Screen Presence

Cutting Edge of the Contemporary: KNUST, Accra, and the Ghanaian Contemporary Art Movement

The use of everyday objects as art materials has evolved into a contemporary phenomenon in Africa, deeply rooted in specific contexts and possessing global relevance. Despite limited scholarly attention, existing discussions tend to revolve around individual artists or particular mediums. Many discourses are associated with either the prevailing universalist perspective that views the trend as Western avant-garde derivation or the reductionist narrative that attributes it merely to local material scarcity. There exists a critical need to investigate historical genealogies and explore the theoretical frameworks essential for comprehending this phenomenon. Through a combination of visual analysis, fieldwork and interviews, this thesis conducts an in-depth examination of the use of found materials in Zimbabwe, exploring its historiography, mechanism, impact, and visual achievements. This thesis situates the investigation in postcolonial Harare, the city that profoundly shaped the evolution of the phenomenon of using found materials. Regarding timeframe, this thesis examines contemporary Zimbabwean artists’ practices, with a special emphasis on the period following the Redefinitions movement in the early 2000s. However, it also explores the pioneering material innovations of Tapfuma Gutsa and Keston Beaton, as well as analyses the importance of the Pachipamwe workshop between the 1980s and 1990s. Among the artists, it highlights those who consistently engage with found materials and delve into their interactions with urban spaces in their practices. With the city as the analytical framework, this thesis draws on debates centring on contemporary African art and theories about materiality and urban studies. Approaching found materials as the materiality of both art and the city, it reveals a convergence of various interrelated artistic practices in Harare. The multidimensional relationships are manifested in the artistic processes, where the collection of materials, the creation of artworks, and collaboration with diverse urban groups, are intricately linked to urban spaces in Harare. By unfolding this process and emphasising the labour of artists, this thesis transcends conventional perceptions of artworks as mere visual objects, revealing the societal and spatial interactions inherent in artistic practices involving found materials. This thesis also explores the visual and semantical interactions between art and the city, centring on a curated array of artworks which is not merely a visual representation or reflection of the city but also provides critical thoughts on and dialogues with the city, as well as (re)imaginations and aspirations of the urban landscape. The relationship between art and the city is further deepened through iii artistic practices, extending beyond the creation of artworks and involving art infrastructure building in Harare. This thesis conceptualises artists’ practices of working with found material as restless imagination, a term drawn from the name of the city, which refers to “no one sleeps” in the Shona language. The restlessness embedded in its naming has characterised the city in various dimensions and across time, with the haunting colonial legacy, ongoing urban crises, ubiquitous movements and the ordinary people’s unwavering efforts for liberation and survival. Artists residing in postcolonial Harare also adopt and cultivate restlessness as a working strategy not only to cope with but also to transgress such conditions. The evolution of found materials has been unfolded through a continuous process of restless imagination and innovative manoeuvres, which are embodied in the continual re-imagination of the convention of art materials, the expressive capacities of specific materials, and a commitment to labour throughout the transformative process. This open-ended though productive process of exploration perpetuates and extends to the re-imagination and reclaiming of urban spaces, transforming them into artistic spaces that foster artistic creation and the reproduction of artists and imaginations. This thesis argues the potential framing and comprehension of Harare city as the site of restless imagination pursued, embodied and materialised by artists through their artwork and engagement with urban spaces. Contemporary Zimbabwean artists have redefined their artistic practices, interacting with the materiality of everyday urban life, urban matters, urban spaces, and urban communities, and, concurrently, the relationship between art and city, art and society. By doing so, they open up space for possibilities to refashion the restless city, negotiate urban citizenship, and recreate themselves as agentive subjects in postcolonial Harare. It could be argued that artists, as urban citizens, akin to other residents grappling with everyday life in the city, also exercise their arts of citizenship through their creative innovations in artistic expression and practices. Therefore, this thesis not only delves into the contextualisation of artistic practices in Harare but also contributes to broader discussions on everyday practices in African cities through the lens of art.

The export of Japanese television programs overseas started in the 1970s and the rapid
\ngrowth of Japanese television programs globally especially in Asia started in the early 1980s.
\nHowever, in the 21st century, the glory of Japanese dramas seems to have faded and replaced by the
\n“Korean wave”. Perhaps the younger generation nowadays has not heard of “J-Pop” and here is an
\nexamination of the past consumption of the Japanese television culture outside of Japan, especially
\nAsia.

<p>This thesis analyses the conditions of artistic production at two pivotal moments in the reception of modernism in New Zealand: the emergence of a tradition of modernist painting in the work of Colin McCahon in the late 1940s, and the dispersal of that tradition under the impact of postmodernism and postcolonialism circa 1990 in the work of Michael Parekowhai and Ronnie van Hout, among others. Artists’ distinctive engagement with a broad compass of visual culture is considered alongside a critique of local high culture in relation to the culture of everyday life. The reception of this work is figured as emblematic of the historical contestation over the representation of the everyday; a struggle for visibility which reveals the social antagonisms of New Zealand culture. The first part of the thesis considers the vituperative critical response to McCahon’s use of formal devices drawn from comic books and commercial design in the late 1940s, against the background of the establishment of the national high culture. It accounts for the response by exploring the social factors inherent in critical disdain for commercial art and mass culture, which drew on the trenchant opposition of British intellectuals, and suggests that in McCahon’s work popular culture is employed as a form of aesthetic primitivism with which to represent the barbarities of World War II, as well as to express the experience of everyday life in New Zealand to a broad public audience. It concludes that fundamental to the antagonism over his work was disagreement over what constituted local cultural authenticity. The second part of the thesis considers problems of New Zealand high culture figured in antagonistic relation to the culture of everyday life that were advanced by New Zealand critics in the years after McCahon produced his popular-culture inflected paintings. The anti-Americanism of New Zealand culture is considered in relation to the rise of the ‘comics menace’ as a source of moral panic in the early 1950s. However, the interest of a new generation of New Zealand scholars in popular culture is observed in changing attitudes towards comic strips (and to American culture) in the 1980s. The same scholars also seek new terms for local critical address. A final chapter of this section explores the afterlife of McCahon’s work following his death in 1987, tracking the movement of the work out into the common culture and the high culture’s contestation of his modernist legacy. The third part of the thesis opens with an account of aspects of art practice under emerging cultural conditions of postmodernism and postcolonialism in New Zealand in the 1990s, and explores the continued role of McCahon’s work in expressing and revising issues of national identity. Central here is ‘Choice!’ (1990), an exhibition of contemporary Māori art, which introduced Michael Parekowhai’s work and precipitated an ongoing discussion on the politics of identity in contemporary art. While Parekowhai located aspects of Māori identity in the traditions of high art and globalised mass culture, other artists interrogated national identity by similar means. The result was an expansion of the terms both of national identity and of the critical territories of the high culture. The thesis concludes by examining the critical furore that arose when Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand’s new national museum, opened with the exhibition of a painting by Colin McCahon beside a refrigerator of the same vintage. The debate, which ensued, was largely concerned with the desire of critics to separate the domain of art from the domain of everyday life. This analysis demonstrates how contestation between the high culture and the common culture represents a recurring and generative dynamic in the history of New Zealand art—in which McCahon is a pivotal figure—during the second half of the twentieth century.</p>

<p>This thesis analyses the conditions of artistic production at two pivotal moments in the reception of modernism in New Zealand: the emergence of a tradition of modernist painting in the work of Colin McCahon in the late 1940s, and the dispersal of that tradition under the impact of postmodernism and postcolonialism circa 1990 in the work of Michael Parekowhai and Ronnie van Hout, among others. Artists’ distinctive engagement with a broad compass of visual culture is considered alongside a critique of local high culture in relation to the culture of everyday life. The reception of this work is figured as emblematic of the historical contestation over the representation of the everyday; a struggle for visibility which reveals the social antagonisms of New Zealand culture. The first part of the thesis considers the vituperative critical response to McCahon’s use of formal devices drawn from comic books and commercial design in the late 1940s, against the background of the establishment of the national high culture. It accounts for the response by exploring the social factors inherent in critical disdain for commercial art and mass culture, which drew on the trenchant opposition of British intellectuals, and suggests that in McCahon’s work popular culture is employed as a form of aesthetic primitivism with which to represent the barbarities of World War II, as well as to express the experience of everyday life in New Zealand to a broad public audience. It concludes that fundamental to the antagonism over his work was disagreement over what constituted local cultural authenticity. The second part of the thesis considers problems of New Zealand high culture figured in antagonistic relation to the culture of everyday life that were advanced by New Zealand critics in the years after McCahon produced his popular-culture inflected paintings. The anti-Americanism of New Zealand culture is considered in relation to the rise of the ‘comics menace’ as a source of moral panic in the early 1950s. However, the interest of a new generation of New Zealand scholars in popular culture is observed in changing attitudes towards comic strips (and to American culture) in the 1980s. The same scholars also seek new terms for local critical address. A final chapter of this section explores the afterlife of McCahon’s work following his death in 1987, tracking the movement of the work out into the common culture and the high culture’s contestation of his modernist legacy. The third part of the thesis opens with an account of aspects of art practice under emerging cultural conditions of postmodernism and postcolonialism in New Zealand in the 1990s, and explores the continued role of McCahon’s work in expressing and revising issues of national identity. Central here is ‘Choice!’ (1990), an exhibition of contemporary Māori art, which introduced Michael Parekowhai’s work and precipitated an ongoing discussion on the politics of identity in contemporary art. While Parekowhai located aspects of Māori identity in the traditions of high art and globalised mass culture, other artists interrogated national identity by similar means. The result was an expansion of the terms both of national identity and of the critical territories of the high culture. The thesis concludes by examining the critical furore that arose when Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand’s new national museum, opened with the exhibition of a painting by Colin McCahon beside a refrigerator of the same vintage. The debate, which ensued, was largely concerned with the desire of critics to separate the domain of art from the domain of everyday life. This analysis demonstrates how contestation between the high culture and the common culture represents a recurring and generative dynamic in the history of New Zealand art—in which McCahon is a pivotal figure—during the second half of the twentieth century.</p>

Using historical and current examples from film, television, literature, advertisements, and music, this book reveals the ways that rape and abuse are typically presented—and misrepresented—and evaluates the impact of these depictions on consumers. Incidences of domestic abuse and sexual assault aren't only commonplace nationwide and the source of a shockingly large number of serious injuries and deaths; they're also problems that are often subject to myths and misleading depictions in popular culture and media. The author of this important book seeks to shed light on the situation by examining the specific issues related to domestic violence and sexual assault, from the scope and extent of the problem to victim and offender characteristics, and from common misconceptions to societal, cultural, and judicial responses and prevention efforts. Each chapter discusses movies, music, literature, and other forms of popular culture that address issues of domestic abuse and sexual assault, identifying both accurate depictions and problematic examples. The final section of the book addresses how our culture responds to and attempts to prevent domestic abuse and sexual assault, covering depictions of police response to these kinds of crimes in popular culture, how the justice system handles these cases, and individual and community efforts to curb domestic abuse and sexual assault. A compendium of films, documentaries, popular books, and song lyrics featuring domestic abuse and sexual assault enables readers to easily investigate the subject further.

The Shape of Desire

ABSTRACTThe following editorial sets out the context for this special edition of the Journal of Visual Art Practice by situating contemporary Chinese art and its critical engagement with society and politics — both within and outside the People's Republic of China and Taiwan — in relation to a wider history of modernist, postmodernist and contemporary visual art theory and practice. It also outlines the particular social, economic, cultural and political conditions in relation to which contemporary art is produced and received within the PRC and Taiwan as well as differences between localized Chinese and international perspectives on the critical significance of contemporary Chinese art.

In order to explain the popularity of Instagram poetry, and of the Instapoet Rupi Kaur in particular, we have positioned it within the contemporary context of the changing poetic field, the context of popular media culture and the consumer society of late neoliberal capitalism. From a complex language construction requiring in its reception an educated reader, poetry has become simple, communicative and accessible to all. At a time when neoliberal capitalism appropriates, absorbs and alters every marginal practice, adjusting it to its needs, poetry has acquired a utilitarian value. The most interesting example of this utilitarian value can be found in the poems of Rupi Kaur, a Canadian poet with a South Asian background. Her poetry functions as self-help literature. Kaur defines herself as a feminist, which we have positioned within the context of neoliberal feminism, which has features in common with postfeminism and celebrity feminism. Postfeminism is a blend of feminist and antifeminist world views, and has contributed to the construction of new femininity. In the contemporary late neoliberal age it acquires a significant form in hyperfemininity as an unquestionable ideal omnipresent in the media, which all women must aspire to in order to be accepted by society. Kaur’s Instapoetry has appropriated feminist (intersectional) ideas for its (neoliberal) objectives. She provides advice on how to overcome painful relationship breakups, violence, racism, misogyny, the patriarchy and classism. This is realized through the use of formulas offered by New Age alternative spirituality. It is this spirituality that has been absorbed by neoliberal capitalism and incorporated into all aspects of services, in order to make the ruthless exploitation of workers in precarious jobs more bearable. Remediation is characteristic of Instapoetry. Poets use old and new media: drawings, handwriting or typewriting, photography, which is mediated by the digital technology of Instagram. In addition, they perform live in front of an audience, and an analysis of Rupi Kaur’s performances clearly shows that these are mass media events; thus Instapoetry can be understood as a specific form of popular media culture intended for a mass audience.

The interplay of global forms of pop culture and media in teenagers’ ‘interest-driven’ everyday literacy practices with English in Greece

As a form of popular culture, film serves as an engaging medium for disseminating and popularizing family law in a more appealing and accessible way. However, narrative distortions and misrepresentations of legal norms within cinematic stories are possible. This article examines how the concept of triple divorce in Indonesian Islamic Family Law is portrayed in two Indonesian marriage-themed films: Talak 3 and Wedding Agreement. Both films depict divorce proceedings within the jurisdiction of Indonesia’s Religious Courts. Through a normative legal analysis combined with qualitative content analysis, this study finds that the cinematic depiction of divorce processes in these films is not entirely consistent with the principles of Indonesian Islamic family law. Talak 3 depicts the pronouncement of three divorces at once as constituting an irrevocable major divorce (ṭalāq ba’in kubrā). At the same time, Wedding Agreement portrays consecutive triple divorces occurring outside the court, similarly resulting in an irrevocable major divorce when submitted to the Religious Court. These portrayals tend to reflect classical fiqh doctrines rather than Indonesia’s codified Islamic family law, thereby reinforcing a conservative perspective. Such misrepresentations within Indonesian films risk perpetuating public misunderstandings and undermining efforts to modernize family law. Given the film’s influence in shaping legal awareness, accurate legal depiction in popular media is essential. This study urges scholars and practitioners to ensure that films accurately represent family law, thereby enabling cinema to positively support legal literacy and the progressive development of Indonesian Islamic family law.

Popular culture and the media play an integral role in shaping public perceptions concerning the geographies of military activities and power. Critical approaches in studying military geography have started to pay closer attention to cultural representations of the military and their constitutive role in legitimizing and justifying military presence and practices within varying geographical contexts. It is important to note that there is no definitive or coherent scholarship on the topic of military geographies of popular culture. Therefore, this review does not chart a single cohesive body of scholarship. Instead, it offers an illustrative account of the interdisciplinary nature of studying the popular cultural geographies of militarism and militarization. There are several ways in which geographical scholarship, especially in the field of popular geopolitics, has contributed to understanding the relationship between the military and popular culture. First, geographical work has offered critical insights into the political-economic structures of what has been termed the “military-entertainment complex,” revealing the intimate symbiotic relationship between military institutes and the entertainment industries. Second, and where the predominant focus lies, geography has brought critical attention to the cultural politics of popular military representation. This has involved a detailed critical analysis of various popular cultural forms, texts, and visual media, exposing the geopolitical imaginaries that are both reflective and constitutive of the militarized violence they depict. More recently, such work has been advanced through an interest in material cultures and “more-than-representational” accounts to consider how cultures of militarism become embedded within the context of everyday geographies. Finally, geographers have reflected on the significance of place and the everyday situated contexts in which popular militarized cultures are embedded, experienced, and negotiated. Such work has considered the role of scale, highlighting how cultures of militarism are performed and internalized, especially within the domestic setting. Such work has adopted in-depth qualitative methodological approaches to recognize how popular forms of militarism are experienced in everyday life. The review article begins with an overview of the interdisciplinary work that seeks to expose and explore the military-entertainment complex. It then proceeds with thematic sections drawing attention to how scholars, within and beyond the discipline of human geography, have critically analyzed an array of diverse popular cultural militarized texts, representations, and material objects. It ends by drawing attention to the emergent methodological approaches and techniques to studying popular military geographies.

This paper offers a conceptual reading of the subject of memory and memorialization in the context of the nation though an analysis of the images of Mohandas K. Gandhi circulating in popular culture and contemporary art. Continually re-invoked in official imagery, currency and public memorials, Gandhi is a foundational figure in the meta-narrative of modern India, a figure who links India's freedom struggle with her sovereign identity. The man who complained of a ‘darshan dilemma’ was among the most intensely photographed and caricatured subjects of his time, but he is also unique in the stability of his image. This essay focuses on two major sites of representation. The first half of the essay considers Gandhi as a subject in popular visual culture, print media, and photography before and after independence. The second examines the reinvocation of Gandhi in a range of contemporary artworks that critically re-examine Gandhian values in a time of globalism. From the singularity of his image as the father of the nation, the contemporary Gandhi assumes many afterlives. His abundant discourses on heavy engineering, mechanization, women, religion, and caste return like footnotes to India's conflicted modernity for critique, caricature, and occasional convergence.

Sociologists have addressed a wide range of topics under the heading of popular culture. In fact, there are far too many to cover adequately in this encyclopedia. Thus, a decision was made to give at least a sense of this literature by sampling some of the key topics examined by sociologists and offering an indication of the way in which they have been covered. A variety of forms of popular culture are considered: the beach, hip‐hop, jazz, P2P, reality TV, rock 'n' roll, science fiction, soap operas, and zoos. Of course, this is a highly selective and, in most cases (two exceptions are the beach and zoos), time‐bound list. Thus, many other topics could have been chosen and, of those that have been included, some (reality TV is a good example) could disappear in a short period of time. However, the point is not to give the reader a full sense of timeless forms of popular culture but rather to offer a sampling of work in sociology on this topic.

Percorsi di gender performance: fotografia tra arte e moda dagli anni Novanta ad oggi