MIRIAD Postgraduate Research

The Artworks is an Independent Art School in Halifax, bringing traditional Arts and Crafts teaching to Calderdale. My research involves conducting an ethnographic study that focuses largely on people’s involvement with The Artworks to investigate the impact and effect it has on their lives and personal development. Through conducting a series of case studies with several of the participants and tutors I hope to see how The Artworks and the people involved would change over time, how people develop through their interactions with The Artworks and determine what the actual benefits are of an art school ‘for all ages’ that uses a predominantly andragogical approach.

My research aims to describe the thinking of the English section of the Situationist International as a positive historical tendency responsive to the conditions and the currents of British culture and society around '1968,' the year normally regarded as symbolic of revolutionary struggle in Western Europe and North America. In the sense that the ideas informing the writing of the English Section around '1968' can be conceptualized as a project, the substantive part of research is devoted to discussing how this project intersects with other radical avant gardist and political tendencies associated with this key moment in post war political and cultural history, and in certain instances goes beyond it. Using existing and newly found material and documentation, the study systematically and thematically tests the political possibilities of English Situationist thought as a critical resource to empower prevailing critiques of modern British culture since '1968.'

My project will discuss the 70s Italian Holocaust film cycle in a bid to understand the sub-genre’s mode of expression and frequent categorization as exploitation. I will refer primarily to the two titles most problematically labelled as such; The Night Porter (Cavani, 1974), and The Gestapo’s Last Orgy (Canevari, 1977). In my analysis, I will first contemplate the influence of the “Years of Lead” (late 1960s to early 80s - a period of prolific left and right-wing terrorist activity in Italy) on the films, before looking at how sexuality, “camp” sensibility, and the Holocaust are represented.

Bioclimatic design maintains a critical role in the development of a sustainable and environmentally responsible society. Impacting on strategic and tactical decisions on macro, meso and micro scales, generating building form and orientation with respect to climate; interpreting place in contrast with and support of, a demanding interior. Thus facilitating a synergistic ecosystem of micro niches whilst sustaining a sound environmental mandate.

The current environmental debate has delivered many works suggesting the way forward for a sustainable future, however the process of biomimetic interaction with the architectural environment has been neglected as a propositional architectural polemic. The success of biomimetic applications in related disciplines and my initial research indicates that ecological architecture should no longer remain as an ideology, an aesthetic or maintain an exclusive preoccupation with energy transfer; its future lies in biomimetic (process-based) research. This research seeks to follow a biomimetic lead, proposing a thesis for a new natural architecture, based on biomimetic processes, phenotypic and genotypic responses and how synergistically they relate to and interpret place.

Cross-disciplinary research provides a unique synthesis of both arts and science capabilities in order to facilitate technology and design transfer. It is intended to continue to review the processes involved in environmental biomimetic function, perform a comparative architectural analysis of process based design and environmental adaptation and from the data gathered design, test and produce biomimetic architectural solutions.

Exploring the relationship between biomimicry and ecological architecture it is intended to produce in addition to a thesis, a matrix of possible architectural solutions based on process and climate, subsequently tested through the appropriate methodology of research by design. A system for the bioclimatic analysis of process-based design, adaptable to local conditions It is expected that this would discover potential challenges and opportunities for bioclimatic architecture both philosophically and practically; as a design generator in both education and architectural practice.

Whilst South Korean and Chinese culture is expanding on a global scale, the presence of these diasporas in the UK is creating new and stimulating opportunities and experiences for the British art scene. My research focuses on how art works made by Korean and Chinese artists transmogrify within the circumstances of a different national space and what these stylistic and practical changes may indicate about the socio-political environments of the countries in question, countries whose relationships are often neatly explained within analyses of their cultural similarities and differences. Issues arising include: perceptions of colonialism, the place of the woman as artisan, the representation of the female form, the use of faux dinosaurs to question authenticity and the placement of traditionalism within contemporary art.

PhD awarded 2010

Mapping and performances of embodied mobility such as walking are related artistic techniques, historically recurring in conjunction in different post-war 20th century avant-gardes and movements. The use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology by artists over the last decade, much of which has been grouped together under the genre category ‘locative arts’, is a recent manifestation of this pairing.

Through case studies and interviews with leading practioners, my research seeks to contextualise this conjunction of mapping and mobility, both in terms of historical recurrences/precedents and in terms of theoretical frameworks appropriate for considering the relationship between spatial practices and performances of embodied mobility, on the one hand, and representations of space, on the other. Recently emerging non-representational cartographic theories which emphasise processes of mapping, as opposed to artefactual maps, have the potential to provide insight into the ways these techniques work together: this research explores that potential.

In the last 20 years, the Cartesian dualities inherent in the prevailing view of landscape as a ‘blank screen’ onto which cultural meanings are projected have been brought into question.

Contemporary theories enlace self and landscape as ‘socially produced space’ (Tilley 1994), where a ‘dwelling perspective’ (Ingold 2000) roots landscape in ‘everyday, embodied dwelling’ (Wylie 2007). Through a cross-fertilisation of theory and practice, this project endeavours to expand critical space within both moving image practice and phenomenological theory as they pertain to landscape. What does this conceptual shift from ‘landscape as image’ to ‘practices of landscape’ imply for visual representations of landscape, and how might ‘visualist’ landscape discourses and the ‘dwelling perspective’ interact to capture these ideas?

The role of cycling as a mode of transport in the contemporary city: can developments in spatial design effectively integrate the cyclist with the city, improving the functionality and coexistence of the bicycle with other transport systems? The research will identify the determinants of the frequency and popularity of cycling as a mode of urban transport. Data will be examined which classifies urban cyclists’ experience and perspectives. Other data will be collected to locate those factors which have led to the emergence of bike friendly policies in transport design. The eventual aim will be to contribute to a theory of urban life where concepts such as sustainability, aesthetics, and human scale are central.

My research in landscape architecture uses interdisciplinary text and practices to discover the role of representations, how they work, their methods, and ultimately how to build and promote sustainable future spaces for living.

This research highlights drawing as a communicative tool to represent complex engineering and scientific technologies. I am interested in the collaborative potential of these few but interesting examples:
correctional action for the bio-sphere - for drawing, spaces & Environments to become & address.

My work sets out to critically investigate the career and international significance of the architectural oeuvre of Jack Coia, of the Glaswegian firm of architects, Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. My research acknowledges the celebrated later work of the practice but seeks to develop a greater understanding and appreciation of the architectural merit and significance of an earlier tranche – from the 1930s to the 1950s, specifically of Coia’s Roman Catholic Churches, for which the firm is renowned, and to set it against a context of a liturgy in flux – the period leading up to the Second Vatican Council; and against the various international developments in modern ecclesiastical architecture in the twentieth century.

The architecture of Jack Coia is of particular interest, given his Italian background, and my research scrutinises the potential effect of this in addition to the potential influence on his work of his major client – the Roman Catholic Church, with whom Coia developed an enduring relationship. It will also investigate the rapport that Coia maintained with his artist friends and architectural students who may have formed the basis of the practice’s famed ‘atelier’ philosophy.

The importance of gardeners and gardening in Manchester from the beginnings of its rapid expansion to the point at which most of the middle-classes had moved out to the suburbs (1790-1850) has not been determined. During these years, migrants came from all parts of the UK and from Europe creating different communities, each with its own traditions and leisure activities. Concurrently there was increasing horticultural interest amongst the less wealthy. The research will identify the serious amateur gardeners; the communities to which they belonged; how communities and gardeners impacted upon each other (if at all).

My study aims to develop a Model for profiling, cities focusing on the development of the cultural industries evidenced through written thesis and communication media. In particular, the outputs of the research will include a CD. A multi media based interactive CD ROM will be produced and will be used as an information tool for each city aiming at pushing forward the profile of the examined selected cities which they can use for their promotion at local, regional, national and international level. This study will contribute to the wider development of the cultural industries and
cultural policies framework.

The study will explore how individuals and groups have engaged and use African wax prints as reflected in the experiences and collective memory of diaspora West African people here in the UK.

How Africans migrants re-invent and recollect aspect of African culture, adapt to accommodate both their African ancestral heritage and mainstream cultures could have implications for understanding about the uniqueness of the fabrics to gather evidence that explains and interprets wax prints, its implications for display and use in public collections.

This has the potential to broaden our understanding and knowledge base on dual culture and could have implications for understanding African migrant self-identity; ethnicity, style orientation and acculturation in the UK.

In November 2004, at the 1st International Conference on Authorship Rights of Cinematographers, a signed declaration called for the universal recognition of cinematographers as co-authors of cinematographic and audio-visual works. I have been working as a freelance Director of Photography for twenty years, shooting over fifty projects, which have picked up sixteen international 'best film' awards, including two BAFTAs. This, together with my initial research, supports the view that the cinematographers’ role is a creative, as well as a technical, one. Chosen for a case study are; Gregg Toland, who had been experimenting with deep focus , long takes, and staging in depth, long before "Citizen Kane" (Orson Welles, 1941), and Vittorio Storaro, who has been working as a cameraman for almost 50 years. His films demonstrate a narrative of exploration within the field of cinematography, for example, with his treatment of colour, in films like "One From the Heart" (Francis Ford Coppola, 1982), and "The Last Emperor" (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987).

This project investigates obsolete technologies and explicitly useless industrial objects and their re-framing in the domestic space as ornamentation. With a practice-as-research approach, I will be using photography and moving image to look at the display and arrangement of objects in the home; to consider how such objects contribute to the production of gendered space.

The thesis is concerned with the print media representation of the Palestine Israel conflict after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. I have chosen the first period of the "peace process", 1993 1998, to look at. During this time numerous significant events took place that received considerable media attention. As well as the signing of the Accords, various terrorist attacks from both sides of the conflict and the Rabin assassination in November 1995 are looked at in great detail. I have chosen a case studies approach throughout most of my chapters.

PhD awarded 2007

Research into Manchester City Galleries’ collection of Empire Marketing Board posters is being undertaken in order to develop a contemporary understanding of the collection. The research focuses on issues of representation and will examine the competing ideologies that shape our understandings of these posters today. Particular emphasis will be placed on how objects within a museological collection develop their own historical narratives beyond those of their production and original use. The research aims to highlight potential issues of conflict and resonance that arise in these narratives and show how these can be addressed in their future use by the Gallery.

PhD awarded 2010

The primary purpose is to demonstrate the different institutional context of work of Damien Hirst and Ju-Ming by examining of the representative contemporary British and Taiwanese sculptors. This research is to investigate prevalent galleries and museums; a major driver for making the analysis is to discover a creative, typical, and a self-sufficient environment for the artist to shape evidences into an international reputation. In particular this research emphasizes on investigating the relationships among sculpture forms, cultural settings and the governments’ attentions and to account for these similarities and differences between two models.

Considering the questions posed within several sectors of contemporary society, my intention is to analyse the compositional methods of contemporary architecture, and through them present a new methodological strategy for action. Secondly my intention is to understand the interaction between built space, the natural and the human and through this interaction to propose a re-learning of the process of architectural design.

This study will be based in areas with samples of both traditional settlement and contemporary architectonic intervention. Within this context, analysis and comparison of the solutions will be used to propose an instrumental relearning which will give a leading role to the inaugural creative act.

Considering the existing matrix in contemporary architecture at an international level, the study and proposal of new epistemologic orders in architecture will be used to determine the role of individual action and the architect’s limits and constraints.

My research project primarily focuses on the role of ecology in affecting the perception of place and the corresponding conceptual relationship with notional values such as emotional well-being and attachment. The application of ecology within architecture and urbanity is environmentally beneficial in terms of contributing to energy efficiency and low carbon emission measures, but can also significantly improve the liveability of local environments and lower the stress levels of its inhabitants. Accordingly, I appraise how green spaces/features can be more effectively applied, be creatively implemented and ultimately result in more ecologically balanced designed outcomes.

Using ethnographic research and textual analysis this project will explore adolescent spectatorship and female identities through an examination of the pleasures of the popular High School sub-genre. The project aims to explore the genre as an example of post-classical cinema and examine the impact of new technologies on the position and pleasures of the young female spectator, situated within the specific viewing context of contemporary adolescence.

My PhD thesis approaches the field of cinematic representations of the American past in the historical films of New Hollywood between 1967 - 1974. In particular, looking at the films Bonnie and Clyde (1967), M*A*S*H, Little Big Man (both 1970), The Godfather (1972), American Graffiti (1973), Blazing Saddles and Chinatown (both 1974), and how Hollywood as a mass experiential site and technology of memory serves as a mode of historical knowledge. That is, Hollywood as a form of prosthetic memory that engenders a memory of a past event through which the viewer did not directly experience and the impact this has on notions of subjectivity, national identity and the interaction to and understanding of the past.

PhD awarded 2007

The early abstract filmmaker Walther Ruttmann predicted that a “new, hitherto latent type of artist would emerge, approximately half-way between painting and music.” The Augmented Tonoscope is an instrument inspired by this foresight – a contemporary version of the sound visualisation device first built and coined the ʻtonoscopeʼ by Cymatics researcher Dr Hans Jenny in the 1960s.

The physical device will be a minimalist ʻobjet dʼartʼ. Its analogue output will be captured and analysed and then projected and superimposed with meta levels of informational data, interpretative content and artistic representation derived from a secondary but integrated virtual system - an emulated tonoscope. In combination they will create an augmented device where real and virtual outputs interplay and are artistically analysed and treated.

This practice-led research project - motivated by an interest in the convergence of art and science and a fascination with the relationships between visual and acoustic phenomena - will address the question: How far can artistic investigation into modal wave phenomena – also known as Cymatics - develop a deeper understanding of the physical nature and elemental properties of sound?

The research project will focus on influences between the United Kingdom and Hungary in the field of urban design, at the beginning of the twentieth century. A significant individual who integrated landscape architecture into urban planning was Thomas Mawson, whose effect on urban design, landscape architecture and city planning is undeniable both in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The Hungarian architect, Béla Rerrich, the first teacher of garden design at the Royal Horticultural School of Hungary, constitutes a pivotal figure in the then-developing Hungarian urban design theory. After his architectural studies, he went on to undertake a study tour in England, where he worked for Thomas Mawson. The research will seek to answer the questions how the two professionals' collaboration inspired and influenced the Hungarian theory through the latter's professional works and theoretical writings.

In Architecture, the idea of permanence is associated with protection. In this sense we speak about structure, about order. But it is also associated with changeable and evolving values: values of style or communication. (1) Aspects of the durability of surfaces or structure, the permanence of architecture over time, is revealed by the firmness and utility. (2)
Over the centuries architects have addressed the dilemma between the use of new technologies and the articulation to the phenomena of historical buildings, in other words the choice between Conservation or Development? Implicitly, sustainable development should include a phenomenological analysis of the constructed environment and urban space.

This practice-led PhD will approach analogical photographic practice as an event, and it will examine the possibility that writing, as a practice, can reveal the event of the photograph.

The research will consider the possibility of an intersection between elements of representational theories of photography and that understanding it as an event, trying to reveal the connections between them, and anthropological theories that point to the sociality of photography, in its practices and material forms.

The human reception of architecture is interpreted through the human body. The form of the human body has therefore been used as a model and metaphor for architecture since antiquity.

The research will be based on the relation of human body and architectural structures; especially how the human body has been the inspiration for the exterior shape of several architectural human colossi and how it was used as a building itself.

The basic research question that the researcher will attempt to answer and explore is: How is architectural meaning communicated through the metaphor and imitation of the human body?

Despite the fact that nation branding and architecture are increasingly being used in the same context, the relationship between them remains ambiguous. Moreover, the formulation of a sustainable identity and architecture of national branding are yet to be completely comprehended. Thus, this study seeks to help fill this gap by developing a model that explains the impact of architectural identity on nation branding, particularly for the case study of Kurdistan by which a sustained and commutative identity of nation can be achieved.

British Chinese artists are resident in Britain and therefore influenced by issues of culture, language and arts practice from both Chinese and British cultures. The defining of spiritual and natural world issues in relation to their art practice is therefore complex. My literary review and interviews with Chinese Artists based in Britain reveal new perspectives contributing a fresh approach to the issues of contemporary Chinese Art production and it's location in the British art world. My thesis investigates the engagement of British based Chinese Artists with the natural world and spirituality thus unearthing these connections and demonstrating these further through my own art practice as a woman of Chinese ethnicity.

PhD awarded 2010

In recent years, Fine Art practice has become assimilated into the framework and culture of academic research. This move has not been an easy process and practice itself still hovers uneasily, (as it should), around the edges of acceptability as research per se. Debates continue around the wording of descriptors to qualify this type research: ‘practice-based’, ‘practice-led’, ‘contextualised practice’. Practice, within this search for sufficient terms to define it and contain it within a research culture with strictly defined parameters, becomes a secondary endeavour.
My thesis questions whether the work of the artist is primary in terms of research, in the sense not only of the production of objects, or events in time, but also taking into account the processes through which the artwork is conceived, processes of thinking and intuition which often remain beyond description.
The role of creative practice in research has the potential, through questioning different types of ‘knowledge’, .to include experiential knowledge within research.
My text, somewhere between artwork and academic text is one of fragmentation and disassembling, reflecting the ‘attempt’ or ‘essay’, which ultimately remains more concerned with the openness of process than any definitive answer.

PhD awarded 2007

This thesis undertakes a more in depth re-examination of a specific area of mass produced illustrative design, so as to review some of the conclusions drawn by the existing academic literature. It employs a survey of approximately 720 titles, to which a grounded theory approach is applied. The survey process is further contextualized by drawing upon the discourses within the chosen period that relate to the animal as subject. Case studies which focus upon specific texts are also developed. These are particularly concerned to examine the situation of the animal as juvenile subject-matter within the survey material.

PhD awarded 2010

Visual images have been increasingly adopted to reduce people’s stress and improve relaxation. This research project intends to study what kind of images may have a relaxing effect on people and to improve their well-being.
The relaxing effect in the quality of a visual image has been researched holistically. Mixed methods have been used. Subjects include healthy adults and patients in hospitals.

The total participants in my research tests are over 100 adults and the total numbers of tests are around 200 sessions. The positive feedback from all participants is approximately 80%. The result of this research not only cultivates a new therapeutic path for well-being, but also opens up a variety of dimensions related to visual imagery and health for further researchers.

Establish how influences from the Polish poster school manifested themselves in the work of the French design collective Grapus, and the French socio-cultural poster, in relation to creative output, both practically and theoretically. Also to ascertain how this occurred within a different political and economic social system, through analysis of the circulation of the work of Grapus, employing a social semiotic investigation with which to read the physical and material context. To identify their specific act of circulation and what this has meant for the visual landscape of the French urban centre. Finally to connect these outcomes to the establishment and continuing successes of the international poster events conceived and based in France; Chaumont, Echirolles, and Founteray Sous Bois.