Repetitive Deficiencies and their Limitations Placed on Ceramic Forms and Dementia

Repetition is an approach and an impulse that has been a driving force in my art practice, almost to obsession. The obsession to create the same form over and over again can be banal, so why intentionally repeat? Deficiencies to the form occur in the process of repetition, details get lost, just as details get lost with a person living with dementia. Repetition is also a key behavior in dementia, which is a deficiency of the brain. What impulse does a person who has dementia have, to repeat the same conversation to anyone who will listen? This thesis will attempt to articulate repetition and limitation, within my practice in ceramics. Using a neuro-psychological framework my research focuses on procedural memory. My work consists of numerous ‘experiments’ in clay and glass, creating forms with specific parameters. These guidelines will describe the way I create, and encompass limitation and repetition. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Maya Lin, Ann Hamilton’s, Marek Cecula and Gregory Barsamian, I hope to create a body of work that proposes a genesis within the context of dementia and art

“Thus changed, I return…”: The Programmatic Prologue of the First Surviving Opera Euridice (1600) by Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Peri. Euripidean, Senecan Poetics and Music as Representation

Without denying the influence of Renaissance theatrical practice, especially the “tragi-comedia pastorale” on the birth and development of the opera, I argue that Rinuccini aims at a rebirth of the ancient Tragedy in his Prologue of Euridice, the first surviving Opera (1600), well aware that his production was not a historically accurate reconstruction of ancient Greek tragedy. As we see from the Prologue, on one hand La Tragedia retains in her repertoire sighs, tears, laments from a purely human point of view wanting to awake sweeter emotions of the heart, on the other hand she aims at a catharsis through a happy end of the story. I am not convinced that our poet in his prologue rejects the catharsis effect of the Greek tragedies and that his opus stands in opposition to the Aristotelian precepts for tragedy as many musicologists and music historians think. In this Prologue, that is actually a recusatio, I think that Rinuccini wants his Tragedia to illuminate the nature of the pleasure that the audience derives from the experience of tragedy. The emphasis of La Tragedia on the purely affective has more to do with features of the Euripidean dramaturgy than the Senecan tragedy, which became the greatest force in the moulding of Renaissance Tragedy.Não desconsiderando a influência da prática teatral renascentista, especialmente da “tragi-comedia pastorale”, no nascimento e desenvolvimento da ópera, meu argumento é que Rinuccini tinha em mente o renascimento da tragédia antiga no Prólogo de Eurídice (1600), a primeira ópera que conhecemos, ciente de que sua produção não consistiu numa reconstrução historicamente acurada da antiga tragédia grega. Vemos no Prólogo que, de um lado, La Tragedia mantém em seu repertório olhares, lágrimas, lamentos de um ponto de vista puramente humano, desejando despertar no coração emoções mais prazerosas; de outro, ela propõe uma catarse por meio de um final feliz para a história. Eu não estou convencido de que, no Prólogo, nosso poeta rejeita o efeito catártico das tragédias gregas, nem que sua obra se coloque em oposição aos preceitos aristotélicos para a tragédia, como pensam muitos musicologistas e historiadores da música. Penso que, em um Prólogo que é na verdade uma recusatio, Rinuccini quer que sua Tragédia lance luzes sobre a natureza do prazer que a audiência obtém da experiência da tragédia. A ênfase de La Tragedia sobre o puramente afetivo tem a ver com certas características da dramaturgia de Eurípides, mais do que com a tragédia de Sêneca, que se tornou a força principal na moldura da tragédia renascentista