Inventions and industry in the art of Howard Finster

This paper examines Finster’s collection of Inventions of Mankind and his paintings of American industrial icons such as Henry Ford and Eli Whitney. Additionally, this study explores Finster’s compulsive artistic productivity and his experimentation with mechanisms designed to create self-sustaining energy. By providing a comprehensive overview of Howard Finster’s fascination with inventions and industry, this paper serves to provide new insight and dimension into the often over-generalized interpretations of his extensive body of work

The Dragon Tree in the Age of Exploration

he dragon tree, a peculiar species native to Socotra, southwest Arabia, east Africa, Morocco, Macaronesia, and the Canary islands, possesses an intriguing iconographic history. The first wave of images date from 1470 to 1550, beginning with Martin Schongauer’s 1470 engraving of The Flight into Egypt. These depictions portray the dragon tree in the context of a handful of biblical themes and with apparent symbolic import. After 1550, religious images of the dragon tree vanish abruptly and are replaced by representations of an empirical nature. Dragon tree iconography is notable for the extent to which it did and did not leave an impression on European art. In this paper I examine the inability of dragon tree images to gain the momentum required to propel them into European iconography more permanently, and the forces that may account for the abrupt change from biblical to botanical renderings.

Graveyards to Glamour : Development of Sexualized Angel Imagery in American Art and Advertising

Images of female angels in American art and advertisements have been sexualized in the late twentieth and early twenty-­‐first centuries. Companies such as Victoria’s Secret have appropriated the image of female angels, which first appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and clothed them in lingerie in order to sell a product. This Masters Research Paper explores the evolution of female angelic imagery in the United States in order to understand how and when the image of angels began to be sexualized and used in advertising. Angels in art have been studied extensively; however, there has been no work done which examines how the angels in art and advertising have been sexualized. Nor has any work been done to map the evolution of female angelic imagery in American art. This Masters Research Paper will fill that gap in scholarship.

A hydrological–economic model for sustainable groundwater use in sparse-data drylands: Application to the Amtoudi Oasis in southern Morocco, northern Sahara

A hydrological–economic model is introduced to describe the dynamics of groundwater-dependent economics (agriculture and tourism) for sustainable use in sparse-data drylands. The Amtoudi Oasis, a remote area in southern Morocco, in the northern Sahara attractive for tourism and with evidence of groundwater degradation, was chosen to show the model operation. Governing system variables were identified and put into action through System Dynamics (SD) modeling causal diagrams to program basic formulations into a model having two modules coupled by the nexus ‘pumping’: (1) the hydrological module represents the net groundwater balance (G) dynamics; and (2) the economic module reproduces the variation in the consumers of water, both the population and tourists. The model was operated under similar influx of tourists and different scenarios of water availability, such as the wet 2009–2010 and the average 2010–2011 hydrological years. The rise in international tourism is identified as the main driving force reducing emigration and introducing new social habits in the population, in particular concerning water consumption. Urban water allotment (PU) was doubled for less than a 100-inhabitant net increase in recent decades. The water allocation for agriculture (PI), the largest consumer of water, had remained constant for decades. Despite that the 2-year monitoring period is not long enough to draw long-term conclusions, groundwater imbalance was reflected by net aquifer recharge (R) less than PI + PU (G < 0) in the average year 2010–2011, with net lateral inflow from adjacent Cambrian formations being the largest recharge component. R is expected to be much less than PI + PU in recurrent dry spells. Some low-technology actions are tentatively proposed to mitigate groundwater degradation, such as: wastewater capture, treatment, and reuse for irrigation; storm-water harvesting for irrigation; and active maintenance of the irrigation system to improve its efficiency.

The giraffe in history and art /

Cover title.

"A joy for ever"; (and its price in the market): being the substance (with additions) of two lectures on the political economy of art, delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857.

Includes index.

A practical treatise on painting : in three parts : consisting of hints on composition, chiaroscuro, and colouring : the whole illustrated by examples from the Italian, Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools /

Pagination, part 1: 31 pages, 9 leaves of plates; part 2: vi, 45 pages, 8 leaves of plates; part 3: ix, 64 pages, 8 leaves of plates.

Legends of the monastic orders, as represented in the fine arts : forming the second series of sacred and legendary art /

Mode of access: Internet.

Aesthetics in transportation : guidelines for incorporating design, art and architecture into transportation facilities : executive summary /

"Contract no. DOT-OS-90040"--P. 2 of cover.

ART attrition across health facilities implementing Option B+ in Haiti

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

The Role of Art in Computer Game Design

Computer games are significant since they embody our youngsters’ engagement with contemporary culture, including both play and education. These games rely heavily on visuals, systems of sign and expression based on concepts and principles of Art and Architecture. We are researching a new genre of computer games, ‘Educational Immersive Environments’ (EIEs) to provide educational materials suitable for the school classroom. Close collaboration with subject teachers is necessary, but we feel a specific need to engage with the practicing artist, the art theoretician and historian. Our EIEs are loaded with multimedia (but especially visual) signs which act to direct the learner and provide the ‘game-play’ experience forming semiotic systems. We suggest the hypothesis that computer games are a space of deconstruction and reconstruction (DeRe): When players enter the game their physical world and their culture is torn apart; they move in a semiotic system which serves to reconstruct an alternate reality where disbelief is suspended. The semiotic system draws heavily on visuals which direct the players’ interactions and produce motivating gameplay. These can establish a reconstructed culture and emerging game narrative. We have recently tested our hypothesis and have used this in developing design principles for computer game designers. Yet there are outstanding issues concerning the nature of the visuals used in computer games, and so questions for contemporary artists. Currently, the computer game industry employs artists in a ‘classical’ role in production of concept sketches, storyboards and 3D content. But this is based on a specification from the client which restricts the artist in intellectual freedom. Our DeRe hypothesis places the artist at the generative centre, to inform the game designer how art may inform our DeRe semiotic spaces. This must of course begin with the artists’ understanding of DeRe in this time when our ‘identities are becoming increasingly fractured, networked, virtualized and distributed’ We hope to persuade artists to engage with the medium of computer game technology to explore these issues. In particular, we pose several questions to the artist: (i) How can particular ‘periods’ in art history be used to inform the design of computer games? (ii) How can specific artistic elements or devices be used to design ‘signs’ to guide the player through the game? (iii) How can visual material be integrated with other semiotic strata such as text and audio?

Bodily Experience and Restricted Conditions in Contemporary Art

The Doctoral research was carried out with the primary purpose of reviewing past practice designs and for identifying how body movements contributes to these designs. The context in which the body movements are understood are that of discipline enforced by culture and other physio-biological restraints. A discussion on the relationships of body experience in restricted conditions are carried out, which includes the interaction between movement and space in the application of painting, moulding, biological markers, and moving images. The discipline, socially acceptable practices and regulations present in the researcher’s personal life and culture frame the artworks and a fascinating exploration of dynamics between freedom of movement in artwork construction and restrain of behaviour has been analyzed. In the process of art production, significant points discussed were with respect to the identification, succession and repetition of habitual acts. In addition, bodily movement could be considered as a synthesis of spatiality and temporality. The key point which contains the elements of time and space remains relevant to my creative practice and theoretical research. The core interest of my practice is in understanding the settings and simple rules for bodily movement, which is inspired by the past and forms a possible creation for the future. In this research, the attempt was not to display a comprehensive understanding on how body influences the design of art but rather to explain how understanding body movements provides a trace of my works, from origin, the working process and to completion. Relevant artworks and reflection of personal experiences are discussed as needed to help the reader gain more insight on the interactions of body in art creations.

Practice-led research and the innovation agenda : beyond the postgraduate research degree in the arts, design and media

The rise of the ‘practice-led’ research approach has given us a new way of understanding what creative practice in art, design and media can do in the academy and the world— it can materialise new ideas and forms into being as a form of experimental research. Yet, to date, attention around the world, and especially in Australia, has been chiefly directed at the postgraduate research degrees, most notably the PhD or doctoral equivalents. Recent mapping projects and surveys of practice-led research in Australia reveal much about the institutional conditions of higher degree researchers, supervisors, examiners and research training (Baker et al 2009; Evans et al 2003; Dally et al 2004; Paltridge et al 2009; Phillips et al 2009). Given this focus, we might well ask: is the practice-led approach destined to be a part of the higher degree ghetto only, or does it have an afterlife? What is the place of ‘practice-led’ beyond the postgraduate degree? After all postgraduate researchers do not remain postgraduates forever, and perhaps the practice-led approach to research may have benefits in wider university, professional and communal contexts.