(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) barbara.jekot@up.ac.za; Jekot, Barbara P.
This article investigates light control devices in architecture and nature searching for possible improvements and inspirations in architectural design. The article will briefly evaluate sun breakers and louvers as well as comment on both the reaction of leaves and plants to sun radiation as well as the reaction of eyes to light. The appreciation of natural devices
illustrating physical/mechanical characteristics extends to nature and its sensual richness. This study of nature identifies possible improvements in light control design and encourages the integration of plants into architectural envelopes enriching the overall experience.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Kruger, Runette
The relationship between design and empathy is not unproblematic. Consideration of this relationship brings several questions to mind, including whether it is possible for design to be practiced in a predominantly
empathetic way to begin with. An attempt is made to interrogate what might be understood
by the term empathy, as well as its place in western culture, and, lastly, the potential role of empathy in design practice.]
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Stevens, Ingrid
This article takes the theme ‘Is nature the best designer?’ and, in order to show that nature was historically and remains today a viable, valid and relevant source of design, particularly surface and pattern design, looks at three examples. Firstly it examines the designs of the Victorian designer, William Morris, done for the company Morris & Co., to show the potential of nature as a source of images. It simultaneously investigates his writings, where he expands on the reasons for finding nature so inspiring.
This shows that nature has always stood for something more than a source of visual inspiration but has been a symbol of other, more abstract, aspirations, in his case as a beacon for a better social system. The article then investigates two contemporary South African projects producing popular arts, namely Ardmore Ceramics and Kaross, in order to show that nature remains an inspiration, both for visual images as well as for more abstract ideals.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Van Bergen, Jan Willem
In this article I will be elaborating a position first articulated by R. Buckminster Fuller. This position is that the geometry we rely on to inform and motivate our acts is central to our being in the world, and hence our ability to act with empathy. Buckminster Fuller uncovers how Euclidian geometry (flat earth thinking) can be contrasted with spherical geometry and what kind of impacts these two types of thinking have had, and are currently still having, on our ability to show empathy. Of fundamental
importance to me in this article is to be able to convey the essential unity of all existence and that empathy cannot be expressed without a realisation of this. At the same time the critical method used
in demonstrating this unity uncovers how nature is the best designer, and what the ‘Project of Architecture’ is in this context.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Olivier, Bert
In this article I examine the startling work of Leonard Shlain on the provenance of certain ‘natural’,cortico-neurally based predispositions on the part of women as opposed to men, and offer an interpretation of his work regarding the potential contribution of women architects (and male architects who adopt this ‘feminine’ approach) to architectural design that would be commensurate with the ‘natural’
disposition described by Shlain. Care is taken to point out that Shlain does not advance a neurological determinism, instead arguing that neurological predispositions carry specific associations with different
social values. Having set out Shlain’s argument, I then proceed to examine the work of the Iraqiborn architect, Zaha Hadid, as exemplifying the kind of complex, non-reductive ‘intertwinement’ of distinguishable analytical and holistic qualities which Shlain associates with the ‘feminine’.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Ncokazi, Litha; Steele, John
This tribute to maternal grandmother of co-author Litha Ncokazi is based on his childhood memories of growing up in the Transkei, Eastern Cape, in South Africa. Aspects of these recollections have in turn served as a reminder that there is generally an ongoing need for transformations of male consciousness around gender issues and for men to take up roles as catalysts contributing to constructive social change with regard to improving ways in which women are respected and treated in contemporary southern African society. Ceramic artworks featured in this article are selected from the Litha Ncokazi Graduation Exhibition, Ann Bryant Gallery, East London, 2006. John Steele supervised Litha Ncokazi’s B. Tech studies. They collaborated to produce this article which has been divided into three sections, each of which has been indicated at the beginning by a drop cap. Steele has mainly
authored the introductory section, then Ncokazi [who uses the personal pronoun “I”] has provided commentary on his artworks in the main section, then both authors have arrived at a joint conclusion.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Geldenhuys, Daniel G.
The present article suggests that empathy is not the sole preserve of human beings, and that a city or buildings can also relate with empathy to people and the environment. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by the architect Frank O. Gehry in downtown Los Angeles, is taken as primary embodiment of such empathy. The article is divided into three sections, framed by a brief introduction and conclusion.
The first section deals with the historical context of Los Angeles, with special focus on the downtown area, and the way in which the multicultural population has given the city a heterogeneous culture, reflected in its architecture. In the middle section, dealing with how the city relates with empathy to its inhabitants, parallels are drawn with Pretoria and its downtown quarter, providing suggestions for introducing new life, meaning and activities to the Pretoria inner city as a strategy for counteracting xenophobia, and improving relationships and engendering respect among divergent cultures. The third section explores the Walt Disney Concert Hall as an act of architecture and work of art, where the macro and micro design have lead to an intelligent strategy of hybridization and inclusiveness. Gehry has in his ingenious design of the theatre complex managed to draw many differences together, allowing various cultures and art forms to meet, thus giving empathy a new meaning.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Van Tonder, Gert J.
Humans are not only adapted to nature, but also adapt their domestic environment to suit their own needs. Here, I suggest that Japanese Zen gardens uniquely bridge these different formative spheres of our perceptual evolution by maintaining sufficient visual complexity through the use of natural components to satisfy our natural sensory and perceptual needs, while doing so in a completely artificial environment. Rather than nature being the ‘best’ design for human perception, I suggest that it is our perceptual and cognitive brain systems that are ‘best’ designs, suited for the ecological niches from which we evolved.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Van Rensburg, Rudolf Johannes; Da Costa, Mary-Anne; rudolf.vanrensburg@up.ac.za
Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s quotidian theories, space making is explored as an expression of a society’s collective mind. Spatial understanding is a function of culture. Spatial ability is the capacity to interpret knowledge about space and to organise spatial information. An appropriate spatial strategy in the South African context must support spatial ability and transcend Eurocentric models of spatial definition in order to achieve a viable postcolonial model. In the context of this argument, spatial production is viewed as the result of interrelations constituted through the social interactions of the everyday.
Space can only sufficiently be understood as a realm of possibility, acknowledging the existence of multiplicity and the co-existence of heterogeneity. Against this background more dynamic models for spatial exploration are proposed.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Mare, Estelle Alma
Mnesikles was a Classical Greek architect, active circa 440, whose life cannot be reconstructed in detail. He was the architect of the Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, while adjacent buildings there, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nikè, are attributed to him. What these three buildings have in common is their unprecedented design; especially the Erechtheum and the Propylaea violate the foremost rule of classical design by being asymmetrical. By contrast, the Parthenon as the main temple is a normative building on a monumental scale. Many reasons for their deviant appearance can be gathered from the extensive literature on all three. Whatever the influence of the vicissitudes of history or the irregular building sites may be, the real reason for the irregularity of the buildings auxiliary to
the Parthenon should be sought in Mnesikles’s purposeful design strategy. If the Propylaea, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nikè are “blemished” buildings, according to classical norms, one needs to ask if Mnesikles did not intend it that way. The ambiguities in the secondary buildings on the Acropolis may justifiably be interpreted as purposeful disorderliness, the secondary buildings acting
as a foil to the symmetry and order of the main temple which is geometricised to the point of abstraction. It is proposed that Mnesikles designed the Propylaea and Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nikè not to rival the dominance and perfection of the Parthenon by consciously making them imperfect by incomplete architectural articulation, fragmentation, blemishing, and limiting of the scale.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Gluskin, Emanuel
The assumption is expressed that two very different, strongly mutually contrasting places are shown in ‘Servant pouring milk’, and this is the “hidden” dynamic of thought of this picture by a genius, which amazed, despite its formal complete unpretentiousness, many famous painters and unknown art-lovers.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Konik, Adrian
Against the backdrop of Laclau and Mouffe’s perspectives on radical democracy, this article focuses on the way in which the phenomenon of ‘presentism’, or the retrospective historical projection of the axiology of the present onto the past, which occurs within mainstream cinema, impacts negatively on both the possibility of the formation of what Laclau and Mouffe call a Left-wing hegemony, and, thereby, on the emergence of radical democracy. That is, this article argues that, while the formation of such a Left-wing hegemony is only conceivable on the basis of effective forms of negotiation, the dominant
contemporary notion of the ‘confessing’ subject plagued by latency, along with the contemporary prejudice against any alternatives to such a notion of the subject, problematize both the efficacy of any attempt at negotiation and, thereby, the possibility of the formation of a Left-wing hegemony. As such, this article advances that the presentism that occurs within mainstream cinema, insofar as it facilitates
the endorsement, rather than the dissolution, of such a notion of the subject and such prejudice, should not be regarded as an innocuous cultural phenomenon, but rather as a significant political factor that inhibits the emergence of radical democracy. To illustrate this point, this article uses the example of the tensions that orbit around the themes of confession and subjectivity, as they are represented in Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose (1983) and the narrative of Annaud’s 1984 cinematic adaptation of Eco’s text, in an effort to draw into conspicuousness the manner in which the presentism that pervades the latter fulfils a political function, by virtue of its negation of the historical alternatives proffered through the former. Finally, this article concludes not only by suggesting that, because of its political function, such presentism should be resisted, but also by suggesting that such resistance should take the form of an increased critical thematization of the subtle discursive shifts that preceded the dominant discourses of the contemporary era.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Noble, J.A. (Jonathan)
This chapter develops a methodological discussion on questions of hybridity in architectural theory and design, in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Reference is made to differing ideas of hybridity; from early postmodern interest in hybrid architecture (Jencks and Venturi), to postcolonial theory (Bhabha and Fanon), as well as Cultural Studies into syncretic traditions amongst marginalised groups (Gilroy, Shohat and McClintok). The chapter promotes a postcolonial perspective on hybridity, which differs from the usual postmodern architectural perspective, through its emphasis on relations of discursive power (Foucault) that animate specific cultural/political conditions. Analytical distinctions are made between conscious and unconscious, momentary and sublimated, as well as overt and hidden
forms of hybridity—distinctions which are particularly useful for an understanding of architecture.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Potgieter, Frikkie
This article analyses how the poststructuralist deconstruction of fixed knowledge and universal experiences, presents itself in two opposing ethical positions in postmodernist art and culture. On the one hand the deconstruction of “absolute” knowledge and a universal, timeless aesthetic regulation can lead to liberation, but on the other, the deconstruction of such secure principles could lead to meaninglessness.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Gluskin, Emanuel
A love-story, in the form of a movie scenario, built around the impression formed by the painting “A Girl Asleep” (or “A Woman Asleep at Table”) by Johannes Vermeer, is presented.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Steyn, Carol; Mare, Estelle Alma
Finland regarded the composer Jean Sibelius as a national hero from his youth until the end of his long life, although he composed nothing during his last thirty years. Outside Finland his reputation as a composer has been erratic. His life and work are here examined against the background of the heroworship he was favoured with in his native country. This survey also serves as background information for the analysis of the monument, designed and executed by Eila Hiltunen, which the Finnish state erected for Sibelius. When subject to analysis the sculptural composition which comprises the “monument” that consists of a cluster of some 600 hollow steel tubes welded together with a separate realistic head of the composer reveals various anomalies that do not seem to relate to Sibelius’s life and work.
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Mare, Estelle Alma
Aleš Erjavec is the Director of Research in the Institute of Philosophy of the Center of
Scientific Research of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Ljubljana) and professor of Aesthetics at Ljubljana University and in the Faculty of Humanities, Koper, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies. He has authored and edited some thirteen books, of which Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized Art Under Late
Socialism (Berkeley, 2003).
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2008) Munro, Allan; Stevens, Ingrid
Multiculturalism can be celebrated from a positive perspective or criticized from a negative perspective. The postcolonial writings of Edward Said (1978) and Ziauddin Sardar (1998), although separated by some twenty years, both offer a critique of multiculturalism from the viewpoint of the colonized Other. Having established the motivations for such a critique, this article then examines western art, both traditional and contemporary, to show that visual representations can also be implicated in these unequal power structures of multiculturalism. It ends by offering a brief critique, in turn, of the approach of Said and Sardar and suggests some positive approaches to multiculturalism.
