Event-specific art in New Zealand : a visual culture analysis of One Day Sculpture and selected case studies : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Visual and Material Culture at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

This thesis introduces the term event-specific art as a new way to view recent art practices. It defines event-specific art as practices that are transmediumistic, participatory, interventionist and temporary in nature and are reliant on documentation, and the effects of media convergence and relational networks. These types of practices also interrogate notions of publicness, spectacle and position themselves in dialogue with entertainment and leisure experiences. Because eventspecific art is engaged in the visual landscape of the everyday, visual culture studies, rather than a more conventional art history conceptual framework is employed. Interviews with artists, curators and critics provide the primary data for this research and close interpretations of event-specific art projects are undertaken. One Day Sculpture, a recent international series of temporary public sculpture based in New Zealand in 2008 - 2009 is the central case study of this thesis. Other case studies are utilised to demonstrate how event-specificity involves certain practices of looking that are present throughout the wider culture. Event-specificity is shown to be a particular modality of visual experience in the early twenty -first century.