Browsing by Author "Daehnke, Nadja"

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    Chaos and context : speculations about the prominence of participatory art since the mid 1990s
    (2009) Daehnke, Nadja; Godby, Michael
    In his essay The Poetics of the Open Work, Umberto Eco suggests that 'open work' of the 1960s, which stressed audience involvement, contingency and an anti-institutional stance, is an expression of a Quantum paradigm. Here, the irrationality and lack of order of Quantum Theory is seen as paralleled in artistic expression. Since the mid 1990s, participatory art has gained prominence, both in terms of current art production and retrospectives of Dadaist and 1960s 'open work'. Using Eco's essay as a model, this could be seen as a result of the progression of a Quantum Theory worldview to a view that is understood in terms of Chaos Theory. The patterns that mathematical models such as natural numbers, Calculus, Statistical Mathematics and Quantum Theory propose have parallels in social and artistic expression. In an extension of this, Chaos Theory is the latest mathematical model that social and artistic trends express. This is suggested by the mirroring of Chaos patterns in current social phenomena such as the Internet and experience economy. The similarity in approach between social phenomena and participatory art suggests that they answer the same social/audience demands. My primary contention is that the environment in which audiences and artists currently operate is such that demands and expectations raised by Chaos Theory are answered by participatory art, just as they are answered by wider social trends. The primary Chaos patterns that can be observed are interconnection, phase change and feedback. This is not a matter of a linear influence of cause and effect. It is not that Chaos inspires certain characteristics which are then expressed in various social phenomena. Rather, encountering Chaos characteristics in daily life raises expectations that these characteristics will be encountered elsewhere. We are thus not speaking of a causative relation between Chaos theory and social phenomena. Rather, there is a complex pattern of escalation which encourages interaction, feedback and phase change in a dynamic, chiasmic system which itself can best be analysed as another Chaos phenomenon.
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    Unfinished man : questioning difference through the pictorial recontextualisation of socio-medical documents
    (1999) Daehnke, Nadja; Payne, Malcolm
    In this dissertation and series of paintings I wish to focus attention on the interconnection between knowledge and power. This is commented on in relation to socio-medical disciplines. The argument proposes that knowledge is a product of vested interests and should thus not be regarded as transcendent of the context in which it is used. This study examines attempts to naturalize race, class and gender through scrutiny and analyses of the human body. Section One considers specific historical cases which illustrate the use of knowledge as a disciplinary force. Surveillance, classification, objectification and an understanding of science as neutral are identified as central to the construction of difference. These themes are investigated with regard to: Lavater's physiognomy, Charcot's understanding of hysteria, the influence of photography on nineteenth century science, eugenics, degenerationism and racial definitions in South African law from 1948 to 1994. This section draws on scholarship and research published predominantly in the areas of sociology, medical history, anthropology and ethnology. Section One is intended as a parallel text to the series of paintings produced. Section Two offers a personal interpretation of some trends, methods and materials used throughout the series of paintings. The paintings comment on the themes of classification, objectification and discrimination mentioned in Section One. The series also reflects on the mutability of knowledge and the continuing relevance of past doctrines. Primary strategies employed in the paintings are decontextualization and recontextualization of pre-existent texts, an emphasis on aesthetics and attempts to involve the viewer in the acts of looking and interpretation. Section Three consists of reproductions of the twenty paintings made for a Masters of Fine Art degree. Sources and processes used in the paintings are listed.