UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
Not a member yet
4792 research outputs found
Sort by
The early years of a Dutch publisher in South Africa: A case study of Van Schaik in Pretoria
Full text linkPrint culture came to South Africa with the Dutch East India Company, followed by the British colonisers. This influence persisted after colonisation officially ended, with the Union of South Africa in 1910. Many early publishers and booksellers were immigrants, especially Dutch immigrants. While the settlers were Dutch, many lent their support to Afrikaner nationalist causes. This article considers the implications of the colonial influence for the development of South African print culture, using a case study of Van Schaik Publishers, which was founded by a Dutch Immigrant, JL van Schaik, in 1914. Attention is paid to the question of how this early publisher saw its role in developing an ‘imagined community’ that engaged both with the culture of the coloniser and that of the developing settler colony. It is argued that Van Schaik played a significant role in the development of Afrikaans publishing, but little scholarly attention has been paid to his publishing philosophy and strategy
Evasive manoeuvres: Participatory theatre in the facilitation of counterdisciplinary action/inaction in a South African female correctional centre
Full text linkOver the past fourteen years in my capacity as facilitator of popular participatory theatre interventions (PPT) (Freire 1970; Mda 1993) in the Westville Female Correctional Centre, I have observed how this form has been able to transform the panoptic agenda (Foucault 1977) of the prototypical prison space into a dialogic space able to transcend space/time physicalities (Massey 1993). This paper theoretically explores how, in some instances, these interventions were able to invert the panopticon and thus divert the ‘disciplinary gaze’ (Foucault 1977:174) for the renegotiation of power. I propose that, through their form and intention as ‘rehearsal for change’ (Boal 1979), the interventions were able to extend the gaze beyond the prison walls, symbolically and momentarily dissolving them. I argue that this, coupled with the popular tactic of ‘evasion’ (Fiske 1989), which the interventions also enabled, created the opportunity for counter-disciplinary
Editorial
Full text linkNumber 26 is again an open issue that features current research by researchers from four South African tertiary institutions. In keeping with the expanded scope of the journal, the six articles deal with a variety of topics in various fields related to visual culture. Three articles deal with aspects of South African architecture, soap opera and fashion, whereas two others deal with broader generic issues related to design
Letters that speak: framing experiential properties of type
Full text linkLetterforms1 exhibit a great many structural differences across a plethora of assorted typefaces. Opting for the elegance of Chronicle’s charming characters over a bolder Bebas brigade for example, suggests that the structural complexity of each typeface strikes a remarkably particular tone. In my view, these complexities embodied by the letterform are under-explored in design discourse2 (van Leeuwen 2005:138). I maintain that typography is largely viewed as inherently linguistic – as dependant on the rhetoric of language. Furthermore, I believe that the visual manifestation of type is really a visual manifestation of language, of thought – a “true art”. In my experience as a designer and design educator, I have observed that the majority of typographic exploration is limited to the semantic quality of type, where the appropriateness of letterforms – changes in their structural composition – are qualified by the degree to which they promote and elevate the conceptual genius of either language, illustration or other forms of parerga.3
In this article therefore, I explore and illustrate intricate communicative facets of (Latin) letterforms as communicative entities in their own right. In doing so, special attention is given to type as experiential form. By this, I refer to connotations that we derive from our reminiscent and intuitive perceptions of “abstract” letterform shapes
Intrigue: the graphic designer’s code
Full text linkBooks published on South African communication design are rare to find. Sporadically, awards annuals or company showcases see the light, but few books exist that delve into the thinking and creative processes – with substantial depth of discourse – on local communication design and designers. Intrigue: the graphic designer’s code is one of those rarities that present the career accomplishments, philosophies and work of a highly regarded South African designer, Jan Erasmus
Nomads at a crossroads (X-roads): a framework for ethical design in South Africa
Full text linkIn various discussions on design,1 it is evident that the idea of competition is a central concern (Bonsiepe 2006: 27, Buchanan 1985:7, Lasn 2006:14, Margolin 2007:6). Owing to its rhetorical nature, design automatically fosters a culture of comparison,2 and competition is merely its logical dénouement. Design frequently, if not primarily, deals with demonstrating to an audience that a single information product or brand is superior, and not just different, to another. This fact alone is not problematic. Design can often be used, however, to create a perceived hierarchy of difference where no actual hierarchy exists. This idea is perfectly sensible in a capitalistic culture, since competition and the creation of perceived difference are matters of economic survival. Nevertheless, the ethical implications of this competitive streak in design are clear when applied to the way cultures are represented in a complex communication context such as that of South Africa
Unlocking identities in globalising South African art
Full text linkAs part of the centenary celebrations of the University of Pretoria, an exhibition entitled Visuality/Commentary was held in May 2008 to commemorate a history of more than fifty years of teaching and learning in the discipline of the visual arts. For the artists who participated in the centenary exhibition, the initial custom-made stage on which they learned to play was the Department of Visual Arts at this institution. Here they learned the skills and pleasures of looking, examining, conceptualising and representing, since this is what artists do: they survey the world, scrutinise and evaluate it; and they comment on it through visual depictions. In this article, the impact of world construction on the conceptual orientation of alumni of the Department of Visual Arts is traced. In particular, the relationship of artist to world is explored in the notion of a tertiary institution as an initial ‘world’ of learning; thereafter, the place of artists in a globalising world and the idea of the world as the metaphoric stage and playground of the artist are explored. All the artworks referred to here were part of the Visuality/Commentary exhibition
Framing the debate on race: global historiography and local flavour in Berni Searle’s Colour Me series
Full text linkCritiques of racial ideas, and their production and dissemination, often perpetuate a comparativist model, thereby re-inscribing the category of the nation; histories of various racial identities become entangled almost exclusively with narratives of national spaces. As part of a larger project that attempts to shift this nationalist focus in race studies towards a more ‘outer-national’ (Gilroy 1993:16, 17; Nuttall 2009:24) perspective, in this article, I focus on a series of installation works by South African artist Berni Searle. Searle’s Colour Me series, when read through this paradigm of the ‘outer-national’, productively interrogates the categorical boundaries of the nation in the historical production and subsequent life of racial identity. In my discussion, I read Searle’s work as an example of how race might be approached, not only as an identitarian category, but also as a global phenomenon.
To do so, I suggest that Searle’s use of spice powders places her work within the historical trajectories of the spice trade, and that this placement locates her work within a larger nexus that frames her performance of South African racial identities. I consider spices as compounded signifiers, simultaneously indexing the quotidian and the extraordinary, the local and the global, and the ritualistic and the historiographic. Furthermore, by reading the metaphorical relationship between race and spices in these works, I argue that the aim of Searle’s critique of race is to reveal how race as a concept can be used to deconstruct the very categorical and binary thinking that produces it in the first place. This allows for a discussion of the liminality of race and its existence at the boundaries of categories and spaces. Lastly, this territorial “in-betweenness” has certain historiographical implications. Searle’s spices construct an archive that simultaneously complicates the specifically South African inflections of coloured racial identity and de-privileges apartheid historiographical models in the post-apartheid interrogation of such categories. In other words, by not projecting a post-apartheid present into the past, Searle renders visible a multiplicity of archives through which to interrogate contemporary racial identities in South Africa. I propose that Searle’s historiographical and methodological shifts toward the ‘outer-national’ offer new ways to read local inflections and global trajectories of race
Problems with indigeneity:: Fragmentation, discrimination and exclusion in post-colonial African states
Full text linkTaking indigeneity and hybridity as opposite theoretical paradigms in the study of religion, this article problematises political discourses and practices that propagate the former view. The post-colonial resurgence of indigeneity is first contextualised with reference to anthropological studies of its political uses in Botswana and Cameroon, and then problematised with reference to its foregrounding in Freedom Park. It is argued that this tendency poses the danger of social fragmentation, discrimination and exclusion in post-colonial African contexts, which is precisely what the South African Constitution and National Policy on Religion and Education intend to prevent.
Interrogating conceptions of manhood, sexuality and cultural identity
Full text linkInxeba revived debates on ulwaluko and its attendant social discourses in South Africa. Elided by these debates, which saw the film censored from public view by the Film and Publication Board of South Africa, were formulations of ‘Manhood’ which we maintain are rooted in culture, tradition and custom; formulations that frame homosexuality as abject in our context. Through delineating Manhood from manhood proper, we argue that Inxeba reveals the nexus between Manhood, policed sexualities and cultural identity. In detailing the status of manhood proper, we critically unpack masculinity and challenge the ‘factual’ position of Manhood. The problematics which arise out of Manhood are informed by a (mis) conceptualised notion of this identity as stable and unchanging, creating dichotomous bifurcations of what constitutes being a man; a framework that is depicted and contested by the narrative of the film. Using feminist theory to interrogate culture, custom and tradition and its imposed silences on feminised bodies in contemporary South Africa, we explore how Inxeba subverts and contests Manhood through a propositioning of manhood proper