Browsing by Subject "Photography"
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Item A matter of relationships(2018-05-02) Steppe, Anika Brady; Collette, AnnaThis report is comprised of three sections that detail the lived experiences and research that have guided my work during my two years studying at The University of Texas at Austin. I make photographs in an attempt to come to terms with my own finiteness. Yet, just as taking a picture does not in fact make it last longer, I continue to find that this endeavor is a futile one. My photographs constellate around the ineffable, toggling between awe and disappointment. Stemming from the desire to draw connections between seemingly disparate experiences, my photographs bring the large and the small onto equal footing.Item Alluring decay, disquieting beauty : Andrew Moore’s Detroit photographs(2012-05) Gansky, Andrew Emil; Hoelscher, Steven D.; Lewis, RandolphAndrew Moore’s series of photographs, Detroit Disassembled (2010), debuted in the United States in the midst of an escalating recession, mortgage and foreclosure crisis, and political fallout from federally-backed bank and automaker bailouts. Due to their subject matter, a number of viewers have interpreted the photographs as apt visualizations of contemporary crises. The photos depict the ruins of a cityscape scarred by decades of deindustrialization, economic decline, and significant outmigration. Shown in galleries, museums, on the Web, and published in a popular photo book, Moore’s images have circulated relatively widely. Viewers have responded to the photos through a variety of media outlets, and their impressions of the images have been melancholic, visceral, distressed, and deeply uncertain. Some viewers have attacked Moore for exploiting and aestheticizing Detroit’s suffering, others have perceived the images as a disturbing commentary on the state of the nation, and many have found the images beautiful, if desolate. The tensions between viewer responses, carrying the inflections of contemporary concerns, provide a valuable snapshot of how Moore’s photographs of Detroit have furnished a flashpoint and modulated a public discourse encompassing a number of interconnected apprehensions about the economy, deindustrialization, the environment, and social responsibility. However, Detroit’s protracted experience of decline and abandonment has made the intersection of aesthetics and urban politics in Moore’s photographs particularly controversial and troubling for some viewers. Because photographs are only partial glimpses of social and spatial phenomena, Moore’s images have proven versatile in their ability to distill and illustrate multifarious viewer concerns.Item AMS :: ATX November 2013 Blog Archive(2013-11) Department of American StudiesAMS :: ATX is a blog dedicated to representing the many activities and interests of the department of American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Together with the department’s Twitter feed, this blog exists to serve the AMS and Austin communities by acting as a hub for up-to-date information on events and opportunities at UT and beyond.Item The Arab street : a photographic exploration(2009-12) Cheney, Clifford Sidney; Darling, Dennis Carlyle; Reed, EllisJournalists use the term Arab Street to describe what they often imply is a volatile Arabic public opinion. This photo story travels through four Arab areas or Jordan, Qatar, Israel/Palestine and Egypt in order to show the diversity and complexity of each. The media’s tendency to lump all Arabs into one political block is detrimental to a true sense of cultural understanding that is required for peace.Item Backcountry: Rural America Standing Still(2020) Behrens, Vivie; Hoelscher, SteveDysart, Pennsylvania can only be reached by traversing a road colloquially named “The Black Snake.” It takes about forty minutes to travel this stretch of highway, flanked on both sides by dense forest, stretches of corn fields, and modest homes and trailers nestled inside the quiet woods. Marked by racial homogeneity, economic disenfranchisement, and geographic isolation, Dysart, PA embodies the term “forgotten America,” a mythical moniker coined by the national media to describe areas populated by poor, disgruntled whites who shouldered President Trump’s election in 2016. My paternal grandparents have lived in Dysart since the 1970s in a house my step-grandfather built as an oasis for hunting, hiking, and seclusion from the frivolities of the urban world. I grew up in Dallas, TX, but I visited Dysart about twice a year for my entire childhood. Here I was taught how to tie fishing flies, shoot a 22-gauge shotgun, drive a four-wheeler, and forage for wild strawberries hidden in the dewy grass. I also learned the code of silence that blankets certain subjects, ranging from the sudden circumstances of my great-uncle’s marriage to a Chinese woman he met via the Internet or the confederate flags displayed on the house down the street. Because I recognize Dysart as an intrinsic part of my memory and ancestral past but not as my home, I have been able to deduce the town’s twin realities, one that celebrates the abundance of its natural surroundings and another burdened by the effects of its paralyzing solitude. The town’s experience of social immobility, poor education, and institutional neglect, coupled by Dysart’s momentously beautiful geography, creates a culture marked by a distinct mixture of rage and deep-seated devotion to community identity and survival.Item Black princess housewives and single ladies : Reneé Cox's housewife enactments and the politics of twenty-first century wealthy black womanhood(2016-05-06) Smith, Jacqueline Monique; Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth; Engelhardt , Elizabeth; Paredez, Deborah; Richardson, Matt; Smith , CheriseThis dissertation explores representations of upper-class black womanhood in Reneé Cox’s The Discreet Charm of the Bougies photography series. It theorizes the significance of Cox’s artwork to contemporary discussions and representations of black womanhood in the dominant visual field by examining the ways that such images are informed by, and in conversation with, historical representations of the black female body. I argue that the photographs serve as visual remnants that document and preserve Cox’s performative enactments as various upper-class black women personae. Cox employs the genre of performance, the medium of her own body, and photographic technology, to interrogate the cultural and discursive imaging of the aestheticized black female body in twenty-first century popular culture. The artist’s performative enactments engage with historic and contemporary conceptualizations of black womanhood in the dominant visual field by exploring the marketability and desirability of the black female body in U.S. society alongside images and discourses in which black female subjects are rendered aberrant and dangerous. The project, then, situates Reneé Cox as an important black woman artist and cultural producer whose persona-performances highlight black women artists’ engagement with, and ongoing contributions to, discussions about black womanhood. Shaped foundationally by black feminist ideology and scholarship about postfeminism, Black Princess Housewives and Single Ladies: Reneé Cox’s Housewife Enactments and the Politics of Twenty-First Century Black Womanhood situates The Discreet Charm of the Bougies photographs as important cultural texts that register black women’s resourceful ways of naming and theorizing their own and other black women’s experiences. This dissertation aims to contribute to, in some small part, black women’s ongoing intellectual, activist, and artistic efforts to prioritize, celebrate, and honor black women’s life experiences and the extraordinary strategies they use to speak their truths.Item Bloomer : a magazine promoting sustainable fashion(2017-05) Peeva, Nevena Boteva; Gorman, Carma"Seasons” in the fashion world have little to do with temperature. Fashion’s increasingly rapid turnover is meant to boost producers’ profits and respond to consumers’ desire for novelty. On the down side, “fast fashion” comes with grave environmental and social costs. Bloomer is a magazine and an online platform that aims to slow down the conversation around fashion, and offer a platform for reflection and appreciation. In a throwaway culture, what does it mean when someone rebels by keeping and cherishing a garment for years? What makes people value some garments more than others? Is it the labor value in its creation, or sentimental value gained through lived experience, or the status value in its brand identity? The aura of a garment is a complex intersection of market forces, cultural ideals, and metaphysical subtleties. Rather than scolding or guilting people into adopting more sustainable wardrobes, Bloomer takes a positive approach to sustainability by featuring glamorous Austinites wearing their own clothes, sharing their stories of sustainable consumption, and promoting local thrift shops and sources of high-quality “slow fashion.” The first issue of Bloomer features a series of photos documenting how a variety of people practice sustainable fashion. Using the visual and written language of advertising and fashion, is it possible to cultivate an appreciation for the garments we already own, and for sustainable wardrobe practices? The goal of Bloomer as a magazine about sustainable fashion is to show pictures and tell stories of people who have unique and meaningful relationships with their clothes, and encourage the rest of us to ask ourselves “What is my relationship with my clothes?”Item The British experience with American independent photography, 1944-1980(2014-05) Jones, Andrew Wyn; Hoelscher, Steven D.; Abzug, Robert H; Lewis, Randolph; Hake, Sabine; Meikle, Jeffrey LThis dissertation explores the ways in which US-based photographic practices shaped British independent photography from the late stages of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1980s. America had become the center of the Western artistic and literary universes by the late 1940s, and the US had led the way in photography from at least the 1930s and arguably from the 1910s. American photographic technology, education, and aesthetics looked enviously advanced to Britons for most of the twentieth century, and those on the photographic vanguard in Britain cultivated relationships with their transatlantic counterparts in the hope of effecting change in British institutions. During the period studied, photographic traffic mostly emanated from the US, accompanying a broader stream of ideas, capital and cultural products that were eagerly consumed by many and resisted in other quarters as the pernicious products of American cultural imperialism. As ideas, images, and technology flowed into Britain from the US, photographic collections and personnel from Britain flowed out. American photographic practice in Britain was promulgated as much by its British recipients as their US counterparts. Influential professionals like magazine editor Bill Jay, Arts Council officer Barry Lane and freelance photographer Tony Ray-Jones sought to stimulate British independent photography by importing American institutional and aesthetic models. This catalytic process had the effect of invigorating photography in Britain which both developed along and ultimately diverged from American models. This work contributes to a larger body of scholarship examining the transnational lineages of artistic and cultural production through analyzing how actors in this flow of information sought to rework and domesticate artistic forms and ideas to suit their own purposes.Item Canine fields(2017-08) Miller, Bucky, 1987-; Williams, Jeff, M.F.A.; Stoney, JohnThis report details, through a series of interconnected anecdotes, my specific understanding of photography. It charts the paths that led me to this point, explains how, in the midst of an interdisciplinary studio art MFA program, I came to understand myself as a landscape photographer, and argues that such a label might actually be somewhat meaningless unless it eschews its traditionally “objective” connotations and embraces the urban landscape as a network of felt experiences.Item Clues to catalogues(2014-08) Brooks, Lily Peacock; Collette, AnnaThis Master's Report is a discussion of the ideas, research, and methods I have developed over the course of my three years of study at the University of Texas at Austin. As an artist I am interested in systems and structures of control--personal, political, economic, and environmental--and our efforts to understand, escape and navigate them. I use photography in an attempt to visually describe what is un-seeable: love, loss, desire, anticipation, fear, and failure. Throughout this time, I have made pictures as a method for exploring varying systems of categorization, cataloguing, and the translation of emotion into images.Item Consumer-driven innovation : a photography case study(2011-08) Crawford, Brad Thomas; Nichols, Steven Parks, 1950-; Darwin, Thomas Jason, 1966-The effects consumer-driven innovation can have on an industry can be difficult to quantify. In this thesis I seek to highlight their existence and underscore their influence by observing the historical impact of numerous innovations on modern technology and society. Using the photography industry as a case study, I will show how successful companies leverage consumers to increase profits and technological development. Companies unable or unwilling to adapt will struggle to maintain profits and become insignificant in the market place. It is also important to consider the enablement of customers by these manufacturers. Advancements in the primary industry as well as supporting industries can lead to variability in market growth and often stimulate societal changes. As consumer innovators progress towards production, it is increasingly important that manufacturers adapt and redefine their market presence. Consumers are a powerful force and represent more than financial capital. My research shows that creative companies can harness consumer energy and find opportunities in the intellectual capital of the crowd.Item Decoy : illusion and intrusion in the act of photography(2011-05) Yanas, Richard Joseph; Goodman, Mark, 1946-; Hubbard, Teresa; Miller, Melissa; Smith, Michael; Perzynski, BogdanThis graduate report is a chronological assessment of the photographic work, which I have produced during my three years in the UT Studio Art MFA program. I will highlight my use of photography as a mode to investigate both the physical and represented landscape. This mode has shifted focus since I first began the program. It has moved from a discourse engaging the fictional qualities of photographs, ever suggesting their tenuous relationship with the truth, to a more direct utilization of the power of a photograph as an actual document. Whatever the subject, my work is deeply rooted in a skepticism of media, structures and institutions. My camera acts as a probe to expose certain incongruities between the ways we view order and how that order is manifested.Item Disembodied garments and The Lost Garment Archive, a deep exploration(2019-05-08) Lowerre, Jessica R.; Mickey, Susan E.This is an artist’s exploration of her materials. Costume Designers artfully combine their knowledge of dress with the bodies of performers in order to generate characters that convey narrative. A costume designer’s medium is clothing, and the human body is the canvas. Just as a painter might deepen their knowledge of their art form by studying the qualities and histories of paints and pigments, I have engaged in an exploration of empty clothing in order to deepen my knowledge of Costume Design. I have explored this topic by studying sites where empty garments are gathered together, by generating and archiving a collection of empty garments, and presenting my work in an installation, The Lost Garment Archive. Observing collections of empty clothing separated from the complexity of the human form offers insight into garment histories. Because garments are intrinsically connected to our bodies, their stories are our stories.Item Dwelling(2019-08-15) Cronin, Matthew Joseph; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-This report outlines the conceptual and formal development of a singular body of work produced during my final year of graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Dwelling, the series from which this report takes its name, is a collection of largescale photographs that reimagines the domestic space through the re-working of preexisting imagery. Throughout the pages that follow, I highlight key elements that make up the conceptual framework that support the visual language of the picturesItem Eko o ni baje (may Lagos be indestructible) : lens-based representations of transformation in Lagos, Nigeria, 1990-2001(2017-05) Gant, Kimberli; Smith, Cherise, 1969-; Chambers, Eddie; Okediji, Moyo; Flaherty, George; Clarke, ChristaThis study investigates lens-based depictions of transformations in Lagos, Nigeria. Using archival research, interviews and close visual analysis I examine photographic and filmic narratives of change and evolution throughout the city in 1990-2002. The decade ending the twentieth century and beginning the twenty-first saw scholars and curators interested in Lagos as part of a growing body of research on the physical and demographic expansion of cities in the “Global South.” Nigerian and non-Nigerian artists during this same period were also focusing on Lagos as a muse for representing the specificities of working class, daily life in African urban centers. My project highlights a singular image or scene by three such artists, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Otobong Nkanga, and Rem Koolhaas, who each created a lens-based series of images about Lagos’ continual transition. I argue that Akinbiyi’s Untitled [Woman in a striped dress walking across the sidewalk] (1995), Nkanga’s Tollgate to Ibadan #10 (2001), and Koolhaas’ Lagos/Koolhaas (2001) show Lagos as in a state of constant flux, depicting older spiritual practices adapted for a contemporary setting, citizens modifying the landscape for economic uplift, and historical architecture as physical markers of previous colonial shifts.Item Embracing the (un) desired : disability, environment, and citizenship in Laura Aguilar’s photographs(2021-05-11) Salcido, Karina Alejandra; Flaherty, George F., 1978-This thesis focuses on Chicana photographer Laura Aguilar and the role disability had on her artistic practice. My analysis of Aguilar’s work focuses on several images from Aguilar’s Nature Self-Portrait (1996-2007) and Grounded (1996-2007) series, and three photographs titled Three Eagles Flying (1993), Access + Opportunity= Success (1993), and Will Work For #4 (1993). I approach these images through a disability studies framework of the body-mind to emphasize the influence of Aguilar’s non-normative identity on her photography. Throughout my analysis, I find that her devalued position as a disabled, poor, queer Chicana is a source of knowledge for her visualizations of exclusion and discrimination of minorities. I expand on conversations surrounding her nude self-portraits in nature by discussing the ontological relationship between Aguilar and the American Southwest deserts and the care work she established. My thesis is based on disability and is structured by the diverse manifestations of Aguilar’s exploration of her non-normative body-mindItem Emmad Mazhari Interview(2022-06-16) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Emmad Mazhari, a software designer and photographer living in Houston, TX. Emmad talks about his childhood in Pakistan and his move and adjustment to the United States. He talks about his relationships to the places he has lived as well as his relationship to his Pakistani Muslim culture. Emmad describes the artistic projects he is planning and working on and shares some of his artistic inspirations.Item Finding myselfie : reflections on a changing visual language(2016-05) Keapproth, Lukas Kiel; DeCesare, Donna; Todd, RussellA search for the hashtag “selfies” on Instagram brings up over 16 million images uploaded in the last 24 hours. These millions of faces come in all shapes and sizes from all over the world. Each assumes that selfies are a universal visual language enabling direct communication with friends, family and an anonymous sea of internet users. Many social network users post their images to mark personal milestones or while traveling to some of earth’s most beautiful landmarks. What causes these selfie-takers to turn from the fascinating world around them, instead drawn toward a mirror and a focus on themselves? The general conversation of analyzing selfies tends toward polarized views, with many, if not most, viewing selfie-taking as a shallow exercise and a sign of narcissism. What is lacking in such conversations is a more complex understanding of how selfies are used and why they continue to impact daily communications in our increasingly networked world. This report features photos and interviews with selfie-takers at some of the busiest tourist destinations in the world, documenting their behavior and personal reflections on what selfies mean. These are considered along with media articles and some of the latest research from a variety of academic fields to complicate our understanding of this new and rapidly growing social phenomenon and mode of communication.Item Fondo Real de Cholula digitization equipment & software guide(2018-06-13) Bliss, DavidThis document details the equipment and software used in the Fondo Real de Cholula digitization project, launched in 2018 in Puebla, Mexico. It introduces some key photography concepts and provides step-by-step instructions for configuring the project camera and Adobe Lightroom software.Item Fondo Real de Cholula digitization workflow guide(2018-06-13) Bliss, DavidThis document details the digitization workflow for the Fondo Real de Cholula digitization project, launched in 2018 in Puebla, Mexico. It provides step-by-step instructions for daily setup and photography using a tripod-mounted DSLR camera tethered to a computer running Adobe Lightroom photography software.
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