Wits School of Arts (ETDs)

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Man-The-Shaman is it the Whole Story? A Feminist Perspective on the San Rock Art of Southern Africa
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1995-06) Stevenson, Judith S.
Ethnographic accounts show that both shamanic and gender rituals play a critical role in San culture. Although 30% of the women and 50% of the men become shamans, the literature investigating San rock art frequently defines 'Man-the-Shaman' and minimizes the feasibility of female depictions of this important social role. Prior rock art research has tended to separate shamanic and gender processes to the impoverishment of both. This dissertation investigates the symbolic connections between these two social spheres, and argues that they are inseparable. Through this examination of gender and shamanic roles in San society this dissertation argues that metaphors reflect these two social spheres. It also argues that metaphors are a way of life which are expressed both in reality and non-reality. With these points in mind, it investigates the role of men and women as related to San rock art through social roles.
Barriers to protection: gender-related persecution and asylum in South Africa
(2009-10-12T12:24:42Z) Middleton, Julie
In 1998, South Africa became the first country to explicitly state within its refugee law that gender related persecution is a binding basis for asylum, further distinguishing South Africa as a state with outstanding legal commitments to gender equality. Creating further visibility within the law, however, is only one step in the process. How the law is implemented determines its real worth and effectiveness. This study assesses the manner in which asylum decisions are made, particularly in cases of gendered harm, questioning readily accepted and essentialised notions of women and gender. It looks at how the South African asylum system defines legitimate refugees, and the interplay of fluid interpretations of gender, culture, violence and the political within these constructions. Through interviews with officials and asylum seekers, the study identifies trends in the refugee system, and interrogates the reliance on narrow understandings of the political and personal, as well as the nature of conflict and culture.
The Case of Analytic Philosophy as ‘the Philosophy’ and Its Problem for the Decolonization of the Curriculum
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018) Ramaphala, Dorcus; Etieyibo, Edwin
In this research, I shall be examining two related issues. The first issue is about whether the presentation of analytic philosophy as the proper and only method of doing philosophy is justified. The second concerns the problems posed for the decolonization of the philosophy curriculum by this hegemonic and triumphant position of analytic philosophy as “the philosophy.” My motivation for engaging with these issues is to try and make the case for other philosophical traditions and methods, including African philosophy as legitimate and proper philosophical enterprises even when they do not share all or some of the traits and features of analytic philosophy. Success in making this case seems crucial to the project of decolonizing the philosophy curriculum.
‘They stood their ground!’ – Professional Gangsters in South African Indian Society, 1940 - 1970
(2019) Heatlie, Damon; Menon, Dilip; Bloore, Peter; Kros, Cynthia
This thesis is one part of a Creative PhD that investigates the emergence of a new breed of South African Indian gangsters in Durban and Johannesburg in the early apartheid period. The second part, existing as a separate creative text, is a screenplay for a feature film loosely based on dynamics and events present in the Durban Indian underworld of the 1950s. In the thesis I argue that while prominent ‘professional’ Indian gangsters were similar to other ‘non-white’ gangsters in certain respects (their self-fashioning in relation to gangster films, for one), these ‘gentlemen gangsters’ were different in terms of their high level of social and economic integration into Indian society. Focusing on the Crimson League in Durban and Sherief Khan’s gang in Johannesburg, this research comprises reconstructions from (and analysis of) interviews and written sources. It shows how these hustlers positioned themselves as protectors of the Indian community, but also cultivated reputations as punishers, capable of brutal violence if opposed. In Chapter 1, I explore the world of changing South African Indian identity in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and the mobilisation of an ‘Indian’ identity by disparate groups to advance collective interests. In Chapter 2, I look at how subjugated Indian masculinity, a sense of vulnerable ‘territory’, and the rise of street gangs intersected in ritualised games of soccer and gang fights. Chapter 3 traces the rise of Durban’s dominant gang in the early apartheid period, the Crimson League, a vigilante outfit that turned to illicit activities and thuggery. Chapter 4 looks at some of the adversaries that the League engaged and ultimately defeated, including the Salots and the Michael John Gang – I dissect the John murder trial to show how the Crimson League seemingly bent the law to their will. In Chapter 5, I move on to a description of Sherief Khan’s rise to power over rival Old Man Kajee in the Indian areas of Johannesburg in the 1940s and early1950s, culminating in an analysis of his gang’s various ‘business’ activities. Chapter 6 finds Khan and company back on the streets in the 1960s - and examines a decisive conflict with contenders, the ‘Malay Mob’, that re- established Khan’s reputation as ‘South African king of the underworld’. In Chapter 7, I look at how mid-century Hollywood gangster films resonated with Indian gangsters, and how a convoluted conversation between Drum magazine, Hollywood films and Indian gangsters developed. Chapter 8 concludes the analysis with considering the thriving South African Indian cinema scene of this period, and how the cinemas functioned as multifaceted fantasy spaces for both gangsters and ordinary Indians.
Men, Masculinity, Aggression and Dominance: An Exploration of How Young Men are Socialized to Deal with Situations of Man-on-Man Aggression and Dominance
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2019) Vilakazi, Zinhle; Davies, Nick
There is a considerable body of research placing young South African men at the core of interpersonal violence. Within these studies they are frequently positioned as both perpetrators and victims of extreme and homicidal modes of aggression. In light of this gendered nature of interpersonal violence, this study was directed at exploring how young men’s responses to a situation of man-on-man aggression and dominance might be linked to how society encourages or expects a certain masculine performance from men in such situations. This study’s secondary goal was to offer some ideas about how young men might establish a masculine identity through aggression and dominance. In the pursuing research aims, a total of 14 young adult men attending university participated in this qualitative study. From the analysis what became evident was the continuous pressure that young adult men experience in society, through various social institutions, to somehow fit into dominant or hegemonic constructions of masculinity. Within the context of this study, the proximal cause of aggression and dominance was attributed to broader concerns regarding presentation of a masculine identity, self-worth and social status.
Landscape, Rock Art Recording, Narrative: A Biography of The Harald Pager Archive
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2019) Moodley, Lemishka; Wintjes, Justine
In the early days of the discipline of archaeology, the archaeologist Sir Charles Thomas Newton stated, in a lecture at Oxford University in June 1880, that “the subject-matter of Archaeology is threefold – the Oral, the Written and the Monumental” (Newton 1880, p.3–7). By ‘oral’, he meant expressions of spoken language as a form of patterned communication passed down from the past, which he considered to be as significant as written texts and traces of the built environment. Newton’s statement also resonates with ongoing attempts to make sense of the fragmentary remains of the past by including living sources with links to those remains, often referred to as ‘oral traditions’. I argue that the domain of ‘oral’ could be extended in the contemporary context to refer to the realm of the ‘spoken word’. The spoken word is mobilised in the telling of personal histories of researchers engaged in making sense of the past, consistent with a move towards the study of the production of archaeological knowledge, and the broader context of the history of science. The past, and the investigation of that past, can be easily lost or erased with time, unless it is documented in some form. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a keen interest in knowing about the world that preceded me. So naturally, movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Mummy (1999), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), 10 000 BC (2008), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Brother Bear (2003) and many others, fascinated and triggered my overactive imagination. These points of inspiration even prompted many crazy shenanigans and adventures that took place in my back yard. Needless to say, my mother was never impressed because her garden was in constant danger of being destroyed through micro-excavations (as I had to find the treasure I buried the previous evening!). However, it was a Pixar animated film — The Croods (2013) — that recently re-ignited my interest in deeper human history. Despite its status as a relatively mainstream commercial animated film, The Croods sparked my curiosity to find ways to visit the past and bring yesterday’s stories into our lives today. After their cave collapses, the first Crood family has to undertake a journey to find a new home. The father, provider and leader of his pack, recounts multiple stories that urge and caution his children to follow the rules described on the cave wall and to not try anything “new”, or generally be curious for that matter. He sees newness as dangerous, with potentially serious repercussions like death. He prefers for them to dwell in the “safe” compounds of the cave in which they live. He develops “cautionary” narratives through visual means by drawing pictures on the cave walls using pigment and dirt he scoops off the ground. The animated film highlights the ways in which a pictorial expression in the form of rock markings could be enlivened in its original context of performance and story-telling, and, also, the ways in which history is forged through personal experience. The film also prompted me to reconsider the academic realm in which rock art is primarily situated in southern Africa, which is archaeology, and the possible perspectives that other disciplines could bring to bear on these materials, such as art history. My understanding of the reasons why rock art (and its copies) can and should also be considered and studied as an art form, ultimately stems from my own experience in art education. The rock art works made by the San people are encoded with “the history and culture of a society” that is “thousands of years old” and “a testament of the displaced ancient African culture and the San presence in the world” (Solomon 2005). By studying these traces as artworks, researchers, historians and archaeologists are reminded to look at the visual features, but also beyond the physical aspects of the work. They begin to consider the processes that contributed to its making, and the various interpretations and meanings that the work had in its context of production, as well as in its subsequent readings. An examination of the process of knowledge production not only draws attention to the development of artmaking and the manner in which different materials were used to create artworks, but also demonstrates the precarious nature of the meaning of rupestrian imagery. An example of this instability of meaning is evidenced by a body of oral histories relevant to the San context, starting with Joseph Orpen’s documentation (1874) of a mountain Bushman called Qing’s account of the meaning behind particular rock art panels. Thereafter, in 1911, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd produced Specimens of Bushmen Folklore, a book of 87 recorded legends, myths and other traditional stories of the |Xam Bushmen in their now-extinct language (Solomon 2005). These resources integrated the “spoken word” with Bushman ethnographic research and laid the foundation for how we read and write about the art today, and they also provide numerous different ways into the question of interpretation. I have utilised my previous first-hand experience as an intern at the Origins Centre, where Simone Opperman and myself worked under the guidance of Steven Sack and Lara Mallen. In working towards the exhibition titled, The Origins of Walter Battiss: “Another Curious Palimpsest”, we worked closely with the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI), and my interest in rock art and its archive grew immensely. Here, I learned of the Harald Pager archive, which is physically located at RARI. After speaking to my supervisor, Dr Justine Wintjes, and listening to the way in which she briefly recounted the story of Harald Pager, who was an active rock art recorder and researcher during the 1960s and 1970s, I wanted to learn more about the man who seemingly died for his craft. Wintjes mentioned that Pager recorded San rock art in the Drakensberg area along with his wife for many years. The Pagers relied heavily on their personal resources in order to keep the recording and documentation process going, and ended up incurring financial debt. Harald Pager was passionate about archaeology and sought to understand the rock paintings he discovered in his travels across the region, which also included what was then South West Africa (now Namibia). In one of the conversations held in the course of my Masters research, Neil Lee explained that Pager dwelled for months on end in a shelter in order to finish the copies of rock paintings he sought to record. Pager’s adamance and determination, and even his belief that he could change his metabolism, apparently led to ill health while recording rock art in the Brandberg in 1985. He died a short time later in Windhoek (Neil Lee 2018, pers. comm.). 7 Given the scale and meticulousness of Pager’s archive, and in light of the conversations I had about him, it seemed strange that his work and story are engaged with so seldom within academia. Nevertheless, Pager’s vast archive lives on in the storerooms of RARI, and now also in the digital world. His recordings were recently digitised during the course of the South African Rock Art Digital Archive (SARADA) project, which sought to scan and make more accessible the content related to southern African rock art at RARI and other institutional and private archives. With the rapid rate at which technology is developing and progressing, physical archives are being turned into digital databases, while also being supplemented by newly created digital materials. However, like all archives, digital archives are not ‘permanent’. They have their own kind of media-specific fragility. The digital archive also has the potential to become obsolete and demonstrates a different kind of limited lifespan. Although digital files are also not physically present in the same way that a physical copy or photograph is, and “lose” a particular kind of materiality and stability, they gain a virtual presence and potentially greater accessibility. As with the ‘original’ archive of rock art that exists in the landscape, the traditional paper archive and the digital archive represent different kinds of longevity and fragility, and have a complex relationship with each other. While being subject to changes and deteriorations of various kinds, the archive is important as a record of archaeological materials in the landscape, but is also a site where knowledge is produced, and the practice of science is conducted. Thus, I set out to devise a project that would address some of these interests and problems, to find connections between the present and the past, and to focus on ‘process’ across the rock art archive in the broad sense of the term. I also wanted my project to address absences and silences within the archive, embedded within the documents and copies as well as the rock art itself. I approached the archive as a layered domain that extends beyond the strictly ‘documentary’ archive, and adopted a ‘personal histories’ approach as a way of forging connections across that archive. I explain this working strategy in more detail in the ‘Methodology’ section below, but first I explore some of the conceptual elements that frame the project.
Analysing the player's involvement in video game character animation
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Ponde, Rugare; Whitcher, Ray
This dissertation investigates the impact of animation on player interest in an existing video game character. There is high demand and expectation regarding character animation quality, yet understanding and achieving this standard is complex and challenging. The quality of a character’s animation is often derived from its direct appeal to the audience and how its representation informs their impression. However, there is a gap in the literature where there is little on how style representation plays a role in character perception and identification in video games. A practice-led approach was used to understand the relationship between player involvement and the player-character's appeal. The process involved the creation of an animation reel to demonstrate how a popular video game character's acceptance can change based on a player's perception of style in the character's animation. I used Link from the video game Super Smash Brothers Ultimate (Nintendo, 2018). The reel was presented to adults between 18 and 35 to review the animations. Using the process of creative exegesis, the theories and concepts about character appeal, animation design, and player involvement were combined to analyse and critique the contributing factors that inform the perception of the creative work. The results from this study indicate that a change in movement style impacted the perception of Link and the participant's demonstrated interest to play him. This study confirms that style representations are an important design consideration to improve a character’s appeal. This topic may benefit the art and technique of character design and how to improve on it.
SHE LINES: The Duel/Duet of Eros and Thanatos in The Act of Drawing Desire: as an expanded Drawing practice
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Pam-Grant, Sue; Christopher, Natasha
SHE LINES The Duel/Duet of Eros & Thanatos in the Act of Drawing Desire as an expanded drawing practice. In my self-reflexive act of ‘Seeking Susan’, through the explorative act of Drawing Desire, I am drawing in my ‘She Lines’ through the act of (un)packing the Russian Cupping Doll as artistic process-as-practice. This performative disquisition is a self-reflexive, transdisciplinary exploration of Desire, Identity, Loss and Line as it presents through the psychoanalytic ‘Acting-Out’ process in the creative impulse of my expanded drawing practice. Through the act of both ‘Drawing out Psyche’ and ‘Drawing in Psyche’, the creative research interrogates the activating/acting role Eros and Thanatos play in my creative practice. What does the Duel/Duet of Eros and Thanatos look like in the Artist’s ‘Every Love Story’? Women’s imaginary is inexhaustible (Cixous 1976:877) I am reimagining the ‘drawn line’ as it traverses across disciplines and spaces, beyond the recognized traditional and conventional stroke, brush, pencil on paper or canvas. This creative research is an analysis of my transdisciplinary art-making ‘process-aspractice/practice-as-process’. It takes shape and form as a performative proposition: Conversations in Constellations /Constellations in Conversation Through my praxis and practice of mapping, tracking and unpacking, this ‘performance on paper’ analytically examines how, in positioning transdisciplinary process-as-practice in the space of the (in)between, new ‘She Lines’ emerge through ‘Drawing Beyond the Line’ in the performative Act of Drawing Desire.
Writing history through the hammer: an analysis of knowledge production through the South African auction houses
(2021) Maharaj, Arisha
This research will be examining the South African fine art auction houses, which make up the local secondary art market. There is currently very limited research on the local secondary market and the existing studies are largely done from a quantitative perspective on the economic value of art. This has created a knowledge gap for a qualitative study. The aim of this research is to locate the position of the art historical knowledge produced through the art auctions and motivate the placement of this historical knowledge in the larger landscape, as it comes from the bias perspective of a business. Through secondary research and an in-depth study into the functions and objectives of the local auction houses, the ways in which art historical knowledge is produced will be determined and its placement in the larger historical landscape will be argued. Drawing on the concepts of discourse, representation, cultural capital and power and knowledge from theorists Stuart Hall and Pierre Bourdieu, this will provide the theoretical framework for the research.
A visual-temporal excavation of Schaapplaats rock shelter: unearthing a trace fossil
(2021) Yorke, Naudia
In this research report, I set out to provide information about Schaapplaats rock shelter through a multi-sensory, ekphrastic approach as set out by the artist William Kentridge1 to guide the process of looking. As such this project presents an experience of space and time compressed within a single landscape. The research foregrounds the different ways of looking and different ways of perceiving the elements in the landscape. Schaapplaats is a farm located in the eastern Free State. A rock shelter at Schaapplaats which I examine contains a number of objects and traces that relate to various moments in time. The site is an event-loaded spatial nexus which I unpack, closely examining each object to expose the complex layering of objects and traces of events over time. My aim in examining the site in this way is to interrogate the variety of elements in the rock shelter to understand the complicated nature of time and the reading of it in objects. My methodology involves the slow process of describing and pulling-apart the objects, fieldwork that is primarily comprised of being in the space, and visually constructing and reconstructing the space and the elements within it – with a particular focus on the trace fossil (a dinosaur footprint) present in the space. The result is a reflective paper that considers meanings that could be drawn from a singular item, in conjunction with a number of other items within a space that is complex in its variety of traces and temporally layered.
Beneath the violence: a performance as a research inquiry into the use of performance as a rite of passage to better understand black masculinity
(2021) Johnson, Jermain
The purpose of this Performance as Research project was to gain a better understanding of black masculinity in urban Johannesburg, and the underlying different narratives of young black men in contemporary South Africa. This Performance as Research project made use of Applied Theatre techniques, Drama Therapy techniques and auto-ethnography as methods of inquiry to facilitate data collection and the creation of performances. It also included, specifically, autobiographical work, Invisible Theatre, and Self-Revelatory performance. The research locates itself within the Creative Research framework, as the dialogue on black masculinity was largely articulated through a creative process (a series of applied drama social inquiries) and a performance (pre, during and post). The researcher made use of movement as the medium to argue for the use of performance as a rite of passage to potentially transform held narratives on black masculinity, and to question the extent of the transformation
Composing Augmented Spaces
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Ferreira, Jaco Louwrens; Harris, Cameron; Crossley, Jonathan
This dissertation explores the notion of place as sensed, conveyed and created through soundscape composition. This is done by looking at works in the genre of soundscape composition and a concert presentation that took place in the Great Hall at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Spatiality in electroacoustic music is explored in relation to theories centred around the notion of place and practically applied to my concert presentation of Sound Spaces. Different forms of spatiality are explored from a compositional perspective with considerations for the listening space, the space created and occupied by the music itself and the methods of diffusion that allows for an augmentation of space. Sound Spaces forms the basis of my investigation of how spatiality in electroacoustic music and soundscape composition can be used to engage with the notion of place as created through the musical experience and illustrates how the notion of place can be incorporated as an active compositional domain in soundscape composition and electroacoustic music.
Causal analysis between unedited and edited translation text: Biko’s non-fiction prose
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Gumede, Thokozani
A research report submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree in Translation Studies from the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 2022
A practice based inquiry into materiality, minimalism, fantasy and actuality in animated documentary
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Pater, Dominik Łukasz
This thesis is part of a creative practice PhD that explores the creative possibilities of using animation as a documentary medium through the making of a half-hour animated documentary, titled Polonia, that takes as its subject a historical narrative focusing on the emigration of two Polish families from Poland in the early 1980s, set within the context of broader geopolitical events of that time. This written thesis contextualizes the making of the film by outlining a brief history of animated documentary and through a discussion of the key theoretical concepts that inform the discourse around this subgenre of documentary filmmaking. The thesis provides the historical context for the film’s narrative, outlines its production processes and unpacks its creative choices and iconography. The final part of the thesis discusses key theoretical insights that have emerged from the creative process and how they point towards a ways in which animation can be conceptualised as a legitimate documentary medium. The concept of constructedness as a means of self-reflexivity is identified as the key factor that grants animation this legitimacy. This leads to a discussion of the film as a spatial construct, resulting from the dual process of reconstruction and construction, and comprising both archival and cinematic spaces, as well as the liminal space that exists between fantasy and actuality. There is also a discussion of the film’s performance in and of animation, identifying the avatar as a distinct category of animated character that is granted documentary legitimacy, substance and interiority through its relationship to a real-world referent. Finally, the role of sound is addressed, as relating to the film’s self-reflexive constructedness.
Rediscovering forgotten IsiXhosa women writers: the visibility of Letitia Kakaza and Victoria Swaartbooi in the history of IsiXhosa written literature
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Salayi, Tembakazi
The benefit of the study is that it will give insight into a period in our country that failed to recognize women in isiXhosa written literature. This is also the period Letitia Kakaza and Victoria Swaartbooi made history by being part of the first black women to publish a novel in isiXhosa. We are also able to explore a country where missionaries took control by manipulating black men and women to convert to Christianity. It is during these times that the Lovedale Press was produced and isiXhosa literature was developed. The history of isiXhosa written literature has largely concentrated on men's contributions to its development, with little mention of women's contributions. As a result, women were silenced and erased from public records. This thesis aims to make visible the identities of Kakaza and Swaartbooi by providing their biographical information and background information of the different institutions that they were part of. The study explores how both writers interrogate language, identity, womanism, and education in their writing. As part of the study, a film has been created that explores the themes that are discussed in the paper. This thesis and the accompanying film project, Ndokulandela, reimagine the histories and experiences of black women writers. By speaking back to narratives that erased women’s voices, this re-imagining sought to correct the lens that only maintained one view of the history of isiXhosa literature. The thesis also raises questions on how biographical films depict women's experiences. The film incorporates both the past and present by including letters and manuscripts by both Kakaza and Swaartbooi as well as the current isiXhosa women writer's experiences. The study will also trace the literature written by the women and an analysis will be conducted of their work. Based on the analysis of the three novels, Intyantyambo Yomzi (1913), UTandiwe wakwa Gcaleka (1914) and UMandisa (1975), the thesis examines the themes that Kakaza and Swaartbooi discussed as well as the political context of the early twentieth century. These books irradiate how both women viewed a woman’s life during the time as well as the idea of womanism.
Hoop It Up, Loop It Back, Repeat: A Decade of Memory and Interconnectivity at a Johannesburg Basketball Court
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Cunningham, Alexandra Dolores; Goliath, Gabrielle; Kreutzfeldt, Dorothee
This research and artwork reflects on my memories of a decade at a public basketball half-court in the Johannesburg inner city. The court has become a home to myself and our larger community: its quotidian, repetitive, cyclical nature has allowed us to form a network and family. In exploring the ways in which our community has intertwined, I also explore the cuts and ruptures that occur. Using loops, hoops and the rhythmic nature of each day, my artwork reflects our communal desire for interconnectivity at the court, which forms a foundational netting. The repetition reflects my experience of family and positionality across dissimilarities, while also resonating with the rhythm of hip hop music: ever present at the court. Through conversations with other court community members, I explore these relationships and memories. In my artmaking, I use crocheted textile, pattern and imagery to reflect our experiences: something strong, durable and able to conduct a sense of warmth and comfort, yet also fragile and easy to unravel.
Black Writings: The Modal Mixtape Sampling and Remixing the Ethos of South African Poor Theatre with the Film Medium
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-03) Sono, Sipho Alex; Jansen van Veuren, Mocke
Let’s imagine I’m standing in a record store aisle, with all these nostalgic “records” of film and theatre that I’m too young and perhaps too black to be drawn to, but still somehow feel connected to. Not only that, but I can’t shake the feeling that these records have informed me as a South African and could form new work in a strong way. I'm trying to make a “song”, a cohesive language for my practice as a filmmaker, with an underpinning interest, ethos and an understanding of South African Poor Theatre. In my hand I have a Grotowski “record”, called Towards Poor Theatre (1976), that is the main sample for my track. I’m also “digging through crates”, looking at the Theatre of the Oppressed by Augasto Boal (1974) and other theories of theatre in film, to mix together to make the song. I’ve been listening to tracks by Athol Fugard and Barney Simon, as sources of inspiration. As Pharrell Williams describes chords as “coordinates pointing us to emotion” (2019) , I have begun to think that maybe plays such Woza Albert (1971) and Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972 ) and their recordings for BBC (1982 and 1983) can serve as chords and indicators to the direction for my filmic practice. Although you might not find a section entitled “methodology” in this paper, what you will find is that it is underpinned by practice based research methodologies, in the interest of Walter Mignolo’s epistemology disobedience. In this paper, I employ DJ Lyneé Denise’s concept of The DJ Scholarship (2013) as a research methodology, which sees the paralleling between the roles of the research to those of a DJ, borrowing ideas and recontextualising them . I sample theatre concepts, ideas and theories to mix and remix them and eventually form my own knowledge around my filmic practice. This notion of deejaying also exists in the research question itself, as it seeks to attempt a blending of two artistic disciplines. It is further carried in the way I approach film and storytelling, through the editing process, cutting, scratching, loop and rewinding for further indentation. This research further makes use of auto-ethnographic methods for meaning making and epistemic disobedience. These methods are employed through personal anecdotes and reflexivity as additive interrogators and informers to the research exploration. This research project also makes use of the personal, in the research film as a means to explore therapeutic processes for film as well as an exploration of the personal as a political enquiry. Auto-Ethnography functions in the crux of this research, it is an inquiry of the self, as a black “born free” South African and my relationship with Poor and Protest Theatre as an inherited artistic voice. As I stand in the middle of this record-store of theoretical frameworks and literature, I am also analysing the “records” which pick and sample. I am studying them and thinking about what they represent and what they indicate about me and the ethos of my filmmaking practice in a traumatised, post-apartheid South Africa . So let’s get to mixing.
The Efficacy of Community Music Education Programmes Towards Youth Development and Audience Development: A Case of Buskaid Soweto String Project
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-03) Thango, Simangaliso Siyathemba; Desando, Marcus Tebogo
The increasing number of community music education projects in South Africa has risen in the last two decades. Due to the sheer rising interest in the positive outcomes of these projects, previously underprivileged areas now have access to music education and a diverse range of musical opportunities. This research report assesses the efficacy of community music education programmes of the Buskaid Soweto String Project towards youth and audience development. The report used the Buskaid Soweto String Project as a case study done through interviews. The results attained from qualitative research conducted, have shown that the training programme administered by the Buskaid Soweto String Project yields good and positive results toits students. In addition, the success of the music education programmes has a favourable effect on audience development. Data collected, revealed interesting themes relating to the efficacy of music education programmes by Buskaid. The most notable outcome and results isthe direction and incentive the project provides to its participants and other existing and forthcoming community music projects. This research results also facilitate and create new study and research prospects in the field of music education in previously disadvantaged communities.
Situating the Camera Club of Johannesburg in South African Histories of Photography 1960–1989
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-05) Meyersfeld, Michael; Doherty, Christo
In this research report I present my dissertation together with a self-curated hard-cover book containing one hundred photographs. The two must be viewed as a single entity, with the dissertation providing the supporting evidence for the images selected. In this part of the research report, I discuss the Camera Club of Johannesburg (CCJ), focusing on the work produced by the black and white print section during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Given the progressive outlook of the leadership of the CCJ, work produced during these three decades was rarely seen at other South African clubs. The general apathy of the South African art world towards photography, combined with a sceptical view of camera club photography, resulted in these works being largely ignored. At a time when South African photography was mainly predicated on press and documentary photography, a relatively small group of dedicated photographers were aspiring to produce art with the camera. A selection of these works is shown in an accompanying hard-cover book containing 100 images curated by the author. To situate cameras clubs in the history of photography, I discuss three dominant movements: the Pictorialists, the Photo-Secessionists, and Group f/64. These movements emanated from dissenting voices within camera clubs, with Group f/64 being an example of like-minded photographers opposed to any form of manipulated photography. To highlight the difference between most South African clubs and the CCJ, I discuss the Johannesburg Photographic Society (JPS), the oldest and largest club in Johannesburg, and the Chinese Camera Club of South Africa (CCCSA), formed due to the exclusionary policies of apartheid. Both these clubs remained largely committed to Pictorialism. Both have ceased to exist. By way of contrast, I discuss three overseas clubs, each of which became highly successful by operating outside the prevailing club system to keep their work contemporary. These are the Photo Club Riga, Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante and the Lexington Camera Club. I argue that the CCJ operated at a different level from most other clubs in South Africa, that the work produced was progressive, and where the keywords of the founding statement of the CCJ – “where originality was not stifled by conventional judging” – were prophetic.
Challenging the Representation of Masculinity & Themes Pertaining to Rape Culture in Film & Televisual Media
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-06) Gondo, Jackson Onai; Heatlie, Damon; Dladla, Tiisetso
This dissertation raises questions around the representation of masculinity and in turn the notion of ‘toxic masculinity’ in film and televisual media, and will result in a project in the form of a screenplay and animated scene that subverts these representations and makes the audience, through viewing the film, question their relationship to toxic masculinity and ‘rape culture.’ The dissertation looks at the narrative and visual conventions pertaining to masculinity that have existed throughout the history of film and television and how they still manifest themselves today. It looks at attempts to subvert these conventions and where these attempts failed. It also looks at literary scholars who have theorized these notions of masculinity and how those ideas have indeed manifested throughout film and television.