Doctoral studies

Elzė Sakalinskaitė-Beinaravičienė

19th March 2021

"Health-Promoting Accessories: The Interaction Between Science and Art"

Creative part supervisor prof. Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė
Theoretical part supervisor prof. dr. (hp) Aleksandra Aleksandravičiūtė

This doctoral research is based on the idea that disability is not a personal weakness (temporal or permanent) – it is more a physical distinction and uniqueness, therefore, health-promoting accessories, conceptual jewelry, could be seen as an original benefit or expression of a personal style.

The aim of this research is to create health-promoting accessories that can visualize personal disability as a unique individual feature. It can serve the disabled person to represent his personality, experience positive aesthetical emotions and positive responses fom the the social environment, thus consequently improve health-promoting possibilities of a patient.

Theoretical research aims to analyze the already existing transdisciplinary health-promoting accessories in Lithuania and foreign countries, compare them, discuss design solutions, uncover conceptual and phylosophical ideas that artists encoded in their artworks, as well as evaluate trends and possibilities in this field.

Justė Pečiulytė (ArcInTex ETN)

27th November 2020

"Atmospheric Spatial Modelling. Ways of Staging Space with Textile Setups"

Creative part supervisor prof. Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė
Theoretical part supervisor dr. Gintautė Žemaitytė

The disciplinary boundaries of physical modelling are stretched considerably when it is used in an art-based research context. This practice-based research looks at the ways in which the concept of “atmospheric” redefines and expands our understanding of spatial modelling practice. The research is underpinned by emerging theories that posit the performative, embodied, and cinematographic potentials of spatial modelling. 

Atmospherically rich dwelling environments do not arise from conceptualised, representational modelling frameworks, as these simply do not allow for atmospheric expressions. The design perspective adopted in this inquiry placed the focus on modelling practice and, consequently, related acts and gestures. The aim of this research was to explore the potential of spatial modelling as a fundamentally atmospheric activity, and staging as a spatial modelling act.  The practical work investigated the expressive potential of textile materiality with regard to design acts and gestures; a conceptual framework called The Atmospheric Staging Studio was used for the methodological exploration of modalities and modes of staging with textile setups. 

The Atmospheric Staging Studio sensitises designers to modelling acts and gestures. The design conditions it suggests highlight the importance of awareness, humbleness, and adaptability within the interior modelling process. In design education programmes, the further development of this framework could lead to a design model based on embodied spatial knowledge.

website
instagram | @atmospehricstaging

Kristė Kibildytė-Klimienė

12th June 2020

"The Problem of Personalization in Contemporary Design"

Creative part supervisor prof. Aušra Lisauskienė
Theoretical part supervisor assoc. prof. dr. Lolita Jablonskienė

The problem of personalization in design is a phenomenon currently taking form. As most processes in times of liquid modernity, it is ambivalent, self-subsistent and self-intensifying, compulsive and obsessive, unable to contain its form for longer periods, it, indeed, even does not have a solid form. Design discourse also sees a diversity of its manifestations. Therefore, the most adequate analytical take of the phenomenon of personalization is through an open system and lose links between different factors at work (the mapping of shape-taking social and cultural factors). Such a system does not operate like a theory that underpins examples of personalization, while examples are there not to support a theory. It is a process of tracing parallels – e.g., potential linkages. The aim of the research is a critical reflection of personalization in contemporary design and of its impact on design discourse and practice, the changing of the standpoint to this tendency and at the same time, the broadening of the awareness of design in its connection to social and cultural phenomena.

The general aim of the project The Problem of Personalization in Contemporary Design is not to pinpoint a problem and to pursue solutions, yet to unpack the complexity of the problem in theoretical research part, and with the resulting understanding of the ambivalence of the phenomenon, to undertake the shaping of a new kind of approach through creative practice, e.g., to come up in the creative practice part, with a new expression to the problematics of personalization.

Creative experiments and design practice led to the creation of an original concept of personalization. The project of surface design Aporetic Surface is an attempt to express a critical standpoint to the phenomenon of personalization by using a hands-on-approach. This decision was made, on the one hand, due to the aporetic nature of personalization and the impossibility to arrive at a consistent and closing conclusion of the research. On the other hand, material thinking allowed to concentrate on critical approach and to interpret the tendency of personalization by creating a new expression. The choice of the hands-on principle was motivated by the interest to operate in a particular area of design that expands the field of visual communication. In this case, surface design has been relocated from the category of decorative and product design to a conceptually perceived field of visual communication.

Rokas Dovydėnas

7th February 2020

"3 Ceramic Stories: In Search of Personal Approach"

Creative part supervisor assoc. prof. Juozas Brundza
Theoretical part supervisor prof. dr. Giedrė Mickūnaitė

This study, 3 Ceramic Stories: in Search for Personal Approach, shows the possibilities of combining different content elements – writing, ceramic installations, materials, stories, and analysis of cultural history – into practice-based artistic research. If a space was a question, these works were an answer. This is a conversation between an exhibition or a museum hall and the artwork exhibited therein. This is my way as a researcher to converse with the viewer through works and their environment. I speak about failure and copy, transferring research from substance (clay) to its (non-)potential of expression in contemporary culture.

It is widely believed that discoveries and inventions change the world. History preserves the names of heroes, while prospectors who have left for the most important journey of their lives and got stuck halfway do not receive extensive studies. In the history of ceramics and in the craft of pottery, I discover cases in which failure saves the craft and items made by accident become part of the story. This experience has led me to the question - how much artist-designer is (not) influenced by the knowledge of historical art? This artistic project presents searches and possible answers.

Marius Dirgėla

20th December 2019

"The Problem of Authorship in Contemporary Design"

Creative part supervisor prof. dr. Vytautas Kibildis
Theoretical part supervisor assoc. prof. dr. Jūratė Tutlytė

The thesis assumes that the attitude of the creator of a design towards authorship and originality can influence professional success. In order to confirm or deny it, first, the development of the perception of originality and authorship are reviewed from a historical, philosophical, legal, psychological, and pedagogical perspective, and the key concepts related to authorship in the field of design are discussed. On the basis of accumulated knowledge, quantitative research, which includes a questionnaire survey and an analysis of results and reveals the attitude of Lithuanian design students towards ethical aspects of the profession, as well as qualitative research, namely, interviews of 8 famous Lithuanian designers, are conducted. By comparing the results of the theoretical, quantitative, and qualitative research, general conclusions are formulated. In the field of design, due to its specificity, absolute authorship of decisions is impossible and even undesirable, and the persecution of cases of copyright infringement, as they are understood in the current copyright law, as well as the restriction of access to creative output has a negative impact on the quality of creative output of other members of society, from financial, security, and moral point of view. At the same time, design schools, with rare exceptions, focus on the independent search for new problems and unique solutions for those problems, which is often done collectively. This threatens the loss of continuity and dematerialisation of the discipline.

In that regard, the creative part of the project is executed as a copying experiment, which seeks to test whether such a traditional method of development could be useful in the modern study process. The experiment shows that such activities would help develop the ability to move beyond one’s ego, enhance the skills of a work activity having a well-known and clearly described desired outcome, accumulate tacit knowledge, and become familiar with the techniques for deeper than visual cognition of an object and the practice of generating creative ideas that result from it.

Renata Maldutienė

26th April 2019

„Colour Forecasting in Lithuanian Fashion Industry“

Creative part supervisor prof. dr. Vytautas Kibildis
Theoretical part supervisor dr. Ieva Pleikienė

The main object in this research is the global colour forecasting process with its methods and their significance to Lithuanian fashion. Global fashion trends and colour forecasts do not adapt well to the Lithuanian fashion market. Local fashion industry lacks adequate methodical tools, which could help test how to better understand the consumers’ taste and demand for colours. More accurate information about the methods for adopting global colour forecasts and forecasting local colours could stimulate a chain of desirable phenomena in the field of Lithuanian fashion design. Thus, different methods and models of colour forecasting in the global Western fashion system are analyzed in the theoretical part of the art project. The process of colour forecasting in Lithuanian fashion industry is investigated through in-depth interview. According to the obtained data, the local model for the adoption of global colour forecasting in Lithuania (LAM) is being developed. The comparative analysis of two models (GCFM and LAM) defines the contradictions and factors existing between them. Considering the peculiarities of the colour forecasting process in the local fashion industry, a group of methodological tools is created and proposed to compensate for the shortcomings of the LAM. A new local model for the adoption of colour forecasting (NLAM) is being constructed in the research that could be applied in the Lithuanian fashion industry.

The artistic part of the art project did not aim to obtain results of fashion colour forecasting directly. The aim of the artistic practice was to delve into those fields of knowledge that were unattainable through the application of analytical thinking methods, and in this way, through a creative experience, to integrate the emerging results into the whole of the art project. In the fashion industry, colour prediction is a combination of analytical and intuitive methods.

Viktorija Diak

14th December 2018

"(UN)SUSTAINABLE CONTEMPORARY FASHION INDUSTRY AND THE FASHION OF THE FUTURE"

Creative part supervisor prof. dr. Jolanta Vazalinskienė
Theoretical part supervisor assoc. prof. dr. Lolita Jablonskienė

Photographer Andrii Diak. Prototype of the material produced with a 3D printer.

The rapid pace of the development over the past 100 years caused a massive depletion of many resources and total pollution around the planet. Each industry contributes its individual share. The current study ((Un)Sustainable contemporary fashion industry and Future fashion) is only considering fashion industry – so familiar to everybody with its bright, stylish and shiny windows of a modern boutique, and yet so secretive and unfamiliar with every step along its way to get there. The topic is extensive, that to fit all its aspects is not possible. The main course of the current research is to shine a glimpse of light to the inside fashion industry production cycle and its adverse impact on the environment. The study analyzes topics such as ideology, consequences, overproduction, pollution, overconsumption psychology and an inevitable exponentially growing waste problem caused by fast fashion.

In the end of research, the author’s vision of the future fashion industry based on principles of sustainable design is represented. By use of modern technologies and biomaterials an innovative circular system for the manufacture and use of wearing apparel is created: from the choice of product, creation to delivery, wear and utilization.

Marius Bartkus

21st December 2017

"A VISUAL METAPHOR: GENERATION AND APPLICATION IN PRACTICE"

Creative part supervisor prof. Audrius Klimas
Theoretical part supervisor dr. Gintautė Žemaitytė

The thesis examines how creation of visual metaphors can be automated for graphic design purposes. The question of how the process of forming the meaning of images or content of a message could become automated and a part of the creator’s work could be passed on to a computer is raised. The study provides an overview and analysis of the problems encountered in an attempt to entrust the visual metaphor generation process to a computerised system. The difference between a description of a resource carried out by a computer or a human being, separation of visual objects from the environment, a variety of aspect angles, values of combining objects among each other, video content overlooked by computerised systems - this is only part of the problems faced when trying to automate the creation of metaphors.

A visual metaphor generator, which allows for quick creation of visual metaphors, communication messages, manipulation of values, by giving controls not only to the creator, but also to the social environment - evaluators of a piece of work, is proposed as a solution to the problem. A speculative model of the visual metaphor generator is presented and proposals for development in employing artificial intelligence are made.

Agnė Kuzmickaitė-Prūsaitienė 

27th October 2017

"THE EVERYDAY AS A CREATIVE INSPIRATION : DESIGNER’S SELF- REFLECTION"

Creative part supervisor assoc. prof. Jolanta Talaikytė
Theoretical part supervisor assoc. prof. dr. Nerijus Milerius

Various elements of the everyday life, objects and repeating everyday errands — shopping, laundry, bin bag, images of messy clothes or a child’s primitive drawing — can often become an inspiration for a garment construction or a concept of a fashion collection in the contemporary fashion design. Art project The Everyday as a Creative Inspiration: Designer's Self-Reflection analyses various and different everyday roles of the artist, and their scenography with emerging objects, which are used as an inspiration for fashion design. The project investigates methods applied for the integration of the everyday artefacts into garment construction through social and cultural contextualisation, and the use of personal experience. The method of integrating everyday life, used by both dominant and minor designers, in this analysis is defined as one of the most important methods in the contemporary fashion design field. In the garment construction, this practice often emerges through the use of methods that are characteristic to architecture or contemporary art.  The practice of this art project demonstrates fashion collections inspired by the everyday experiences and created during the period of the doctoral studies.

Rūta Mickienė

24th February 2017

"THE OPEN WORK IN VISUAL DESIGN: A MODEL FOR PSYCHOEMOTIONAL PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT"

Creative part supervisor prof. Aušra Lisauskienė
Theoretical part supervisor dr. Gintautė Žemaitytė

This research aims at exploring the potential of visual design objects, based on the open work model, for cultivating human psychoemotional well-being in the field of arts.

What is behind the meaning of spoken words? Can this meaning become visible, readable and adaptable for human wellbeing? Can a visible sound unfold the meaning more broadly than just the one that could be heard? Can the work be perceived more comprehensively when hearing is supplemented with vision? When a work visualizes the voice of a viewer, who also becomes a co-author, does a viewer, who is listening to the work with her eyes, perceive it differently? And how different is this perception? Perhaps the open work, which involves a viewer into creative process, can provide an answer. Perhaps this answer might reveal the utilitarian function of the open work concept when implemented in visual design. These are the leading questions in both, practical and theoretical parts, of the artistic research in design.

The theoretical part relies on Gilles Deleuze’s “thought-image” of rhizome. The rhizomic connections join together the potential of self-realization inherent in open work, as postulated by Eco, the need for self-actualization emphasized by Maslow, interpretation of artwork through senses and its promise to “reveal more” discussed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, psychoevolutionary theory of emotions developed by Robert Plutchik, emotional intelligence examined by Daniel Goleman, experience of aesthesis contended by Eric Landowski, and somatic aesthetics analysed by Richard Shusterman and yet remains open to join new connections.

The practical part composed from several projects that are like „rhizome‘s“ branches merged between demonstrates all main features of the open work‘s model and seeks to integrate the psychoemotial monitoring and developing into the open work's stucture.

Deima Kristina Katinaitė-Zajančauskė

27th January 2017

"THE PERCEPTION OF COLOUR PHENOMENON IN BAUHAUS SCHOOL AESTHETICS AND ART PRACTICES"

Creative part supervisor assoc. prof. Alvydas Šeibokas
Theoretical part supervisor prof. dr. (hp) Antanas Andrijauskas

The main research subject of the present dissertation is concerned with the concept of colour phenomenon in the aesthetics of the Bauhaus school. In the centre of critical analysis is the uniqueness of the colour phenomenon and problems associated with perception thereof, which were of utmost significance to the artists chosen for analysis – Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Johannes Itten and their student, Josef Albers – one of the most remarkable lecturers at the Bauhaus and later at Black Mountain College in the USA. When choosing the philosophical approaches for their colour researches, these artists have emphasised the significance of idea and brought forward the creative power of thought. Demonstrating the interrelationship of diverse phenomena of the art world at conceptual level, they stressed the significance of perception and thought, regarding the applied aspects of the colour phenomenon to be of minor importance. Hence, the present dissertation focuses on the perception of colour phenomenon, deliberately leaving the aspects of its application outside the scope of this research. It strives to present colour interpretations of different creators as a synthetic – relatively unified – theory or rather as art philosophy, bearing the same message as non-classical aesthetics. Therefore, the present research draws an imaginary line connecting the perceptions of the colour phenomenon at Bauhaus (Klee, Kandinsky, Itten), Black Mountain college (Albers) and by the Lithuanian painter Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.

Colour projects of artists – theoreticians (Kandinsky, Klee, Itten and Albers) discussed in this dissertation might be understood and interpreted as interdisciplinary artistic researches relevant to the present day pedagogical system of teaching art subjects. They are distinguished for an original linkage of theory and practice, ways of demonstrating the tacit knowledge and an open ended question model of research, when expressive possibilities of the researched phenomenon (colour) are demonstrated through continuous improvisation. Characteristics of Čiurlionis’ colour project, namely, the emergence of relation between artistic practice and intellectual knowledge in his chromatic system, also allow treating his creative activities as artistic research.

Inga Valentinienė

10th June 2016

"THE APPLICATION OF LOCAL FIBROUS MATERIALS TO THE DESIGN OF ECO-FURNITURE"

Creative part supervisor prof. Jonas Venckūnas
Theoretical part supervisor prof. dr. Rasa Žukienė

The research of the current art project encompasses the entire ecological production chain from the perception of an ecological plant’s physical and chemical composition to the solution of producing interior eco-objects. What is more, the possibilities of manufacturing structural materials from fibrous plants in Lithuania, the structural peculiarities of interior eco-objects, the possibilities to form and produce them locally, and the types of ecological interior objects in the global market are presented.

The present art project of ecological design is created and applied to the furniture sector, which until recently was considered one of the most anti-ecological industries. By taking the said ecological problems of this sector into account, the creation of not only ecological interior objects but an ecological material itself was strived for. During the course of the present art project, an ecological, harmless, self-degradable material, which provokes innovative design forms, has been created from such renewable fibrous plants as flax/linseed (lot. Linum usitatissimum L.), stinging (fibrous) nettle (lot. Urtica dioica L.) and hemp (lot. Cannabis sativa), and patented. The said plants grow naturally in Lithuania.   

In the project, the following phenomena of the manufacturing and realization of ecological products, which have become the crucial starting points in the creation of furniture designs from natural fibres, are analysed: proper usage of structural materials and fittings for furniture production, increase of energy efficiency, optimization of transport services, promotion of local materials and local production, and assurance that the product will be utilized safely or reused.  This is a new niche of ecological design, a missing link in the chain of growing and processing fibrous materials and the synergy of various industries, agriculture and even medicine.

Ignas Lukauskas

6th May 2016

"DECONSTRUCTION OF CRACKS IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE CITY"

Creative part supervisor assoc. prof. Romualdas Kučinskas
Theoretical part supervisor assoc. prof. dr. Rasa Butvilaitė

The object of the study – public spaces under deconstruction in the city which in the project are referred to as destructive cracks and are related to negative destructive phenomena. Destruction in urban spaces as a destructive phenomenon is examined in a social context avoiding the formation of destructive shapes or spaces. Relationship between an individual and destructive spaces which in the current socium are a widespread phenomenon is studied by means of a deconstruction methodology. Major attention is paid to destructive public spaces in the city. The general objective of destruction and the form of expression thereof, the impact of negativeness on an individual, the problems of existential feeling and experience are examined. Public spaces under deconstruction as the key object of the study are the most important. The study covers the public, social, and cultural aspects related to destruction in the city.

The determination of the innovative impact of deconstructed urban destructive spaces on an individual is amongst key problems under consideration. Problematic relationship between an individual and destructive spaces also is amongst the most important issues. The key problem examined in the art project covers the destructive spaces of the city and the origin, change, and interaction of negative phenomena related thereto.