Browsing by Subject "Materiality"
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Item Cuerpos resonantes : sonidos y voces en la poesía del Caribe y el Cono Sur 1930-1980(2016-05) Staig Limidoro, James Christian; Cárcamo-Huechante, Luis E.; Arroyo, Jossianna; Borge, Jason; Robbins, JillIn the present research I approach the sonic materiality in the works of poets of the 20th Century from Chile, Argentina, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. I analize the works of Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957), Nicolás Guillén (1902–1989), Néstor Perlongher (1949–1992) and Pedro Pietri (1944–2004); all of them presenting particular approaches to the production, consumption, and representation of sound through poetry. This research works with notions of sound studies, performance, animal, sex-gender, and cultural studies, to explore the different forms in which these authors use sound as part of a poetic-politic of the spoken word. I explore also how in their uses of sound they problematize notions of cultural identity, political revolution, nation building, censorship and belonging. In the present study I propose that these four poets—Mistral, Guillén, Perlongher, and Pietri—use their sound production as a tool for a political and aesthetic exercise that materializes notions of identity, agency, and belonging. Also, I claim that each poet presents a sonic conscience, bot in the production of sound and hearing.; that is, from their behalf there is a performatic notion of their work as sound and voice. This allows them to explore topics of gender, race, politics, diasporas, and aesthetics that amplify their “resonance” no only in writing but also in the sono-sphere of language and body. Thus, I explore the recording of their voices and performances as archives in which is possible to practice a critical, material, and bodily listening. Together with that, on methodological terms, I propose mi own reading as part of a escucha profunda, in dialog with the elaborations of close listening by Charles Bernstein and an attention to the effects of “resound” (Jean-Luc Nancy) that leads the poetic phenomenon in a sense level, physical experience and perception (Don Idhe).Item The languages of Nox : photographs, materiality, and translation in Anne Carson's epitaph(2013-05) Macmillan, Rebecca Anne; Cvetkovich, Ann, 1957-Looking primarily at the family photographs in Anne Carson’s epitaph in book form, this essay explores how Nox multiply exhibits translation as the approximation of an imperfect nearness. The replica of a testimonial object Carson created after her brother’s passing, Nox is a resolutely non- narrative work of poetry structured around a belabored translation of a Catullan elegy, prose poems, photographs, and other fragments of memorial matter. Examining Nox as an intimate archive made public through Carson’s act of curation, my project draws attention to how this work analogizes translation to the understanding of affective life. Inspired by Marianne Hirsch’s critical work on vernacular photography, I demonstrate that the exhibited family photographs in Nox not only thematize Carson’s focus on illumination and darkness, but also materially amplify the inaccessibility of the felt lives they encapsulate. I argue that Nox, like the photographs it houses, models a memorial practice insistent simultaneously on materiality and the incomplete proximity to what remains.Item The lost meaning of things : Edith Wharton, materiality, and modernity(2010-05) Miller, Ashley Elizabeth; Barrish, Phillip; Cohen, MattCritics of Edith Wharton frequently discuss the material culture that pervades her work, but the trend in doing so has been to rush past the things themselves and engage in abstracted conversations of theory. I would like to suggest that a closer scrutiny of the individual objects being presented in Wharton’s novels can highlight Wharton’s own theoretical approaches to material culture. Working from Bill Brown's distinction between objects and things, I want to argue that Wharton firmly situates the material culture in The Age of Innocence in the background of her characters' lives as objects which they utilize as extensions of the self; but she brings the thingness of material culture to the forefront in Twilight Sleep, where the material culture in the novel alternately stands out and malfunctions, as characters attempt—and fail—to construct coherent and livable identities for themselves in the face of a 1920s New York that Wharton depicts as a paradoxically over-furnished wasteland. I will ultimately argue that things, problematic as they are, become a matter of survival strategy for her characters in Twilight Sleep when they utilize them to reconstruct the social relations that have become increasingly threatened from the world of The Age of Innocence.Item Manipulate : release(2006) Bayer, Michelle; Olsen, Daniel M., 1963-How does the creation of an object shift from a process of manipulation to one of release? My work investigates the space between design, materiality and the process of making. To understand this space, it is crucial to for me to become familiar with the actual materials and processes of the objects I seek to create. This requires knowledge of the way materials behave in their specific environment, as well as how they respond to the different stimuli of making. In the process of intaglio printing, the plate not only transfers ink to the paper, but also transfers a ridge where the paper is forced into the crevasses of the plate. By not interpreting this as a printing process, but rather as a die-forming process, I am able to manipulate the paper in a way that facilitates the folding process. Once cut out and assembled, the outcome is a three-dimensional object created from the information transferred from the plate to the paper, instead of merely a two-dimensional print. My current work challenges this notion of manipulating a surface. Instead of cutting out and assembling the object, a material process is constructed that embeds the instructions for fabrication within an object using the material’s inherent qualities. In this way, instead of relying on an outside source of manipulation to force the material into a shape, I am releasing the material to become the object it was designed to be.Item Performing touch in the Frick Self-portrait (1658) : an examination of the ruwe manier in late Rembrandt(2013-05) Zeldin, Natalie; Smith, Jeffrey Chipps, 1951-Ruwe manier describes loose painting, characterized by visible brushwork that is casually or even crudely exposed. Although Rembrandt did not invent ruwe manier, his late style is practically synonymous with highly developed surface texture. The goal of this study is to help develop historical context for understanding Rembrandt’s characteristic approach to thick paint, as well as to attempt to locate what is so distinctive about Rembrandt’s expressive brushwork. The ruwe manier is particularly prominent in Rembrandt’s 1658 Self-Portrait housed in the Frick Collection in New York City. The Frick Self-Portrait thus operates as a case study and as a point of departure from which to discuss notions of the rough manner in this period. Through detailed formal analysis and primary texts, I propose how the emotional impact of impasto, as understood in Rembrandt’s time, might have served as motivation for Rembrandt’s painting approach in his later years. In the last section, I apply these discussions about Rembrandt’s ruwe manier to a current neuroscience research about visual and tactile perception. This final, exploratory chapter is more of an inquiry of neuroaesthetic methodology than of Rembrandt’s painting. I ultimately suggest that the assertion of self is manifest not only in the Rembrandt’s presentation of himself as a subject, but also as it is imbued on a conscious and fundamental level—in the very tactility of the paint itself.Item Rocks and rainbows(2011-05) Moore, Olivia Martin; Stoney, John; Miller, MelissaCovering the topics of my conceptual interests overlapping with the production of several bodies of work over the three years of my academic curriculum, this report addresses how my theoretical ideas and commitment to materials have shaped and informed my work. The work produced at my time in the Studio Arts Program at the University of Texas at Austin has indeed come full circle, with subjects and themes growing out of and eventually returning to some of the first work that I produced here. This work discussed is organized in a non-chronological order to expose similarities in approach over the course of time. Coming into the program I wanted to focus on developing the content in my work. Reshaping the way I thought and approached sculpture, I have adapted my previous investment in materials and incorporated my greater interests in the human condition as expressed through the cultural relics of society.Item T(2013-05) Vu, Bich N.; Mickey, Susan E.; Isackes, Richard; Stoney, JohnT is a thesis installation that explores the semiotics of public dress through the fundamentals of sculpture: mass and form, material and process, site and context. This exhibition consists of four T-shirt shaped objects made out of steel, aluminum, talcum, and sugar . A T-shirt is arguably a universally recognizable article of clothing, but its familiarity when juxtaposed with everyday material challenges the social identity of dress. As a theatrical designer experimenting with sculpture, Bich Vu investigates the ways clothing and space facilitates a narrative. The different arrangements of the objects within the installation are performances created in collaboration with guest directors and choreographers from the Department of Theatre & Dance.Item The materiality of Tejano identity(2016-12) Hanson, Casey; Wade, Maria Fátima, 1948-; Creel, Darrell; Franklin, Maria; Doolittle, William; Menchaca, MarthaScholars have examined Tejano identity through various theoretical and methodological lenses, but in general, all are interested in highlighting Tejano agency in the development of Texas. As diachronic examinations of identity, these investigations are often situated in terms of shifting ethnic identities, where a broad range of backgrounds came to share common concepts of Tejano identity through shared experiences and the dynamic context of the frontier. This dissertation builds upon this research and comprehensively evaluates Tejano identity through an examination of the archaeological record from a perspective based in theories of materiality. Like previous investigations, my dissertation is a diachronic study that conceptualizes Tejano identity as a changing ethnic identity, but as an examination rooted in material culture studies, my dissertation provides a new perspective into the role of Tejano agency in the development of region. My dissertation asks what objects and what material practices were integral to the formation of Tejano identity and how did those practices change over time? To answer these questions, I compared the material worlds of various Tejano families and individuals from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and explored how objects were enmeshed in the work of subject formation over time. In my dissertation, I present the archaeological and archival data from three case study sites, the eighteenth century deposits at Spanish Governor’s Palace (41BX179), the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century deposits at and the Delgado Cistern (41BX1753) and the Mexican Period Padrón-Cháves Midden and Siege of Béxar entrenchment (41BX1752) as well as a number of other related sites. The comparative analyses reveal that local traditions, technologies, and practices contributed to the establishment of a distinct regional identity in the early eighteenth century. Many aspects of this identity endured into the nineteenth century, although other aspects of identification began to shift due to the introduction of new material practices through an illicit trade network that helped to forge a unified Tejano identity across frontier communities. Finally, the unprecedented amount of goods introduced to the frontier along with Anglo-American colonists during the Mexican Period exposed Tejanos to an array of new practices that fractured Tejano identity and reshaped the frontier.