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Item "100 papers": an anthology of flash fiction and prose poetry with a theoretical postscript(2008-05-30T07:24:40Z) Jobson, Liesl Karen[NO ABSTRACT PRESENT]Item 3D animation as a medium of cultural representation and education : a case study of Magic Cellar part 1.(2011-05-03) Kangong, Roland N.Post-apartheid South African children are exposed to modern technological entertainment – television, cell phones, video games, TV animations and many other forms of popular art and media. This research report analyzes how well Magic Cellar (hereafter referred to as MC) both represents cultural diversity to a mixed audience of South African children from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, and educates them more generally. A historical perspective on animation is provided, including animation in South Africa, as well as the technical processes of animation, and how these apply to MC. In so doing, answers to two main questions are sought: can 3D animation be used as an alternative or support to the school classroom in educating children through popular media forms? To what extent can 3D digital art technology in the form of animation be used in representing cultural diversity to children of different cultural backgrounds? Drawing on theoretical concepts, as well as comparing MC to successful programming for children that uses animation to educate, this research report argues that 3D animation, a medium that “seems to attract learners’ attention and increase their motivation to learn”(Khairezan 2), can be used to represent cultural diversity and to educate children.Item A Musical History Through Vocal Expressions at the Abbey Cindi Cosmology Concert(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Moshugi, KgomotsoThis paper reports on a research project that culminated in a concert honoring South African musician and activist Bra Abbey Cindi. The project involved reissuing Cindi’s album, forming a band of young musicians to perform his music, and creating a vocal group called No Limits to reinterpret Cindi’s earlier South African choral works. The paper proposes the use of music to explore the past, present, and future, linking generations and addressing social issues. It discusses specific compositions, their lyrical and musical merits, and the process of arranging them for vocal performance. The paper also highlights the role of community engagement and the value of reimagining historical musical works.Item A Return to Practices and Pedagogies: Artistic Research as Untethering and Foraging(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Barry, Hedwig; Andrew, DavidThis paper reflects on the intertwining of artistic research and pedagogies within the context of a collaborative project conducted at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The authors explore the concepts of proximities, grids and flows, confrontations, and time as entry points into the space of artistic research. They emphasize the importance of untethering and foraging, challenging established boundaries and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for creative growth. The paper also highlights the significance of proximities and the relational aspect of artistic research, inviting a communal and interdisciplinary approach. The authors reflect on their experiences during the pandemic and the evolving nature of teaching and learning in relation to time.Item About memory in fashion: a study of the work of Clive Rundle(2012-08-14) De Greef, EricaIn this research project I propose to investigate the notion of memory and its trace in the work of fashion designer Clive Rundle (b. 1959). This positioning of the work in the context of memory offers an approach to the reading of the fashion processes and products; one of various research options that could be used to analyse the creative approach, the fashioned objects and the complex displays of Clive Rundle’s fashion within the broader creative and social context of a post-‐Apartheid South Africa. The inquiry for this research is concerned with the palimpsest, as witness to the past in the form of traces, memories and histories. The evidence or renegotiation of the past in the present in fashion, which I will reference in this research is what Walter Benjamin identified as the ‘tigersprung’, and which is surfacing in the construction of new contemporary fashion narratives of a number of contemporary South African fashion designers, who together with other visual artists are currently exploring notions of memory and history as catalysts for remembrance, social commentary and healing. By exploring the role of memory and its trace in Clive Rundle’s work, I hope to investigate the layers in the palimpsest that informs the work. In this research I aim to explore how Rundle’s work could offer an opportunity to investigate whether notions of loss and mourning can be expressed through fashion, how the past resurfaces in fashion, andthis can help locate a current understanding of transformation in a post-‐modern South Africa. whetherItem Addressing Artistic Research at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius: Challenges for a Small Island Developing State in Africa(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Ramduth, HansCan small island contexts, through the extreme simplification of more complex processes that occur on the continents (e.g., ecocide), provide unique insights into binaries such as artist versus researcher, fiction versus non-fiction, and art-making versus writing?Item 'African discourses' : the old and the new in post-apartheid isiZulu literature and South African black television dramas(2009-02-02T11:38:06Z) Mhlambi, Innocentia JabulisileABSTARCT This thesis sets out to explore the problematic perceptions regarding African indigenous language literature. The general view regarding this literature is that it is immature, irrelevant school-market driven and shows no artistic complexities and ingenuity.1 These disparaging remarks resonated persistently after the first democratic elections in 1994. Both local and international critics expected marked shifts in post-apartheid isiZulu literary productions because factors that hampered its development have been removed. The dominant Western and postcolonial critical approaches from which these critics articulated their views, operated on assumptions that failed to look at the role and centrality of the broader concerns usually covered by this literature. Barber (1994: 3) points out that these Western and postcolonial critical approaches, block a properly historical localized understanding of any scene of colonial and postindependence literary production in Africa. Instead it selects and overemphasized one sliver of literary and cultural production…and this is experience’. Furthermore it is the contention of this thesis that these critics used critical tools that are fundamentally mismatched for the types of narratives with which isiZulu literature and African-language literatures in general are engaged. It is the view of the author of this thesis that if a new set of critical tools are used, a paradigm shift may result which allows for revisiting creative conceptualisations involved in the production of these literatures. The primary aim of this thesis is to read post-apartheid isiZulu novels and the black television dramas using theoretical tenets postulated by Karin Barber. Barber’s research on African everyday culture is the key epistemological and cosmological framework with which to study post-apartheid literary and film productions that narrate the everyday life experiences of ordinary South Africans. The basic assumption is that orality which is the maximal point of reference for 1 See Mpahlele, 1992; Kunene, D. P. 1992 and 1994; Kunene, M. 1976 and 1991; and Chapman, 1996 any African work of imagination continues to thrive in black everyday popular culture as manifest in both print and broadcast media. The first part of this thesis deals with the use of oral genres in print media. Six novels are selected to explore the uses of proverbs, folktale motifs and naming as strategies for reading post-apartheid contemporary South African society. The thesis proceeds from an analysis of what these oral forms aim to achieve in the post-apartheid context. It is argued that through these oral verbal art forms the narratives transpose the traditional episteme and re-inscribe it for modern contemporary African society, where traditional morality is made to continue to shape and animate contemporary morality. The second section deals with the implications of some of these traditional epistemologies in broadcast media texts. Four post-apartheid black television dramas are selected. With Ifa LakwaMthethwa and Hlala Kwabafileyo, the thesis, demonstrates how these films position the middle-class as a solution to post-apartheid leadership challenges. The discussion of Gaz’ Lam and Yizo Yizo demonstrates the nature of orality, where oral texts are seen to be endlessly recycling similar themes in different media forms. The emphasis is on how renditions of texts always bring in new elements and topical issues, fresh and precise photographic capturing of key moments in society. In view of the nature of Barber’s theoretical model and that of isiZulu fiction and film, this thesis argues that it is the most appropriate to use for the analysis of Africanlanguages literatures. Barber’s theoretical model has intertextual links with the Black Film theoretical traditions in the Diaspora and the Third Cinema in Africa. These black film traditions, like Barber’s model, centralise the black experience, everyday culture and orality as the basic reference for African work of imagination and aesthetics.Item African Spiritual Healing in Drama Therapy: An Exploration of Movement and Sound as a means of Facilitating Healing(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Siko, ZaneleCan African spirituality in African dance be used as a means of facilitating the healing of women’s trauma? This performance explores the possibilities of fusing Credo Mtwa’s notion of African spirituality with the ritualistic elements of the Senegalese Ndeup dance healing method. The notion of embodiment of trauma is the entry point into this consideration of the embodiment of African dance as a healing tool.Item Applied Improvisation in Africa: Facilitating Embodiment Work in Online Rooms(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Apotieri-Abdulai, Oluwadamilola; Janse Van Vuuren, PetroAn important aspect of Applied Improvisation is using and perceiving the body and those of others in the room. Can adaptations be made to enable embodied work online without jeopardising impact? In this workshop, we present different improvisation methods that can be used in online settings.Item Archiving as Artistic Practice(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Batzofin, JayneThis paper looks at the development of an online showcase repository for the ReTAGS (Reimagining Tragedy from Africa and the Global South) practice-as-research artistic productions, Antigone (not quite/quiet) and iKrele leChiza, and the methodology behind documenting and digitally archiving their processes. The paper reflects on the author’s involvement as the digital archivist for the ReTAGS research and the choices made and implemented on the online showcase repository. It considers the strengths and challenges of these archival choices and explores the possibilities of understanding the archive as a means of artistic engagement in its own right.Item Art in Action Research (AIAR): Integrating Tacit Knowledge Into Research(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Lammli, DominiqueThis paper introduces the concept of Art in Action Research (AiAR) as an alternative paradigm for art practitioners working in sociocultural settings. AiAR aims to accommodate diverse notions of art, theories, and knowledge bases, integrating tacit knowledge into research frameworks. The paradigm is grounded in the issues emerging from the work environment, focusing on real-life challenges to co-create a liveable future. The paper addresses the need for methodological guides in researching art practitioner perspectives and discusses the concepts of knowledge and tacit knowledge. It explores the problem of non-groundedness in art practitioner research and highlights the global turn and the need for retooling disciplinary perspectives. In sum, the paper argues that AiAR provides an alternative paradigm for methodology crafting that considers the global turn and acknowledges diverse notions of art and knowledge bases.Item Articulating a Movement Pedagogy in Retrograde: Mapping an Embodied Research Process(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Johnstone, KristinaThis paper discusses an artistic research project that challenges representationalism in South African contemporary dance. The author argues against the use of discursive methodologies that reinforce colonial scripts and instead proposes an alternative approach based on embodied practices. The paper explores the concept of choreography as embodied research and its potential to align with a decolonial praxis. The research project involves tracing embodied practices and creating a digital cartography to capture and explore these practices. The author also discusses the emergence of a movement pedagogy that unfolds in retrograde and disrupts conventional understandings of time and pedagogical continuity.Item Artistic Research and African Musical Performance: Listening Beyond Euro-American Canons(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Pyper, BrettAre certain forms of African music-making inherently advantaged or disadvantaged through engagement with artistic research? How does the quest to advance decoloniality factor into such efforts? What does such belated recognition mean for African musics and more general African arts practice outside academia?Item Artistic Research and the City Space: New Orientations and Collaborations(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Winter, StefanThis paper explores the evolving relationship between artistic research, architecture, and urban design in the context of shifting paradigms in the understanding of architecture and urban development. It highlights the transition from top-down planning to inclusive bottom-up processes and emphasises the importance of perceiving the city as a habitat rather than just a built environment. The historical precedents of artistic avantgarde movements, such as dérive and psychogeography, are examined, and their limitations in the contemporary context are discussed. The potential of artistic research to contribute to sustainability in ecological, economic, and societal dimensions is explored through various examples. Overall, the paper argues for the transformative power of artistic research in shaping future city spaces.Item Artistic Research and the Institution: A Cautionary Tale(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Fleishman, MarkWhat impact do the specific institutional contexts in which we produce research have on the artwork? What would an ethical approach to the work of art-making entail with reference to these institutional pressures/distortions?Item Artistic Research as African Epistemology(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Stolp, MareliCan artistic research be understood as an African epistemology? Through a mapping of the field of African epistemology together with the key notions of artistic research, this paper argues for the decolonising potential of artistic research in Africa.Item Artistic research in Africa with Specific Reference to South Africa and Zimbabwe: Formulating the Theory of Afroscenology(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Ravengai, SamuelHow can artistic research offer the opportunity to create knowledge based on African practice and produced from the African context? This presentation will delineate seven approaches to artistic research and argue for decolonial imperatives.Item Artistic Research in Music as Doctoral Study: Challenges and Opportunities for Universities in South Africa(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Sandmeier, RebekkaWhat are the opportunities and challenges of doctoral studies in South Africa, in music, through artistic research? What are the definitions of research— specifically artistic research—in the existing educational policies, and how can research and creative practice become one in a doctoral thesis?Item Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference - Introduction(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Doherty, ChristoIntroductionItem Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference Proceedings - Full(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Doherty, Christo (Editor)In the two years which have elapsed between the first and second Arts Research Africa conferences, the recognition of creative practice as a research modality in South Africa has increased in leaps and bounds. The question of what to call this research modality, be it practice-based, or practice-led, or artistic research remains unresolved, but these two conferences have gathered together a stimulating array of approaches to this new mode of research, while raising the banner for ‘artistic research’. This second conference, with its focus on how artistic research has transformed pedagogy as well as art practice in Africa, recognises that many academic practitioners, who have themselves completed advanced degrees with a creative practice component, are now looking to pass these learnings to their students through a transformed pedagogy. The 2022 conference thus provides an opportunity to assess the pattern of this development, still largely limited in Africa to the South African arts and education environment.