Wits School of Arts (ETDs)

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    Seeking joy – Between Secrecy and Silence in a white Afrikaner Home
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Greyling, Marcia Elizabeth; Goliath, Gabrielle; Christopher, Natasha
    This mapping practice reveals how biomythography, theoretical enquiry and making can reveal a complex narrative of Afrikaner whiteness and its relationship to silence and secrecy. Themes of secrets and silences indicate the discomfort of witnessing discrimination and by virtue of speaking out, facing rejection and alienation along with those you defended. The image of the unhappy queer child speaking out at the dinner table against the “in group” is employed as visual metaphor. Self-portraiture finds expression in self-writing, performance and transgressive acts representing the tools acquired in my search for a self-affirming identity. My practice is an intentional repetition symbolising therapeutic disclosures; often repeated through voicing in order to work through trauma. A confessional divulges itself, both hidden yet exposed. A haunting insidiousness manifesting as what is not disclosed relates to concealment, protecting family secrets and the silencing repercussions of truth seeking and fearless speech. Opening up a conversation, this writing does not desire to suggest answers about changing whiteness as bad habit. Rather, I bring what is lurking in the background of white actions to the family table for an open disclosure. I am the source of the family’s dis-ease as I reveal a difficult, painful and uncomfortable conversation in which we must face our whiteness. In this explorative manner I keep open the force of this critical engagement and invite participation in this reparative work. I examine how we are stuck in the bad habit of whiteness as a study of self. Through this self-determined act, may I find joy.
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    Composing Speech: Investigation and Application of Musical Expression Embedded in Spoken Language
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Du Plessis, Marc; Harris, Cameron; Crossley, Jonathan
    This dissertation explores the musical potential of emotive expression in cut-up speech sounds. Cut-up is a twentieth-century technique with roots in Dadaism in which one cuts “pre-existing material into radical juxtapositions” (BBC, 2015), made popular in literature by William Burroughs in the 1950s and 60s. Speech is used primarily to communicate information relating to the world around us, but it operates sonically. Therefore, it has inherent parameters that can be manipulated to inform how information is received. The ability to manipulate the inherent sonic parameters of speech is one way in which it can be emotively coded. Sung vocals with lyrical content in music differ from speech in that the roles of information communication and the manipulation of the sonic parameters are reversed. Where speech relies on the manipulation of sonic parameters to augment or diminish the information being conveyed, sung vocals that utilise lyrical content rely on the semantic content to augment or diminish the sonic characteristics of the voice. Sung vocals could therefore be thought of as sonic utterances that are semantically coded. These inherent parameters are shared by music as it also operates in the sonic realm. The researcher used electronic music production techniques to isolate the shared parameters between music and speech (pitch, rhythm, timbre, and dynamics), and composed expressive, accessible, and engaging musical works based on these parameters. Digital music technology has the capacity to explore the limitations of sonic expression, due to its capacity to manipulate recorded sound waves. Therefore, it equipped the researcher with the necessary tools to manipulate cut-up speech sounds with compositional intent. The objective of this research was to compose musical works that drew from popular music styles, with an aesthetic focus on rich, timbrally expressive vocal material created from recordings of speech, to understand the expressive capabilities of the chosen raw material (speech sounds). The methodological procedure was to record speech from various sources, edit (cut-up) the phrases to create brief clips that were divorced from semantic signification, present the edited clips to an audience, and analyse their responses. The researcher used the insights from this analytical process to inform the use of the same speech sounds in the compositional practice. The researcher presented 26 examples (brief composed cut-ups of speech sounds) to 45 participants in a survey group and eight South African music industry professionals in one-on-one interviews. The responses yielded qualitative data that was analysed using thematic coding, followed by statistical analysis using Spearman’s rank v correlation (1904). The results provided vague answers to the primary research questions, but ultimately supplied the researcher with various qualitative interpretations of how the speech sounds expressed meaning in a cut-up context. This informed the researcher’s creative practice in the musical application of cut-up speech. Although the interpretation of the qualitative data did not result in definitive answers to the research questions, the aim of this research to explore the musical application of emotive expression in speech was achieved. The understanding that a listener experiences music in an inter-subjective and inter-contextual manner, combined with the expressive nature of the raw materials, liberated the researcher to compose expressive music without the need to know each listener’s subjective experience of expression.
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    Explicit and Implicit Cultural Policies: A Critical Analysis of the Role and Impact of Cultural Policies that Govern the Television Sector in Botswana
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Selolwane, Marang; Chatikobo, Munyaradzi
    3 Abstract The cultural policy landscape in Botswana is characterized by considerable ambiguity, with far-reaching implications for both the television sector and the broader media environment. Deploying the lenses of implicit and explicit cultural policies, stakeholder management, and intergovernmental relations, the study critically examines the role of policy in propelling Botswana's television sector forward. This paper establishes that the television industry in Botswana faces obstacles due to a convoluted regulatory framework and insufficient cooperation among stakeholders, leading to governance issues and impeding industry advancement. It highlights deficiencies in policy implementation and calls for enhanced collaboration between government departments and broadcasting entities to tackle governance challenges and foster sectoral expansion. The research addressed both theoretical and practical gaps in television regulation in Botswana, advocating for the establishment of a more cohesive and coordinated policy framework to facilitate sustainable growth within the sector. The central argument made in the paper is that the television sector in Botswana is shaped more by implicit cultural policies than explicit cultural policies, and therefore effective coordination and management of stakeholders driving both implicit and explicit cultural policies need to be located in both the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport, and Culture and the Ministry for State President to strike an equilibrium of interests and influence.
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    Things in flux : Understanding the ontological dynamics of digital heritage objects
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Coetzee, Anton Stephen; Wintjes, Justine
    Processes of digitisation, particularly within heritage-related fields, are frequently rendered as being infinitely thin and consequently mechanically objective. The lack of engagement with their complexity results in what Latour calls “black boxing” of the processes, technology, and practices. In this work I examine techniques and practices of 3D photogrammetric recording of archaeological, ethnographic and art objects and collections. Using two exemplars in the form of a late 19th century “curio” in the KwaZulu-Natal Museum collection, and a San rock art site near Van Reenen, I unpack and attempt to understand what is contained within these black boxes. I offer digitisation as a thoughtful, object-centric practice rather than data-driven process, drawing on ideas from Caraher’s “slow archaeology” and Stobiecka’s “prosthetic archae- ology”. Objects are decontextualised and unanchored in the process of excavation or procurement, and on accession into collections they are inducted into organisational and taxonomic schemas designed to afford them value as epistemological objects. These schemata are both biased and flawed, being natural heirs of colonial knowledge systems, and are thus lacking in awareness of multiple ontological viewpoints. By reframing the original thing and the resultant digital object in an ontological sense, I attempt to characterise these systems and their constructions of authenticity. I look to past practices of three-dimensional recording and copying, namely plaster casting of specimens and sculpture, and their role in not just practices of duplication, but also in furthering the colonial project and its epistemological flows. Collection, casting and digitisation — as acts of physical and material translation — perpetrate violences involving iii removal of things from their context, remaining adrift until re-anchored within schemata and rules. Understanding and challenging the nature of these rules is critical in avoiding the risk of reinscribing procrustean colonial approaches to recording and documentation. Furthermore, as metadata and data become inextricably entangled, it becomes more diffi- cult to recreate compelling narrative and “human-readable” context from these structures. However, these shortcomings might rather offer potential, building on Lev Manovich’s ideas of database trajectories and Ruth Tringham’s “recombinant histories”, allowing new and unforeseen paths through the data. I suggest that by eschewing neoliberal metric-driven approaches to “mass digitisation” in favour of small-scale, thoughtful practices, we foreground the opportunity to learn from and with the thing during digitisation. Opening up the “black boxes” and exposing and recording craft practices helps reconnect the digital object with the original thing, and offers a reconfigured view on digital authenticity. By formally recording these acts and decisions we can also contribute to the communities of practice which have grown around many of the arcane skills of digitisation.
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    Protecting Independent Local Contemporary Fashion: An exploration of policies that shaped the South African fashion industry and approaches to protect local independent South African contemporary fashion as cultural heritage
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Atkinson, Kendall Lee; Desando, Marcus
    Local independent South African contemporary fashion designers face a challenging market when entering the South African fashion industry to sell their products. Local independent contemporary designers are forced to compete with the overwhelmingly popular international fast fashion brands that populate malls nationwide with little to no support. This has created challenging and convoluted entry points for local independent contemporary designers and continuous challenges to stay in the market. Independent local contemporary fashion designers offer something different than chain stores: a specific creative and cultural design perspective. People are naturally influenced by their environments and identity; therefore, local independent contemporary fashion designers instinctively design from their cultural perspective. We are losing aspects of cultural identity and history by not supporting or protecting local independent contemporary fashion designers’ businesses. This paper investigates the challenges both the designers and consumers face in the industry and different methods of protecting local independent South African contemporary fashion designers to preserve their art and support the local fashion sector. The research methodology used was hermeneutical phenomenology, and my experience as a consumer of the South African fashion industry was not omitted due to the study method. Five interviews were conducted, three individuals participated in photovoice, and 84 participants were surveyed. The results show evidence of the innate interconnection of culture and cultural heritage with South African contemporary designers and the challenges that the designers face due to policy decisions by the South African government. In order to protect local contemporary fashion designers to allow them the opportunity for success, fashion should be declared as a cultural heritage by the South African government.
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    Digital avatar design and social masks: the atavism of totemic-storytelling
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Mofolo, Katleho
    Humans, often known as Homo sapiens, have long had a strong desire to create their own identities, both biologically and artistically. The human being is a storyteller who makes sense of the world through a chronological and linear pattern of narrations. Humans, on the other hand, have broadened storytelling through a variety of immersive means more than any other living organism. Some of these interactive approaches are becoming increasingly (1) digital, (2) augmented, and are now rapidly moving toward (3) virtual reality —the metaverse. These universes contradict our understanding of the physical world. Second worlds, alternative worlds, and the parallel universe are all terms used to describe worlds and spaces designed for extended human social interaction. In the 21st century is there enough progressive value and a sense of ethical evolution in the way humans communicate stories and alter social identity relationships to beam virtue into the virtual?
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    Responding to trauma: in what ways can an embodied expressive narrative approach, strengthen the agency of women who have experienced abuse?
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Menell, Katherine; Draper-Clarke, Lucy
    Woman abuse is both a human rights issue and serious public health concern, that has not received the aKenPon and acPon proporPonate to its prevalence, globally or locally. It has far-reaching effects, that include the impact of trauma on women’s physical and mental health. A need has been idenPfied for intervenPons that centre women’s voices and mulPplicity of experience, while supporPng their resourcefulness and resistance. This research aimed to develop of a community-based intervenPon that could support the agency of women who have experienced abuse. It proposed that a narraPvely informed, movement-centred expressive arts approach, was well posiPoned to address the effects of trauma and develop resources to build resilience and hope. A parPcipatory arts-based research approach was adopted with two groups of parPcipants, in experienPal workshop series, over three months. ParPcipants’ experience of the groups, in the form of creaPve wriPng, drawing and reflecPon, was analysed using themaPc analysis, as a means to evaluate the impact of the groups. ParPcipants consistently reported feeling relaxed and energised by posiPve and novel experiences. Movements, feelings, imagery and narraPves emerged that supported parPcipants’ preferred idenPPes, as expressed by their behaviour outside of the groups and arPculated hopes for the future. While this demonstrated the potenPal of this approach to support agency, a number of areas emerged in need of further development. These included expanding pracPces for eliciPng relevant themes and ‘thickening alternate narraPves’ and building relaPonal safety with a focus on the role of the witness and co-regulaPon.
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    Encountering apartheid publics: an essay film on Hendrik Verwoerd as public symbol 1958-1966 and implications for counter-publics today
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Effendi, Karima; Louw , Lieza
    The policies of separate development under Verwoerd created the material conditions for apartheid and capitalism to thrive, but it's the hypothesis of this project that the pomp and ceremony, the suit, his speeches and performative statecraft, created the affective conditions for his thinking to make its way from the past into our present-time. This is a discursive inquiry that draws on political theory, psychoanalysis, feminist theory and essayistic film theory to explore how the slipperiness of apartheid discourse makes it impossible to counter it on its own terms. Verwoerd symbolised a pernicious ‘covering over’ of irreconcilable ambiguities in apartheid discourse that was used to construct and stabilise whiteness against ‘other’ constitutive subject formations. The second part of the creative project is an essay film, Verwoerd’s Smile, that uses an ‘apartheid’ and colonial archive to attempt to show up its own discriminatory logic. The film’s failure in doing this has a productive value that is instructive for understanding how the cloak of invisibility that shrouds whiteness from being seen doing its work, also protects it from being dismantled. Understanding this has implications for radical projects concerned with undoing apartheid.
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    To regulate or not to regulate South African podcasts? A qualitative study on cultural expression
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Theledi, Kamogelo Tinyiko; Mavhungu, Johanna
    This research is a qualitative study that explores the grey area of podcast regulation in South Africa. Furthermore, this study assesses the role played by platform and government policies in the cultural expression of South African podcasts. The study undertakes the constructivism worldview as it looks at the podcast phenomenon through the lens of three podcasts. This research employs a qualitative multi-case study approach, and interviews are conducted with following case studies to achieve its objectives; Volume Africa, King David Studio and Nkululeko n Cultr podcasts. The aim of this research is to traverse to what extent has the influence of the non- regulation of South African podcasts had on cultural expression as well as to assess the role that government as well as platform policies play in the cultural expression of these podcasts. In the past 10 years podcasting has expanded rapidly as a popular cultural phenomenon, in particular, South African podcasts have allowed for the documenting and dissecting of cultural and societal issues (Mkhabela 2021). African podcasters use a variety of techniques and formats to showcase their shows ranging from diverse heritage, language, culture, and style. This study finds that the regulation of podcasts has become a mammoth task for South African broadcasting regulatory bodies. The study has also found that regulatory frameworks like those found in the Film and Publications Amendment Act of 2019 have become more reactive than proactive when regulating podcasts. Even though podcasts do not fall into the traditional broadcasting parameters, they still face some restrictions and regulations enforced by audiences, advertisers, and social media platforms.
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    Is There a Moral Right for Civilian Gun Ownership?
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Lowe, Graham Mark
    The topic of firearm ownership is a current and topical one, with compelling arguments both for and against. In this paper, I set out to prove the existence of a moral right to civilian firearm ownership. In order to achieve this, I selected the strongest (and only) rights based argument for the complete banning of firearms as put forward by Jeff McMahan, and proceeded to analyse and critique his arguments, with the intention of presenting flaws in the arguments, and thus proving the existence of a moral right for firearm ownership through discounting the strongest argument against it.