3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The pet in contemporary art(2011-06-23) Pretorius, ElmarieThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the figure of the pet in contemporary art. I will argue that the pet offers rich potential for creative exploration that challenges the conventional binaries of self/other, human/animal, and tame/wild in a way that tries to speak of a different subjectivity. I take as a starting point that the pet is seen as not other enough and this explains its relative absence in contemporary visual art practice and discourse. Currently there is a lot of interest in the animal within this field, but the animal is usually cast as wild or untamed – all too often functioning as a signifier of difference from the human (through this difference, of course, we define what is human). For all that the pet is an animal it does not serve as a signifier in the same way. It straddles binaries/boundaries of human/animal and even self/other in a manner that is often interpreted as ‘uncomfortable’. I will argue that the widespread prejudice against pets is based on a very deep seated and problematic formulation of the wild, and if the binary opposition of the wild and the domestic is discarded (as the binary opposition of the human and the animal was/is) the pet is more than equal to the same theoretical, and consequently practical, burden as the wild animal. With special attention to the concept of becoming-animal, outlined by Deleuze and Guattari, I look at the artists Jo Ractliffe, Carolee Schneemann, and William Wegman whose pets play a pivotal role in the production of their artworks, and in some cases, the trajectory of their careers. I contend that within this cross-species relationship/experience/void/communication (or any other description one might hazard to apply) something happens, an event, something meaningful, worth consideration. The very nature of a cross-species phenomenological, libidinal relating is, for me, laden with creative possibility. I argue that the pet has the potential to open up a creative space within which important and topical issues, anxieties and subject fractures can be visually manifestedItem Bartonella species in human and animal populations in Gauteng, South Africa, 2007-2008(2010-10-20) Trataris, Anastasia NatashaBartonella is a genus of fastidious bacteria responsible for a wide range of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections. Bartonellae are often considered obligate pathogens where infection is concurrent with immunological suppression of the host. The objectives of this study were: to determine the prevalence of Bartonella infections in HIV-positive patients presenting for treatment at a Gauteng HIV-clinic, to determine the extent of bartonellae affecting the healthy population, to determine the seroprevalence of Bartonella henselae and Bartonella quintana antibodies in HIV-negative antenatal patient sera taken from various maternity units in Gauteng public hospitals, and to investigate cats, dogs, and rodents in Johannesburg for carriage of bartonellae. A total of 382 HIV-positive patients attending the HIV clinic and 42 clinically healthy volunteers agreed to participate. Three-hundred and forty-two residual sera from the national antenatal survey were selected and tested for IgG and IgM antibodies against Bartonella. There were 179 dogs, 98 cats and 124 rodents enrolled in this study. The seroprevalence for Bartonella in humans was carried out using IgG and IgM commercially available kits. HIV-positive patients were found to have 32% IgG and 14% IgM seroprevalence, whereas the healthy volunteers had a lower IgG (19%) and higher IgM seroprevalence than the HIV-positive counterparts. All blood samples were cultured, but only the cat and rodent specimens yielded isolates. These were sequenced for species identification. The cat isolates were 99 and 100% similar to B. henselae URBHLIE 9 previously isolated from a patient with endocarditis, and the rat isolates were 98 – 99% similar to either RN24BJ (candidus ‘B. thailandensis’) or RN28BJ, previously isolated from rodents in China. The PCR prevalences were: 22.5% in HIV-positive patients; 9.5% in clinically healthy volunteers; 23.5% in cats; 9% in dogs; and 25% in rodents. Findings of this study have important implications for HIV-positive patients