Dept. of Graphic Design - Ph.D. / Sc.D.

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Undoing recognition : a critical approach to pose in photography
    (Bilkent University, 2006) Ertem, Fulya
    This study aims to give an account of the act of posing in photography in terms of the self/image relationship in order to foreground an unexplored aspect of the pose that is its potential to question (self-)recognition and/or (self-)identification. By departing from an analysis of portrait photographs belonging to different cultures and historical periods, this thesis attempts to provide a critical approach to the act of posing through a productive communication between visual and theoretical texts and provides a new approach to the subject/image relationship.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Visual literacy, metafiction, and horror movies : an account of self-reflexivity in the new stalker film
    (Bilkent University, 2001) Anafarta, Orhan
    This study investigates the significance of metafiction, game, and visual literacy as they relate to today's changing practices of spectatorship. These concepts are elaborated in relation to the rebirth of the eighties' horror film genre 'stalker' as a selfreflexive text in the nineties. Scream (Wes Craven, 1996) is taken as the purest specimen of the 'new stalker' in which the abovementioned concepts can be observed with clarity.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Spaces of boredom : imagination and the ambivalence of limits
    (Bilkent University, 2005) Ejder, Özge
    This study aims to contribute readings of arguments pertaining to and conceptualizations of the experience of boredom to discussions of art, philosophy and culture. Relevant histories and readings of philosophical accounts of boredom are considered in order to enable an understanding of boredom as generative of distinctive understandings of space. This is further developed as an account of boredom as problematic in the reception and creation of literary and visual art. Beginning from critical discussions of boredom in recent cultural and critical commentary, in particular discussions of the everyday, this thesis considers the phenomenological analysis of the everyday that is at work in Martin Heidegger’s account of boredom and in rewritings of this analysis, as the experience of the impersonal, in texts by Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas. Boredom is shown to provoke an ambivalence that can nevertheless unfold, or produce, spaces of thought, art and the everyday through the experience of the impersonal. The limits of these spaces of boredom invite us to certain passages through experiences of ambivalence where thought, art and the everyday are opened up, by means of an imagination of boredom, to new possibilities.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A design model for the space planning of child care centers
    (Bilkent University, 1999) Tezel, Elçin
    Since the activities that children involve provide the attainment of abilities in the developmental fields of the early childhood period, the organization of the space through the activity centers influences the improvements in the developmental fields. The communication between the educators and the designers provides the tools surpass the mismatch between the educational decisions^and their interpretations in the space planning. A design model which provides the integration of educational and architectural expert knowledge through the variables of decision making processes is developed for the interior space planning|of the child care centers. A field research is conducted to examine the variables of the educational applications influential on the planning/with respect to the different plan types. The usage principles, relations of the activity centers and the space characteristics are examined in the research.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The digital fulcrum: consequences of computer technology on graphic design
    (Bilkent University, 1998) Özkal, Özlem
    Departing from prevalent use and visible influence of computers on graphic design field, this study basically endeavours to elucidate the current problematics of the digital design process. In this context, with an inspection on the nature of technology, and respectively the concepts that form and help to specify computers, it aims to arrive at conclusions considering the relationship of graphic design and computers to help construct an awareness towards technology and computers in the digital design process.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Yeşilçam in letters : a "cinema event" in 1960s Turkey from the perspective of an audience discourse
    (Bilkent University, 2002) Mutlu, Dilek Kaya
    This study examines “Ye§il9am event” in Turkish cinema from the perspective of an audience discourse that is reconstituted from the audience letters published in popular cinema magazines Sinema and Perde. Through a study of the letters, it is observed that neither Ye§il9am cinema that marks the 1960s can be reduced to a film industry nor the social experience of it could be evaluated in terms of a cinema-audience relation consisting merely of movie going and film viewing. The topics and the forms of expressions in the letters suggest that Ye§il9am was a “cinema event” diffused throughout everyday life especially through social images of stars and that the audiences had an important role in its (re)production and circulation outside movie theatre.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Encounter, mimesis, play: theatricality in spatial arts
    (Bilkent University, 1999) Sarıkartal, Çetin
    On the basis of the experience of four works from Turkey, this study attempts to reveal that actual experience of spatial arts (traditionally called visual arts) is also theatrical. During the study, it is observed that the fundamental factor behind the experience of spatial artworks is an uncanny encounter with them in a specific space- time. The study further argues that the enactment of the audience in the space-time of the work involves an intermingling of pre-rational and rational modes of mimesis and play. In this context, a theoretical study can be based on sensuous bodily affection by the works, following the traces of practical logic, which is effective during such experience.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Temporality and belief : time of the political from the perspective of an ethics of immanence in the philosophy of Deleuze
    (Bilkent University, 2012) Yalım, P. Burcu
    The political as object of philosophy is conventionally caught up, vis-à-vis philosophy, in its status as object. They are together but held apart in that the relation between the political and the philosophical tasks is one in which philosophy assumes the function of reflection upon the conditions of the political, while the political itself can be said to be romanticized in this amorous distance between the two. The philosophy of Deleuze (and Guattari) which is considered in this study as a forceful break with and turning away from this precise attitude which both weakens thought and strips the political off of its vital force, is often criticized in contemporary philosophical studies as being apolitical. This situation is considered here as a consequence of the contemporary understanding of the domain of the political as a universal given of a certain order. To challenge this conception, Deleuze’s philosophy is reconsidered first in relation to Spinoza in terms of the ethics of immanence, and then in relation to Bergson in terms of temporality in order to determine the specificity of his thinking of politics both in relation to an in difference from both. It is suggested here that once the political is subjected to such a treatment by Deleuze, it assumes a direction of change in that this divergence can no longer be contained within the contemporary understanding of the political but requires thinking of politics in another way.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Interpreting glitch
    (Bilkent University, 2012) Tunalı, Funda Şenova
    the manifestation of digital culture : a study on the association between contemporary sound design and digital typography
  • ItemOpen Access
    Exploring vertical navigation within a virtual environment : a staircase experience
    (Bilkent University, 2012) Memikoğlu, İpek (Sancaktar)
    Architectural cues are configured by architects in the initial phase of design process. Local architectural cues within an environment can aid individuals during navigation and influence their spatial orientation. Staircases, as a feature of local architectural cues that provide access to the other floors in a multi-level building can have an impact on vertical navigation. This study focuses on the issue of vertical navigation during virtual navigation by integrating the individual characteristics and the geometric attributes of a staircase pair within two different multi-level desktop virtual environments (VEs). The angle between the cue pairs with respect to the same observation point is altered in order to determine the staircase pair that is more efficient in navigation. Circulation paths, gender differences, navigational abilities and cue pairs are considered to be factors that affect staircase preferences for ascending and descending. For the VE with a 180° difference between the cue pairs, there was a relationship between the ascending and descending staircases. Further analysis indicated that the staircase preference in ascending was either related to the first or last visited rooms on the ground floor. For the VE with a 90° difference between the cue pairs, no relationship was found between the ascending and descending staircases as well as with any other factor. There was no significant relationship between gender and staircase preference except for the descending staircase with 180° difference between the cue pairs and was in favor of females. In addition, there was no significant relationship between the navigational abilities and staircase preferences.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Masculinities in Yılmaz Güney's star image in the 1960s and 1970s
    (Bilkent University, 2012-05) Koçer, Zeynep
    The dissertation approaches Yılmaz Güney as a social event and a phenomenon. It argues that Güney created a male Anatolian myth with his on-screen and off-screen masculinities, his physical difference from other Yeşilçam star and his moralistic attitude toward women. In order to investigate this myth, the dissertation historicizes Güney's star image within the socia-economic and political discourses of the 1960s and 1970s and points to an ambivalence, which stems from the contradictions in Güney's star image. The dissertations aims to demostrate this ambivalence in Güney's star image by discussing the ordinary and extra-ordinary characteristic of stardom and the socio-economic and political ramifications of the late-republican modernization project.
  • ItemOpen Access
    An evolutionary basic design tool
    (Bilkent University, 2010) Akbulut, Dilek
    As a creative act, design aims at achieving innovative solutions to fulfill the requirements provided in the problem definition. In recent years, computational methods began to be used not only in design presentation but also in solution generation. The study proposes a design methodology for a particular basic design problem on the concept of emphasis. The developed methodology generates solution alternatives by carrying out genetic operations used in evolutionary design. The generated alternatives are evaluated by an objective function comprising an artificial neural network. The creative potential of the methodology is appraised by comparing the outputs of test runs with the student works for the same design task. In doing so, three different groups of students with diverse backgrounds are used.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Opera functioning as narrative in films : Apocalypse Now - Godfather, part III - Philadelphia
    (Bilkent University, 2001) Tanrısever, Benal
    This thesis examines the opera-film-music relationship from various points of view. With all the technical advances in the film industry, music for the films is still composed in the late nineteenth century, romantic style. We will try to offer some answers related to this subject. In the three films selected for analysis, music and visuals exit in contrapuntal relationship. Music becomes the third dimension next to words. Francis Ford Coppola is one of the most knowledgeable composers for using music in films. His first film in analysis is Apocalypse Now, where music is utilized as part of the drama. In Godfather, Part III music moves and develops together with the plot. The third film in anaysis is Philadelphia, directed by Jonathan Demme. The music is utilized to intensify emotions and the drama of the film. In all three films, music becomes the narrative of the visuals.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Putting genealogy into perspective : for a genealogical critique of design and designers
    (Bilkent University, 2001) Kurtgözü, Aren Emre
    In this work, genealogy, as a form of historical critique inaugurated by Friedrich Nietzsche and later taken up, refined and consolidated by Michel Foucault, has been extensively studied. Since Foucault was responsible for the refinement and application of genealogical techniques of analysis in the field of modern disciplines, Foucault's corpus on the subject has been painstakingly analyzed in order to develop a genealogical method for the analysis and critique of design discipline. To reveal the origins of design and its relations to diverse networks of power, the discourse of design throughout history has been studied in order to compile an inventory of design concepts, statements, definitions, etc. Definitions of design has been isolated from this inventory on the assumption that they are most susceptible to genealogical analysis. Then, through an analysis of design definitions, the specific mechanisms of design discourse through which designers responded to diverse networks of power has been revealed.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Reading material culture: An analysis of design as cultural form
    (Bilkent University, 2001) Timur, Şebnem
    The aim of this study is to explore the possibilities of how the product form conveys meaning, and then how this meaning can be the bearer of any kind of cultural information or inscription upon the object. The reading of the object is discussed within the framework that can be named as the ‘material culture of the everyday.’ Situating and defining design as a product of modernity, specific categories of objects and related theories about the possibility of the modern subject and his subjective relation with the world of objects is discussed. Last of all, following the route of identity, the Turkish tea-pot set and water-pipe is chosen for a deeper analysis for demonstrating the mechanisms or forces that shape these objects of cultural rituals within the dynamics of tradition and modernity.
  • ItemOpen Access
    The ultrasound fetal image : the event of birth, female body and medical discourse
    (Bilkent University, 2008) Ocak, Ersan
    The use of ultrasound fetal image has become common in medical practice. The ultrasound is a contemporary result of a long medical and technological history, in which the human body and its pathologies are known and controlled by medical apparatus. It is a specific form of image produced by what Michel Foucault called the medical gaze. The thesis offers a genealogy of the ultrasound image and then turns its attention to its contemporary use. By taking the obstetrical examination room as a social context, it shows that what is at stake is not merely technological but actually a social relationship, at the center of which visibility plays a fundamental role. This new power context controls and administers both women’s body and the emergent fetal body, which it perceives as an “originary human form.” In the culture at large, the fetus is even turned into a citizen with its rights, a metaphor which the anti-abortion movement used and abused extensively. Reading fetology as well as the fetal image in terms of a social relationship of power, it is demonstrated that the woman’s body is treated as mere environment. However, although technology is an important part of this biopolitics, it can also be read as an extension of human body through which the body knows and complicates itself.