Alterity Atelier

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Anderson, Kim

Keywords

Painting, Sublime, Art: Technological, Landscape, Figure

Area of Concentration

Art

Abstract

Through a series of landscape oil paintings and aquatints, I depict the contemporary individual's estrangement from the world by the effects of mediation. The source material � staged photo-shoots and live webcam feeds, imply the distanced and filtered gaze of the contemporary individual whose access to the world is mediated by cultural beliefs and digital information. The work depicts an unfulfilled desire for freedom from the limited self � a yearning for the sublime � a completion brought about by subject-object collapse, the absolution of distinctions between self and other. This yearning for transcendent wholeness is situated in opposition to the �technological sublime,� which asserts that transcendence of the individual's limitations can be achieved through outward conquest and subjugation of the world. Yet, the contemporary man pursues the former by means of the latter � fulfillment of an inner state through outward action � and by doing so, remains unresolved. This dilemma is explored through landscape painting, with an awareness of the genre's historical function as a medium of objectification. In exploration of these issues, I have considered the work of other artists including Caspar David Friedrich, Thomas Cole, Peter Doig, Gerhard Richter, Walter DeMaria, and David Park, as well as the philosophy of Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Fran�ois Lyotard.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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