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This thesis gives, for the first time, a clear exposition of the activities of the Arundel Society (1848-1897). Founded to 'collect diligently and with discrimination the highest and best examples of Art and to bring them before hundreds of English minds' the presence of Aubrey Bezzi, Lord Lindsay, Edmund Oldfield, Samuel Rogers and John Ruskin on the Society's first council meant that the initial publication of engravings after two early Italian artists, Fra Angelico and Giotto, was unsurprising. After 1856, under the guidance of Henry Layard, the archaeologist and politician, the Society became even more firmly committed to copying and publishing frescoes of the early Renaissance. The council's aim in recording and publishing these endangered works of art was to educate the taste of the public and inspire artists to embark on programmes of mural decoration. The water-colours executed for the Society are discussed with particular reference to the reactions of the council, and of members and the press to the problem of their verisimilitude. About two-thirds of these copies were published as chromolithographs and the gains and liabilities of this initially very popular method of reproduction are examined. Other methods employed by the Society to publish fac-similies of classical and medieval ivories and reduced copies of the Elgin marbles are also discussed with general reference to Victorian attitudes towards reproductions. The penultimate chapter attempts to relate the prints and monographs published by the Society to the art historical scholarship of the period. It is shown that the council's publication of decorative quattrocento, provincial cinquecento and early Flemish and German artists was influenced by Henry Layard's preferences. His monographs for the Society are discussed and compared with the more scholarly, if diverse, contributions made by, among others, G. W. Kitchin, John Ruskin, George Scharf and Ralph Wornum. In the final chapter it is argued that the Society's loyalty to the tastes of the mid-century and to the process of chromolithography led to its dissolution.

This study contributes to practical discussions on the composition of dynamic music for video games from the composer’s perspective. Creating greater levels of immersion in players is used as a justification for the proposals of the thesis. It lays down foundational aesthetic elements in order to proceed with a logical methodology. The aim of this paper is to build upon, and further hybridise, two techniques used by composers and by video game designers to increase further the reactive agility and memorability of the music for the player. Each chapter of this paper explores a different technique for joining two (possibly disparate) types of gameplay, or gamestates, with appropriate continuous music. In each, I discuss a particular musical engine capable of implementing continuous music. Chapter One will discuss a branching-music engine, which uses a precomposed musical mosaic (or musical pixels) to create a linear score with the potential to diverge at appropriate moments accompanying onscreen action. I use the case study of the Final Fantasy battle system to show how the implementation of a branching-music engine could assist in maintaining the continuity of gameplay experience that current disjointed scores, which appear in many games, create. To aid this argument I have implemented a branching-music engine, using the graphical object oriented programming environment MaxMSP, in the style of the battle music composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the early Final Fantasy series. The reader can find this in the accompanying demonstrations patch. In Chapter Two I consider how a generative-music engine can also implement a continuous music and also address some of the limitations of the branching-music engine. Further I describe a technique for an effective generative music for video games that creates musical ‘personalities’ that can mimic a particular style of music for a limited period of time. Crucially, this engine is able to transition between any two personalities to create musical coincidence with the game. GMGEn (Game Music Generation Engine) is a program I have created in MaxMSP to act as an example of this concept. GMGEn is available in the Demonstrations_Application. Chapter Three will discuss potential limitations of the branching music engine described in Chapter One and the generative music engine described in Chapter Two, and highlights how these issues can be solved by way of a third engine, which hybridises both. As this engine has an indeterminate musical state it is termed the intermittent-music engine. I go on to discuss the implementation of this engine in two different game scenarios and how emergent structures of this music will appear. The final outcome is to formulate a new compositional approach delivering dynamic music, which accompanies the onscreen action with greater agility than currently present in the field, increasing the memorability and therefore the immersive effect of the video-game music.

An interdisciplinary study of an aesthetic particularism: the 'Split representation in the Art of Asia and America'. This thesis consists of an interdisciplinary research on an aesthetic particularism mentioned by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss as "The split representation in the Art of Asia and America" in his 1944 eponymous essay. Most researchers include in this group the Ainu and Jōmon People from Japan, tribes from the Amur Basin, Haida people from the Northern West Coast, Ancient China (Yangshao and Shang Dynasty), Māori People from New Zealand and Kadiweu people from Brazil. I conducted this inquiry through an online study of academic papers and historical accounts available in online databases, by doing researches at research Libraries in Paris, through field researches in the Arctic, Brazil, Hawaii and Nepalese Himalayas, and email exchanges with some prominent researchers in the disciplines related to the subject, on a six years period. In the framework of this research I was also granted an access to National Geographic's Genographic Project database, and allowed by Claude Levi-Strauss's widow to consult his unpublished expeditions notebooks at his archival fund at the research Library of the National Institute of Art History in Paris. After presenting Levi-Strauss's Life and the roots of his theories, I discuss more recent perspectives on the subject, including the researches of the British anthropologist Alfred Gell. Before exposing the cases of the widely acknowledged connections between the pattern making habits amongst certain hunter-gatherers tribes with the taking of entheogenic drugs during rituals, with the Shipibo people from the Peruvian Amazonia and their ritualistic use of Ayahuasca as a case study. I continue by providing dedicated inter-disciplinary case studies on the specific patterns of each populations from the Split Representation groups using up to date researches results in the fields of Art theory, ethnobotany and allied sciences. Using an interdisciplinary and technoetic approach, My first original contribution to knowledge consists of a demonstration of the flaws in Levi-Strauss theory by documenting how he based his overall reasoning on now outdated datas that have been for some completely refuted since the publication of his essay. I also propose an alternative theory on the split representation, by highlighting the common practice of shamanism among the various people cited by Levi-Strauss, and how entoptic visual imagery derived from altered states of consciousness, primarily induced by psychoactive plants, as well as animistic self-other identification and the influence of shamanic type rhythmic drumming might explain for a part the similarities between those diverse artistic styles. Finally, this set of new knowledges brings new perspectives and possible explanations to the function and origins of Art and their influences on early human cognitive development.

Many Indian tribes have a rich and diverse repertoire of material produce, and among them the Santal artistic heritage is not only little known, but also reveals deeply existential imperatives through its mythology and history. The purpose of this thesis has been two-fold - firstly, to systematically list and classify Santal visual culture as comprehensively as possible, and secondly, to understand this culture through more complex, collective subjectivities. These subjectivities were shaped primarily by the cultural memory of the tribe, their migratory past and their turbulent relationship with the colonial state.
 This thesis considers multiple forms of art - wall paintings, sacrificial geometry, musical instruments, marriage articles, paper paintings and shields used in war and dance - to understand the aesthetic eco-system of the Santals. But the emphasis is on three key artefacts that embody their philosophy - the fiddle (banam), palanquin (rahi) and scroll paintings (jadupata). The fiddle is an anthropomorphic articulation of the Santal universe and conceals a foundational tale of cannibalism, sororicide and mysticism. The palanquin, reflecting the great skill of the carvers, amuses the viewer with its animal-human parodies and its engagement with colonial modernity. The paintings, though not made by the Santals, depict key moments in the tribe's mythical almanac and also service their anxieties of the afterlife through the promise of salvation. Additionally, the thesis questions the conventional historiography of 'tribal' portrayal. It argues that the Santals, as mediated through Victorian engravings and graphics, were given far more agency and epistemic strength than generally admitted. It also claims that the Indian painters from Shantiniketan and Calcutta, rather than uplifting the community as symbols of national resistance, actually imprisoned them in an Edenic past and denied them the temporal technologies to act in the present. The visual story of the Santals, till today, remains captive to this very paradox.

'Copyright Privileges, Intellectual Property, and Image Ownership: The Role of Law in the Art of Renaissance Venice' examines the origins of copyright and intellectual property law in relation to the production of artwork and cartography in Early Modern Venice. The modern conception of art copyright, intellectual property and image ownership began as result of a convergence of several factors. Innovations in the Venetian printing press and advances in papermaking technologies enabled rapid production of less expensive and higher quality prints. In quick succession, the print industry became increasingly concerned that the high cost of designing a new print was at considerable risk if competitors decided to replicate the image soon after the product was released. Meanwhile, the Inquisition raged throughout Italy and the Papacy was troubled that printed materials would propagate morally and religiously questionable material. As a result of these independent yet interrelated influences, the Council of Ten and Senate of Venice passed legislation to appease both parties. This judicial reform required all circulated prints to possess a license and provided the opportunity to request optional exclusive reproduction rights known as a 'privilegio'. Initially intended to be applied to printed books, the law used terminology literally translated as 'works on paper'. Artists, printmakers and publishers soon adapted legal privileges to printed art and cartography. The Venetian government enacted a succession of edicts in an attempt to restrict the ever mounting number of supplications, while the artistic community sought to capitalize on the economically lucrative and innovative moral rights advanced by the existence of the 'privilegio'. Privilege holders granted permission by the Venetian government include: Luca Bertelli, Antonio Floriano, Nicolo Nelli, Enea Vico (Parmigiano) and Titian. The PhD dissertation draws on primary evidence such as original artwork (paintings, sculptures, preparatory drawings and prints), official privilege decrees, correspondence from artists, printmakers and print shop owners, applications for licenses and privileges, letters of inspection by inquisitors from the Riformatori dello Studio di Padova, and secondary decrees from the Council of Ten and Senate of Venice, to conduct a comparative art-legal analysis that places case studies pertaining to picture print and map 'privilegi' within their broader socio-political context.

'(De)contextualising Buddhist Aesthetics' is a practice-led artistic research project focusing on the interchanging transition between Buddhist and artistic practices. Essentially inspired by the concept of vipassana meditation, I created a series of performances involving repetitive actions centring on the tasks of re-arranging readymade objects into multiple precarious configurations. Many exercises challenge the laws of gravity and other physical limitations of objects, as well as encouraging the learning experience through the process of trial and error. During the course of mindful observation of the performing body and objects, the mental state gradually gains moments of stillness and silence, which approach the meaning of emptiness (suññata) in Buddhism. Repeated failures generate intermittent feelings of exhaustion and disappointment, which naturally become part of the progress, and can be personally used to develop insight into the notions of impermanence and the non-self derived from dhamma (Buddhist teachings). The video and photography documentations were edited and altered to generate a visual experience that echoes my thoughts and feelings developed during the proceedings; these moving images later inspired other series of hand-made artworks, including collages, drawings and paintings on paper and canvas, exhibited as part of the installations. Various techniques were applied so these objective components resonate a comparative experience of uncontrollability and controllability: dynamic and stillness, fast pace and slow rhythm, abstract and representation. Some two-dimensional pieces are transformed to three-dimensional and their displays keep changing from location to location, and from time to time, in conjunction with an unstable state of the mind. All artworks were created in various formats and interrelate and inform each other. They act together as evidence of the endless journey of artistic learning, which also mirrors the concept of self-learning in Buddhist meditation.

This thesis analyses the importance of supplementary material for art history and philosophy by addressing its shifting and problematic relationship to the ‘work of art’. Through the use of philosophical and critical theories, including Heidegger, Benjamin, Adorno, Deleuze and Derrida, the nature and status of artworks are explored through different uses of supplementarity that are identified and developed in order to re-evaluate the cultural significance of supplementarity itself. This theoretical analysis is complemented by a cultural history that demonstrates, through a discussion of changes in artistic practices, theoretical perceptions, markets and ‘cultures of display’, the ways in which conceptions of the work of art and supplementarity are historically contingent. The main body of the thesis is composed of four case studies. In the first, Heidegger’s distinction between art and equipment and his notion of causality is used to analyse Henry Moore’s maquettes, plasters, and bronze works, in order to distinguish preliminary and preparatory material from complete works of art. The second focuses on hierarchy and supplementarity, developing Deleuze’s concept of the simulacrum by showing how the drawings and sketches of Antonio Sant’Elia can be considered works of art, despite being traditionally identified as supporting material. Walter Benjamin’s theory of aura, and Theodor Adorno’s notion of enigmaticalness, are deployed in a third case study that analyses the significance of the relocation of Francis Bacon’s studio from London to Dublin, and the use of biographical material to foreground the creative process. The final case study deploys Jacques Derrida’s analysis of Antonin Artaud’s works on paper that problematises prevailing classifications of art, and Derrida’s interpretation of Artaud’s notion of the subjectile, in order to emphasise the often ambiguous status of ostensibly supplementary material. Overall, the thesis re-evaluates the cultural significance of supplementarity for aesthetics by analysing the ways in which supplementary material affects how works of art are experienced and understood.

This thesis addresses critically the work of American artist Allan Kaprow (1927-2006), focusing especially on the tensions Kaprow proposed between 'art' and 'life'. It presents a reconsideration of the most fertile period in Kaprow's career, from his undergraduate studies in the late 1940s to his mature work of the 1970s, prior to the increasing demands made on him to produce re-enactments of his early work. The period 1948-1976 presents a fuller overview of the themes and motivations of his practice than has been scrutinised in the existing literature. The research is based on extensive examination of the Allan Kaprow Papers at the Getty Institute, Los Angeles, which revealed significant and previously unstudied documentation and images. This archive and Kaprow's personal library in Encinitas, California have provided substantial previously unpublished evidence of his early interest in the American pragmatist John Dewey, and reveal many of the motivations for Kaprow's emphasis on change, together with his relational approach to form, context and process. The role of composer John Cage in the development of Kaprow's thoughts on chance helps elucidate the complexities inherent in the development of Kaprow's negotiation between chance and control. The present study also gives, for the first time, a comparative and detailed reading of the five drafts of Kaprow's Assemblage, Environments and Happenings (1966), a reading which sheds fresh light on his art and publications of the period. The thesis also presents a thorough reconsideration of the significance of play in Kaprow's work of the late 1960s and 1970s, including the tensions between and among play, work, hierarchy and liberation. Kaprow's many struggles to conceptualise and reconcile these tensions, and others, such as between audience and participant, private and public and narrative and history, were a necessary feature of the categories of art and artistic identity, including 'Happening', 'Activity' and 'Un-artist' that he helped bring into being.