Peter Trevelyan

Doctor of Philosophy, (Fine Arts)
Study Completed: 2014
College of Creative Arts

Citation

Thesis Title
Orthogonal Orthodoxy

Read article at Massey Research Online: MRO icon

In this investigation, drawing and sculpture will occupy (highly mobile and permeable) positions as respectively; ideal, abstract, perfect system in two dimensions, and actual, tenuous, compromised and contingent reality in three. The systems explored here will have their basis in the diagram, a mathematical system for the delineation, quantification and occupation of physical space. The translation of this system into the compromised, imperfect real world will be the main strategy used to investigate these drawing technologies, a three dimensional investigation of two dimensional methods and media. How can a sculptural practice, utilising drawing media as material and geometric formalism as methodology, undertake an investigation of systems (specifically abstract spatial systems, but with wider ramifications too), manipulating those systems so that the audience may experience a bodily affect of dread at the prospect of imminent collapse? I aim to confront the viewer with static object that are felt, understood immediately, viscerally, as being in a process that will systematically lead to its own decay, it is untenable. The research will demonstrate new knowledge in the discipline of sculpture, specifically the effect of gravity as an activating force, producing kineticism in static objects and the affect gravity can induce in the audience when adroitly manipulated as a physical sculptural force. 

Supervisors
Associate Professor David Cross
Distinguished Professor Sally Morgan
Professor Heather Galbraith