomes stranger every day. The selected images of astronauts are interpreted as eco-imaginaries that embody a particular disposition in terms of their geo-locality and climate changes. The aspirational astronaut is explored by a brief slice into two film depictions, namely Approaching the Unknown (Mark Elijah Rosenburg, 2016) and Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019). The exiled astronaut originates from sub-Saharan Africa through the filmed performance work of the Kinshasha-based duo Michel Ekeba and Eléonore Hellio, working as the Kongo Astronauts (2021–2022), and an eco-film by Maisha Maene, entitled Mulika (2022). It is proposed that the diverging eco-imaginaries are products of where one places Earth in climate debates.
When the rainbow is bittersweet : reflections on being queer and Indian in Durban
(Lectito, 2024) O’Connell, Siona; Ghosh, Debjyoti; Reddy, Vasu; siona.oconnell@up.ac.za
South Africa is one of the few countries in Africa that no longer criminalises same-sex sexual activity, and the only one to recognise same-sex marriage under the legal system. Yet, at the same time, several groups in the country practice a conservatism that discourages people from being themselves, be it in professing their gender or their sexuality. This article explores the trials and tribulations of making a documentary film with a minority population within one such minority population – Queer and Indian – in Durban, the site of the largest number of Indians outside India. Written in a reflective style that frames the positioning of the authors, a key question posed is: what are the daily issues that queer South African people deal with? Battling with conservatism while trying to find one’s queer voice is just one of them. The film engages with a few people who were generous to allow us to use their experiences with the state, the society, and healthcare. How does one reconcile the Rainbow Nation, the promise of constitutional equality with the insularity that people face on a regular basis? This article aims to be the start of a much larger conversation that needs to be had.
Head in the clouds : a Deleuzoguattarian analysis of the environmental impacts of digital memory
(Sage, 2024) Loots, Olivia
Digital memory in the twenty-first century is a complex combination of human and nonhuman elements that interact in various combinations. In an era where environmental devastation is inundating the planet, it is vital to address the digital’s role in this degradation. This article explores various facets of the environmental implications of the digital storage of memory objects using Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory. I identify the ways in which the digital realm is constructed, or ‘territorialised’ in Deleuzoguattarian terms. Beyond identifying the most common myths related to digital memory’s environmental impact, I expand on the work of information theorists such as Clements, Floridi, and Ess by forwarding three ways in which digital memory practices can be deterritorialised. These approaches include (1) knowledge acquisition, (2) taking response-ability, and (3) anti-redundancy movements. I argue that it is vital for cloud storage users, especially those who self-identify as environmentally conscious, to align their online memory practices with accurate understandings of the environmental impacts of the digital.
Theoretical underpinnings of the mythic metaphor of the void as exemplified in select nineteenth-century paintings
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2023-08) Van Heerden, Ariana
The void, the abyss, infinite space – an a temporal and a spatial vastness evocative of terror related to the insecurity of precariousness – these descriptors all point equally to reality as well as to myth and metaphor. The void is present in nature and is represented metaphorically and mythically in music, literature, films, architecture and art. The concept of the void has been an existential topic for millennia, discussed and debated by philosophers, scientists and psychologists, whose endeavours to make sense of it have changed over time. What causes insecurity upon encountering the void is that it signifies the threshold between the known, the unknown and the unknowable. Science and technology empower us to push the boundaries of the void ever farther, yet an aspect of the unknowable seems residual. That is where mythic metaphor is useful and is instrumental in both a metaphysical and psychological way. This article examines how, rather than recoiling from the void, engaging or embracing it may result in an enlarging, or transcendent experience. In this article the horizon and luminosity in the sublime paintings of the nineteenth-century Romantic painters Caspar David Freidrich and Joseph Mallord William Turner, potentially leading to a transcendent experience and/or an encounter with the sublime, are positioned as portals to the void.
The racialised diet scales of Transvaal prisons : Chinese and Indian prisoner resistance, 1901–1911
(South African Society for Cultural History, 2023-06) Du Plessis, Rory; rory.duplessis@up.ac.za
This article commences with an exploration of how the diet scales of the Transvaal prisons were underpinned by racial discrimination from 1901 to 1911: people of colour received smaller varieties and quantities of food than white prisoners. To highlight how the racialised diet scales were implemented as a punitive measure, the article provides a discussion of how Chinese prisoners were placed on restricted diets to make their imprisonment inimical and forbidding. The study then proceeds to investigate two groups that levelled complaints against the racialised diet scales. The fi rst group was the Chinese prisoners at the Johannesburg gaol that served long sentences. The discussion of this group reveals the agency of the inmates, who committed a hunger strike to protest the diet scale. The second group consisted of the Chinese and Indian organisations that supported the imprisoned satyagraha campaigners. Through the lobbying efforts of these organisations, the Transvaal government was constantly brought to address, as well as pressed to attend to the issues about the diet scales. In sum, the two groups championed a revised diet that was respectful of the heritage, habits, and cultures of the Chinese and Indian prisoners.
Conservation science education online (CSEO) – a heritage science resource
(De Gruyter, 2023-09-23) Murray, Alison; Biggs, Kyna; Shugar, Aaron; Ploeger, Rebecca; Uffelman, Erich; Stols-Witlox, Maartje; Gonzales, Patricia; Smith, Gregory D.; Loubser, Maggi; Lopez, Laura Fuster; Di Pietro, Giovanna; Sah, Anupam; Nevin, Austin; Sardarli, Arzu; Wei, Shuya; Casanova-Gonzalez, Edgar
Conservation Science Education Online (CSEO) is a new online resource that shares strategies for teaching science in art conservation and related cultural heritage fields. An overview will be given of how undergraduate chemistry curricula in the United States have used examples from cultural heritage. The field of art conservation will then be described with an emphasis on the science curricula taught in art conservation programs around the world. Challenges include relating theoretical learning to real-world applications and teaching scientific terminology and concepts to students who may have limited science backgrounds; as well, there is a lack of textbooks and resources with appropriate case studies. The newly launched CSEO online resource offers freely available, effective teaching methods in the form of modules developed by international educators in the field. The inaugural CSEO Conference 2022 served as an introduction to the online resource for a global audience and was the first dedicated conference to bring together heritage science educators to discuss challenges and teaching strategies with the goal of building such a resource. The conference facilitated discussions among participants about teaching strategies, with the intention that these topics would become modules for the online resource, available to all science educators.
Unmasking the dictator : how digital technologies expose authoritarianism in Belarus and Zimbabwe
(Intellect, 2023-07) Mututwa, Wishes Tendayi; Akpojivi, Ufuoma
Authoritarian governments seem to use the same methods of coercion the world over. Recent developments in Belarus and Zimbabwe resonate with this observation. President Alexander Lukashenko prevailed in a deeply flawed and controversial election which his opponents claimed was rigged in July 2020, triggering massive countrywide protests by the opposition supporters. In Zimbabwe, corruption over COVID-19 procurement, coupled with a dire economic situation, pushed citizens to organize demonstrations. Both Belarus and Zimbabwean security personnel employed a heavy-headed approach to thwart demonstrations, committing gross human rights abuses under the cover of darkness or under face masks. Although digital activism has received so much credit as a formidable force to challenge power, its success in dismantling oppressive regimes and systems is a subject of debate. In light of this debate, this qualitative article employed counterpublics as a theoretical lens to explore Twitter and digital tools that allow ordinary citizens and activists to counter human rights abuses in authoritarian environments, making future quests for justice possible.
Where to look? Sustaining presence while directing attention in virtual reality stories
(AIM, 2023) Walter, Michael
Humans have been fascinated with the notion of submerging themselves in other spaces since antiquity, or even before. As the contemporary media landscape seeks to employ newer immersive practices, particularly in today’s Metaverse environment, storytelling in immersive media such as virtual reality (VR) is still developing and being described. The notion of scale and (newfound) viewer agency afforded by VR has challenged VR film-makers, particularly in directing attention towards story beats and handling user interaction. The video gaming industry, as a platform that is built with immersion as the core of the experience, leads this development. The advent of virtual reality (VR) video games is developing an amalgamation of immersive strategies to induce the sense of presence within virtual worlds. In this article I look at current approaches and challenges faced when directing attention in films and storytelling in VR. I then consider strides taken in VR video games, namely Half-Life: Alyx (2020), to propose that directing techniques and immersive strategies employed in VR video games can be used to develop new strategies in VR films and storytelling.
What blind people can teach sighted viewers about art
(Routledge, 2024) Lauwrens, Jennifer; jenni.lauwrens@up.ac.za
While sight and hearing have been privileged in the philosophical formulation of aesthetics, the significance of touch to the experience of art has not enjoyed much attention at all. In order to displace sight and reinstate touch as a viable mode of engagement for the interpretation of visual art, this article reports on a study in which blind individuals and sighted people who were blindfolded were interviewed about their experiences of artworks. The participants were invited to touch selected sculptures in South African artist, Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet (1990 – ongoing) installation. The main aim of the study was to investigate the nature of the tactile aesthetic experience elicited by these sculptures when they are handled and not seen. Secondly, the study aimed to reach a deeper understanding of how tactile engagement with art enriches the experience, meaning and power of the work for both those who can and cannot see. Through the investigation it was revealed that visual art can forge a bridge between individuals with and without blindness.
Illustrating for the common good : South African illustrator perceptions of book creation initiatives and open licensing
(Common Ground Research Networks, 2024-06) Haese, Adrie; adrie.haese@up.ac.za
The demand for children’s reading materials that are representative of the diverse population of South Africa and that address language and affordability issues has given rise to several book creation initiatives by local nonprofits. Illustration often plays an essential part in the creation of such reading materials. To expand the impact of their work, certain initiatives employ open licensing strategies. This article explores how illustrators perceive their role in the creation of books for South African readers through book creation initiatives and investigates their views of open licensing. An online questionnaire was used to collect information pertaining to the experiences of book creation initiatives and illustrators’ views on open licensing. Data was gathered from thirty-two illustrators and thematically analyzed. Participating illustrators were generally aware of the value of their contribution to such projects, and individual social responsibility and personal value seemed to mitigate concerns over licensing, adaptation, or remuneration. Illustrators aligned themselves with the mission and vision of the initiatives, and responses indicated that a deliberate value exchange occurred in initiatives through the methodologies used in the creation of the books and the resulting artifacts. However, findings also indicated that such models may not be a financially viable option for extended participation.

Browse

Recent Submissions