Publicação
Banksy’s multimodal representations : a cultural-rhetorical-cognitive analysis
| Resumo: | This doctoral thesis consisted of a cultural-rhetorical-cognitive approach to the work of the English street artist Banksy and in particular of his graffiti. By examining the aesthetics and function of Banksy’s graffiti in both street and contemporary art, this study has shown that Banksy’s graffiti differ from traditional graffiti in three aspects. First, Banksy’s graffiti created a new environment for street art on the contemporary art circuit. Second, Banksy’s graffiti enhanced the function of self-expression art, attributed to traditional graffiti, and became a means communication media used by the artist to comment, reinterpret, and criticise socio-political issues that have occurred worldwide. Third, Banksy’s graffiti came to appear as ‘creative weapons’ in the artist’s social-political activism. Regarding the name BANKSY, this study has demonstrated that in addition to being the authorial figure reference of the anonymous and most famous street artist today, it has simultaneously played an 'agency' role in the context of street art. In this study, it was also delimitated Banksy's artistic phases between the years 1993 and 2018, based on the growth of his artistic ethos and the pathos he awoke in his audience. Finally, this thesis presented a multimodal cognitive analysis of eleven selected Banksy’s graffiti, which represent each of the fronts of the artist’s socio-political activism, demonstrating, in the context of cognitive linguistics, some plausible interpretations of the visual metaphorical representations of these graffiti. For the construction of the theoretical framework, in each chapter, different theories were grouped to compound the basis of analysis. In the first chapter, theories of cultural studies (HALL, 2005, BARKER; JANE, 2016, BARKER, 2014, STOREY, 2015 and BARNARD, 1998) were associated with theories of communication and media (MCLUHAN, 1951/2001, 1964 / 2015, 2005, MCLUHAN; FIORE, 1967,1968, MCLUHAN; POWERS, 1989) to inscribe Banksy's graffiti within the context of popular culture and characterise them as media of communication. In the second chapter, Michel Foucault's (1977) reflections on authorship and Anthony Giddens's (1984) concept of ‘agency’ were brought together to characterize the name BANKSY as an authorial figure, within the scope of contemporary art, and ‘agent’ in the field of street art. Additionally, from Guy Deboard’s (2002) discussion of ‘spectacle agent’, Banksy’s anonymity was qualified as a means of guaranteeing his freedom of creation. In the third chapter, the Aristotelian canons ethos and pathos (KENNEDY, 1991) were used to locate the rhetorical resources Banksy used throughout his career and to define his artistic phases. Finally, in the fourth chapter, the association of Charles Forceville's theory of multimodal metaphors (1994, 1996, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2017), with the concept of irony by D.C. Muecke (1980), and the study of visual intertextuality by Eduardo Cintra Torres (2015) converged to form the theoretical framework used in the multimodal cognitive analysis of eleven selected Banksy’s graffiti. This analysis revealed that Banksy's aesthetics assumes a configuration of 'artistic weapons' against the capitalist hegemony of the globalized world and, at the same time, it inspires and contributes to expanding his audience’s social-political awareness, at a ‘glocal’ level. |
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| Autores principais: | Arantes, Rita de Cássia Bastos |
| Assunto: | Banksy, 1974- - Crítica e interpretação Arte de rua Arte - Aspectos sociais Arte e política Comunicação visual e arte Metáfora Teses de doutoramento - 2020 |
| Ano: | 2020 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | This doctoral thesis consisted of a cultural-rhetorical-cognitive approach to the work of the English street artist Banksy and in particular of his graffiti. By examining the aesthetics and function of Banksy’s graffiti in both street and contemporary art, this study has shown that Banksy’s graffiti differ from traditional graffiti in three aspects. First, Banksy’s graffiti created a new environment for street art on the contemporary art circuit. Second, Banksy’s graffiti enhanced the function of self-expression art, attributed to traditional graffiti, and became a means communication media used by the artist to comment, reinterpret, and criticise socio-political issues that have occurred worldwide. Third, Banksy’s graffiti came to appear as ‘creative weapons’ in the artist’s social-political activism. Regarding the name BANKSY, this study has demonstrated that in addition to being the authorial figure reference of the anonymous and most famous street artist today, it has simultaneously played an 'agency' role in the context of street art. In this study, it was also delimitated Banksy's artistic phases between the years 1993 and 2018, based on the growth of his artistic ethos and the pathos he awoke in his audience. Finally, this thesis presented a multimodal cognitive analysis of eleven selected Banksy’s graffiti, which represent each of the fronts of the artist’s socio-political activism, demonstrating, in the context of cognitive linguistics, some plausible interpretations of the visual metaphorical representations of these graffiti. For the construction of the theoretical framework, in each chapter, different theories were grouped to compound the basis of analysis. In the first chapter, theories of cultural studies (HALL, 2005, BARKER; JANE, 2016, BARKER, 2014, STOREY, 2015 and BARNARD, 1998) were associated with theories of communication and media (MCLUHAN, 1951/2001, 1964 / 2015, 2005, MCLUHAN; FIORE, 1967,1968, MCLUHAN; POWERS, 1989) to inscribe Banksy's graffiti within the context of popular culture and characterise them as media of communication. In the second chapter, Michel Foucault's (1977) reflections on authorship and Anthony Giddens's (1984) concept of ‘agency’ were brought together to characterize the name BANKSY as an authorial figure, within the scope of contemporary art, and ‘agent’ in the field of street art. Additionally, from Guy Deboard’s (2002) discussion of ‘spectacle agent’, Banksy’s anonymity was qualified as a means of guaranteeing his freedom of creation. In the third chapter, the Aristotelian canons ethos and pathos (KENNEDY, 1991) were used to locate the rhetorical resources Banksy used throughout his career and to define his artistic phases. Finally, in the fourth chapter, the association of Charles Forceville's theory of multimodal metaphors (1994, 1996, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2017), with the concept of irony by D.C. Muecke (1980), and the study of visual intertextuality by Eduardo Cintra Torres (2015) converged to form the theoretical framework used in the multimodal cognitive analysis of eleven selected Banksy’s graffiti. This analysis revealed that Banksy's aesthetics assumes a configuration of 'artistic weapons' against the capitalist hegemony of the globalized world and, at the same time, it inspires and contributes to expanding his audience’s social-political awareness, at a ‘glocal’ level. |
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