RESEARCH QUESTION: How can 3D-modelled and 3D-printed dioramas, sculptures and interactive digital artwork be used to explore my thesis that the Enlightenment/Counter- Enlightenment dialectic forms the core structure of our contemporary episteme? The following document details my project in theoretical and hands-on practice-based research in philosophy, 3D modelling, 3D printing and digital media. First a research question is proposed, encapsulating the project theme and direction. This question regards the application of philosophical discourses around Enlightenment versus Counter-Enlightenment to my material production. (...) An introduction will expand on this question and outline the basic philosophical terrain examined, the reasons for the media chosen, and the programme of research and practice. The subsequent literature review is divided into two sections: situating the project philosophically; and situating the project art-historically. The former examines a number of categories where Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought clash, including individualism, ideology, epistemology and method, science and technology, nature, religion, history, and universalism. Various positions of different authors are examined in each of these sections. In the second part of the literature review, theories about and works of dioramas are discussed first of all, as these form the core of my project. Works based on a clearly articulated corpus of ideas, such as Surrealism, are then looked at. Most significant in this section is a discussion of Duchamp and why I consider my work to fall into the realm of conceptual art. An analysis of Kosuth and how his works are strongly influenced by philosophy is also presented. An examination of the sculptures of Weiwei and his political vision follows. Finally, the contemporary 3D printed work of Aki Inomata is analysed. An outline of the methodology followed in the project, practice-based research, is then described, along with specific examples of methods used and new knowledge gained. Then a discussion of how my ideas affected the choice of materials and aesthetic decisions, and how these changed along the way, is presented. Finally, an exegesis of three of the key works is given, along with screenshots of the digital version of these artefacts. Exegeses of the remaining works are contained in the appendix. (shrink)

RESEARCH QUESTION: How can an architectural intervention mediate the adverse effects of political conflicts in South Africa? ABSTRACT: South Africa, a culturally rich country, has encountered much political conflict which has had an impact on the country’s vernacular architecture. Through the duration of the Apartheid, the political regime caused many indigenous people to be removed from urban areas, resulting in a loss of traditional culture in major cities and led to unregulated settlements on the outskirts. The Post-Apartheid era shows the (...) incline of poverty and decline of education, medical, and housing facilities for directly affected settlements, due to a series of politically driven conflicts. The question considered was; how can an architectural intervention mediate the adverse effects of political conflicts in South Africa? It is through a collaboration of technology, with the local culture that the architectural interventions can speak the language of the context. It shows positive progression towards the future, as the architecture reflects the context of the area and the site. This project “Building Hope” investigated a South African township and proposed a community centre that created opportunities that provided hope for the future and reflected the local culture through architectural design. Most importantly, the design was not a re-invention of traditional architecture, but rather an adaptation of traditional building techniques into modern architecture. It was essential to address the local municipalities current challenges, understand the township’s history and vernacular, as well as finding architectural ways to appreciate their cultural beliefs. The project was broken up into different considerations; political, historical, climatic, cultural, and poverty. These considerations, along with the surrounding contextual elements, impacted the community centre’s design. Architectural ideologies and theories were the underlying drivers for each design decision throughout the development stages of the project. Architectural theorists, and philosophers, such as Paul Ricoeur, Kenneth Frampton, have evaluated how to revive tradition while moving forward with modernity. Kenneth Frampton explains ‘Critical Regionalism’ in his 1983 essay, “Towards a New Architecture, Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,”1 as a movement that draws characteristic from the surrounding environment in order for architecture to complement its surroundings. This brought up an ideology that many historians claimed have previously moulded South African communities, called “Ubuntu.”2 Ubuntu is not an architectural concept but rather the personality of an area based on public attitudes. The concept motivated the project to become a positive intervention in an area that has experienced great negativity. The design intent of the community centre was to provide opportunities for work, to enable well-rounded education possibilities and also to provide spaces that supported social activities. Before completion of the project, the construction phase of the centre allowed the township residents to become involved in the creation of something that benefits themselves and those around them. The understanding of these factors aided in an outcome that successfully intertwines the old and new. It informed all the design and architectural values that influenced design decisions. The project is a small-scale project that attempted to achieve big change within in a South African township. As an architecture student that grew up in South Africa currently living in New Zealand, my intentions for the project were based purely on the want for positive progression in a society that hits close to home. (shrink)

In 2017 the Aotearoa Community Development Association and the International Association for Community Development held a conference, Sustainably yours: Community development and a sustainably just future, in Auckland where I presented a paper titled “Community development – The ‘missing ingredient’ in striving for sustainability”. That paper examined the United Nations Agenda 2030 and, in particular, the associated Sustainable Development Goals. This paper will explore a further significant document, also released in 2015, the encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato si’: On care (...) for our common home. The paper starts with some history of the Pope’s work, moves on to provide an overview of the areas Laudato si’ encompasses, analyses some of the responses it has attained, and then concludes with a review of how and where community development theory and processes fit with the document. (shrink)

An appreciation and respect of how knowledge is created, classified and perpetuated is integral to community-work praxis. As community workers, ensuring that we have an epistemological foundation that guides our practice in a way that focuses on the systemic challenges and oppressions of those we serve is central to how we engage with communities. What we are taught, formally and informally, is grounded in the epistemic foundations of those who teach us. We in turn use that knowledge in our everyday (...) engagement with the communities and individuals we serve. These epistemologies can and will cause harm if we are not careful to ensure that those we teach are taught the skills to engage with others in a way that does not eliminate or diminish their ways of knowing and creating knowledge. (shrink)

We report the results of a phenomenographic analysis of faculty beliefs about the purposes for teaching upper-division physical chemistry courses in the undergraduate curriculum. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to recruit a diverse group of faculty for interviews. Collectively, the participating faculty regularly teach or have taught physical chemistry courses in 16 different chemistry departments in the United States. While faculty agreed that the goal of teaching physical chemistry was to help students develop robust conceptual knowledge of the subject (...) matter within thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, spectroscopy, chemical kinetics, and other major topics, some articulated strong beliefs about epistemic and social learning goals. An understanding of the relations between different ways of thinking about teaching upper-division physical chemistry courses offers practitioners with alternative perspectives that may help them expand their awareness of the purposes for teaching physical chemistry in the undergraduate curriculum. Furthermore, knowledge of faculty beliefs about their teaching provides educational researchers and curriculum developers with an understanding about the potential opportunities or barriers for helping faculty align their beliefs and goals for teaching with research-based instructional strategies. We discuss our findings with the intention to expand faculty awareness of the discourse on physical chemistry education to include various perspectives of the purpose for teaching upper-division physical chemistry courses. (shrink)

The recent economic boom has seen the number of English language learners escalating in China. The Chinese enthusiasm for learning English has generated a growing interest from the West to teach in China. There is a need for these teachers to understand the unique teaching context in China. This understanding will help them deliver effective teaching. Focusing on EFL teaching history and discusses the impact of Confucianeducational philosophy onits distinctive features of EFL teaching.This paperwill be useful for all the educators (...) who deal with Chinese learners and will help them make informed decisions in their classroom practices. (shrink)

Philosophy, Science and Architecture have ever been engaged in serious interdisciplinary discourse. In various and profound ways, each discipline derives insight from the others. The discoveries and insights held between this triumvirate provide today's *developed* world an unprecedented degree of productive and creative potential, comfort and recreational pleasure. But as each discipline necessarily becomes increasingly specialised the ability for discourse becomes imperilled, for the ability to apprehend the internal language of each becomes correspondingly more difficult. The confusion described in the (...) mythical Tower of Babel comes to be understood as an emergent property of humanity's acquisition of insight. To ensure the continuation of the discourse therefore, effort must be made to facilitate it. SITE: Mount Albert Science Center. (shrink)

The Hawthorne experiments of the 1920s laid the foundation of leadership research, in particular into the question of "how does a leader achieve greatest staff performance?" In the ninety years of extensive effort and vast literature being generated, there is still today no systematic, scientific and causal answer to this question. Major effort was invested in resolving the question by many researchers which suggests that there are underlying issues not yet grasped that erode the effort and reduce the efficacy of (...) the solutions. We explore these underlying issues and provide a solution to the question of leadership that is scientific, causal and suggests a permanent solution to the question "how does a leader achieve greatest staff performance?". (shrink)

The dominant view of twentieth century analytic philosophy has been that all thinking is always in a language; that languages are vehicles of thought. In recent decades, however, the opposite view, that languages merely serve to express language-­‐independent thought-­‐contents or propositions, has been more widely accepted. The debate has a direct equivalent in the philosophy of history: when historians report the beliefs of historical figures, do they report the sentences or propositions that these historical figures believed to be true or (...) false? In this paper I argue in favor of the latter, intentionalist, view. My arguments mostly center on the problems with translations that are likely to arise when a historian reports the beliefs of historical figures who expressed them in languages other than the one in which the historian is writing. In discussing these problems the paper presents an application of John Searle’s theory of intentionality on the philosophy of history. The debate between the view that all thinking is verbal and always in a language and the view that human beings think independently of any language has had an extensive history in the philosophy of language for the past hundred years. It also has numerous implications for the philosophy of history, where the problem can be stated in general terms as the question of whether a historian, when reporting the beliefs of historical figures, reports the thought-­‐contents or the sentences that these people believed to be true or false. Among English-­‐speaking historians of philosophy, the latter view was promoted by Arthur Danto, the former by Quentin Skinner and Mark Bevir. Both positions are reflected in specific problems of history-­‐writing, such as, for instance, the question whether and how a historian can report the beliefs of historical figures who articulated them in languages different from the language in which the historian is writing. Both positions also fundamentally rely on the assumption that it is possible and legitimate to provide translations of sentences from one language to another when reporting the beliefs of historical figures; but, as we shall see, they are not on equal footing when it comes to explaining what counts as a legitimate translation. This paper explores the implications that these two views on the role of language in human thinking have for the philosophy of history. It will show that the view that all human thinking is verbal is not compatible with some fundamental and standard practices of history-­‐writing. Thus, the paper can be seen as a contribution to the debate about intentionalism in history-­‐writing. It argues in favor of the intentionalist approach by introducing new arguments derived from the philosophy of language, while at the same time proposing a formulation of the intentionalist position that relies on John Searle’s philosophical elaboration on the concept of intentionality. (shrink)