Digital Commons Network^™

Cumulative Grief, Xuan Pham

Masters Theses

A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Cumulative Grief, in which the artist's personal and familial narrative explores the complexity and nuances of racial grief.

War Of The Moon, Bibiana Medkova

Masters Theses

Space, in the post-World War context, was the new frontier of ‘global’ dominion. Space Race of the 1950s was a competition to signal technological capability and military strength. The objective of War of the Moon is to unpack the motivation for Moon race in 1950s. What did countries have to gain politically, economically, socially and technologically by conquering space and landing on the moon. At what cost? Who financed it, and where did the labor, land, and raw materials sourced come from. And how it was used to accomplish said landing. Space security is a massive aspect of all current …

Defining Montréal: An Exploration On The Evolution Of Montréal’S Brand And Cultural Representations Since 1930, Liliane Lai

Masters Theses

Spaces contain and create meanings through the interplay of their surrounding physical and mental landscape i.e., geography, social activity, and representation. Like many defined spaces, Montréal is not only a social and spatial manifestation of a singular community, but an ideal conceived and constructed through interpretation, objectives, and media portrayal— a mosaic or assemblage. Conceptualising Montréal as a brand being one of the cultural capitals of Canada is deeply tied to an assemblage of its diverse roots and identity beyond its history. This thesis explores the notion of city branding to understand how a city’s image and reputation evolves in …

A Maker's Perspective Of Materiality: Observing Material Change Through Legacy Craftsmanship, Maker Intent, And Contemporary Manifestation, Adam Swift

Masters Theses

Simple handmade objects have important stories to tell about the hands that made them and the environments they pass through. This project observes the thinking, materials, and process involved in craft work through the lens of materiality. I wrestle with materiality by presenting a personal making project, in front of L.C. King Mfg. Co., a Tennessee workwear company that maintains century-old manufacturing practices and values. With the interactive – and interdisciplinary – perspective of cultural rhetoric as the guiding theoretical framework, this display of both freshly created (the leather bag project) and progressively experienced (the chore coat) material realities aims …

Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows

Masters Theses

This thesis paper reflects upon the costume design process taken by Emma Hollows to produce a realist production of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s musical Sophiatown at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts in May 2020. Sophiatown follows a household forcibly removed from their homes by the Native Resettlement Act of 1954 amid apartheid in South Africa. The paper discusses her attempts as a costume designer to strike a balance between replicating history and making artistic changes for theatre, while always striving to create believable characters.

Web Trauma And Haunting Images : Experimentations On Materiality, Installation, And Operation Of Screens, June Yoon

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to compose dynamics among the screens, images, and space for viewers to confront what we easily ignore: the haunting ghosts of mistreated humanity in this age of web-trauma.

Float I;, Zihan Iris Li

Masters Theses

The digital world is just another reality, alongside all the other parallel universes. It is similar to dreams, reflect- ing our fear and desire. When we are not conscious, the particles from our mind will travel freely and construct dreams. While in virtual space, digits are those wandering particles which form the world and are partially controlled by our minds. What is interesting is that no one in those realities will question the logic and behaviours, even though some of them are ridiculous, if you think carefully when you are awake in this physical world. We do find things go …

Silence Is A Luxury, Elise Stephens

Masters Theses

We are beings with at once fragile and resilient senses. Each of us have a threshold that is tested by auditory and visual stimuli that are seemingly constant.

This can lead to discord driving poor choices in resource allotment on a global and for some, a personal scale.

On a global scale, frenzied and misguided journeys to capitalize on the earth’s riches has led to exploitation of both nature and in some cases, societies. At the time of writing, the negative effects of these choices are at the forefront of policy makers’ agendas. In the United States, there are areas …

Tension In The Curve, S.K. O'Brien

Masters Theses

This artist’s book is a meditative narrative on my making and exploration of materiality.

It’s the best way to allow you entry and understanding into how I see.

Finding the tension in the curve and the lines and shadow and light that are created,

These new forms that appear when stress occurs help me understand…

With Eyes Unclouded, Tiffany Tang

Masters Theses

Tiffany is interested in creating purposeful connections and direct relationships through this vehicle of functional work. The scale of the work is made for the tabletop, asking to be handled and enjoyed. Her work takes a lot of time. Everything she does to the piece has a purpose. There are many stages in the process, and each informs what the next step will be, leading to the work existing as an accumulation of experiences. The use of colors and patterns are a form of inviting joy into the work. Blue greens, dark teals, serenity blues, pastel pinks, rosy quartz, palest …

To Make Atmosphere, Gonzalo Galetto

Masters Theses

My artistic practice explores the possibility of shifting anthropocentric perspectives through media installations. These perspectives exist in the positions we hold in relation to the environment: they continue to exteriorize and distance humans from the environment. To reorient our attention in its direction, and the other-than-human life forms that sustain it, is a social imperative of our times. Reevaluating our engagement with the other, meaning other beings or selves, including other-than-human selves and landscapes, is to readjust our relationship with the environment. It is a way to reposition how to be and to act in the world, but to do …

Under / Over Looked, Kopal Seth

Masters Theses

Across the stages of migration, I have confronted emotional and social complexities. The farther I am from my roots, the more I want to strengthen my connection to India. Through a process of observation and reflection on every day, grows the desire to house a cultural identity within my work. Here, encounters between past, present and future layer atop history and memories.

To reclaim the kindred character of the craft culture of my country, I rediscover those values that resonate within me through recontextualised forms, clay acts as my drawing tool to outline social structures, psychology, traditions and nostalgia.

In The Flesh, Courtney Sierra Johnson

Masters Theses

This thesis is written in two parts:

Part one discusses the history of artistic swimming and its correlation to understanding the fluidity of gender. I adapt the analysis to interpret the underlying theme of critical theory. Tying to my work, I use the notion of the fountain to justify the theory of abjection towards the body and the suppression of natural bodily behaviors within society. Furthermore, the fountain explores water as a symbolic place of equality and gathering.

Part two was written during quarantine of the Coronavirus pandemic. It describes my inability to complete my original thesis and how my …

, Nevertheless,, Ji Yoon Chung

Masters Theses

Derived from transitions, my artistic practice is an act of condolence for the transient presence that takes time and indulges every process as an acceptance of loss.

Over the years, I have moved between distinctive regions and cultures, only to be disoriented by mementos that are residues of a seemingly in- accessible past. What remains is to witness the vanished moments that evoke associated memories. I tend to solidify the volatile condition of transition by carving a temporary fragment on a permanent surface to make the ephemeral, eternal. The attempt to preserve a transitory phenomenon through archives by utilizing digital …

Finding Identity In Memories, Hyejun Youn

Masters Theses

What are the ways in which we form and build our identities and habits in both physical and digital spaces? How can our different uses of the digital expression which evolved from analog forms reveal traits and memories that we have forgotten or overlooked?

The way I define my identity through the analog media I collect correlates with the quality of the memories within my current schema, knowledge structures that represent typical instances of categories.

We interact with an infinity of objects from birth to death. Our collection of objects resonates more and more with memory and nostalgia as the …

Bug Chaser, Peter Rogers

Masters Theses

The veins of the leaves were bustling roadways, complex interactions that occurred at such a distance from my own anthropocentric understanding, they may as well have inhabited their own universe.

Dwelling within the infinite wonder of these microcosms, I coined myself a nickname that I abode within intimately: Bug Chaser. Perhaps I had heard the term on the news, or caught one of the teachers use it in passing, but as far as I was concerned, the term was entirely of my own creation.

“I’m a bug chaser!” I announced triumphantly to my kindergarten class.

“You mustn’t use that word,” …

Expanded Skin, Jihoo Kim

Masters Theses

Our digital interfaces have been degrading human sensory intelligence by limiting our body to only vision and the first two fingers. Despite the high level of available technologies, we do not fully utilize them due to our lack of awareness of its applicability in more various aspects than just media being consumed. It is also because of its inaccessibility in terms of human–computer interaction (HCI) beyond our sense of sight and touch screens. Those technologies have been key elements in all of my works, since my ultimate position is to redirect the technology in a way that could enhance human …

Kainan Liu, Kainan Liu

Masters Theses

Selection of furniture is a very personal thing. Its scale and social attributes also determine that it is rarely sent as a gift. So, it seems to me, that furniture belongs to the category of personal goods, which is a concept worth pondering. What kind of relationship do these mere worldly possessions, these so called "mine" things, whether these are vehicles, houses, furniture, clothes or accessories, have with us? When we say the word "mine", it is a self-definition with confident possessiveness and the free extension of this definition in choice? Or is it a instinctive behavior that you need …

Slick And Lumpy : Heavy Cream, Emma Fague

Masters Theses

A conversation with myself. A look inside my mind, process, and feelings. Slick and Lumpy. Creamy, oozing, leaking, dripping. Poured, molded, and sewn. Not a body, but my body, big and bursting and spilling out. Two things placed next to each other and observed. Lots of dessert, frosting, squishing, covering. A conversation with a painting, with a building technique. Fetish and healing, leather, vinyl, latex. Private and public space. Identity, imposter syndrome, digital fabrication. Combining and subtracting and stuffing. Is it appealing, sexy, charming, or revolting, ugly and gross?

This Feels Familiar, E. Winslow Funaki

Masters Theses

This is a book about in-betweenness. It’s an examination of how we identify people and objects, the categories we use to do so, and those that don’t fit squarely into one or the other. It considers the grey areas of identity--race, gender, species, function, living, inanimate. It slips and slides through the ambiguous and indefinite, forever moving, always simultaneously being “both,” “all,” “neither,” and “none.”

Erik Degiorgi, Erik Degiorgi

Masters Theses

Where I started two years ago is a very different place from where I am today. At the outset of my time at RISD I knew very little about what it meant to be a designer. I lacked confidence, yet still entered this program with strict ideas about the nature and outcome of my work.

Over the course of four traditional semesters and two winter sessions, I gradually moved away from my original, self-imposed fears and constraints. Not coincidentally, my work expanded into areas I had not conceived of previously. It has been an illuminating journey, and while I am …

Glurp, Glurp, Glurp, Zihe Gong

Masters Theses

My thesis is an accumulation of many different things. It contains a body of work that consists of furniture, objects, sketches, illustrations, and spontaneous thoughts, as well as improvised writings and images of a variety of things that have largely influenced my own making. For me, design is a discipline that does not come into being through a linear direction. Similarly, I believe that a thesis does not comprise just one single narrative, culminating from one starting point. The process of designing and making is more like the way one prepares a meal - all of the ideas and research …

Internal Resonance, Xiangyu Wang

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the interaction between my inside and outside worlds. It includes my discussion towards Zen methodology, homeostasis, nature, antiquity, inner order and the concept of Qi. It can also be seen as a process that scrutinizes my daily life and looks deep into those things which slowly echo in my body and push me to make my own response.

You Are Trapped., Will Chouinard

Masters Theses

YOU’RE TRAPPED. YOU CAN SEE THE EXIT BUT YOU CAN’T GET TO IT. EVERY TIME YOU MOVE, YOU RISK CUTTING YOURSELF ON THE SHARP EDGES OF THE TRANSLUCENT WALLS, SO YOU DON’T. YOU’RE STARTING TO SWEAT. NOT MOVING MAKES YOU INCREDIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE. YOU’RE BREATHING HEAVILY. YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE ABOUT TO PASS OUT, BUT YOU CAN’T BECAUSE IF YOU DO YOU KNOW THAT IT’S ALL OVER. SO YOU FORCE YOURSELF TO STAY AWAKE. THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN ON YOU. YOU HAVE TO MAKE A MOVE. TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH. IN AN UNHUMAN EFFORT, YOU REACH UP TO THE …

Utopian Fantasy, Yue Zhuo

Masters Theses

I design furniture and objects to express my utopian fantasy to people. I hope users can imagine the fantasy through the interaction with my furniture and objects. While people are interacting with my works, they become part of the fantasy. My works are the NPCs (nonplayer characters) of a game created by myself, called Utopian Fantasy.

My works are creature-istic, anthropomorphic, and always interactive. They are inspired by nature and everyday life. This series of works I created during my time at RISD express my appreciation for the underwater world and the Internet. My designs beg for interaction and play. …

Wrung From Grave Architectures, Megan Solis

Masters Theses

Found or imagined findings... notes, diary entries, texts, prayers and poems

Disasters are avenues to gain intimacy glory is the constant

What is the skeleton made of, if not to be filled with meat to be piled and molded to bring back life.

pain and memory to be grave architectures, the stuctures that fall,

a plea for humanity: “Am I just a phantom waiting to be ripped from shady ground?”

desperate melancholy we realize that she is

I am

you are

tragic.

guilt to perform, to retraumatize is a punishment and is masochistic. to violently reenact, like haunted ghosts, to …

Ethnographemes, Vaishnavi Mahendran

Masters Theses

Spoken and written languages are living processes. As with our own natural systems, they are born, evolve in stages, yet also face the eventuality of death. Current research indicates that there are 7,111 spoken languages in the world. UNESCO lists a total of 577 languages as critically endangered.

This thesis examines the role of graphic design and its potential contribution to the preservation of endangered languages and writing systems of indigenous communities. My interest lies in exploring possibilities of the script serving as a vessel to share and celebrate deeper stories of each of these communities’ heritage.

Through my practice, …

Something To See Here, Weixi Zeng

Masters Theses

“Nothing to see here” is a suspicious phrase.

Whenever we hear it, we pause and become alerted. Something is most likely indeed happening, and worth noting — mishaps ranging from either an embarrassing coffee spill, unfair abuses of privacy, or insidious early signs of a pandemic.

Historically, states and national entities have always valued the power of information to allow them to see more, and see better — all the while obstructing the path to clarity for ordinary citizens. Systems and infrastructure have become expressions of authority, rife with distortion and deception. Familiar systems are commandeered to surveil us, yet …

Experience The World: How The Ever-Present Accessibility Of Hands-On Opportunities & Play Enhance Logistical Learning, Mary E. Chavez

Masters Theses

Living in a digital age, it is imperative--now more than ever--that children engage in hands-on, experiential learning activities to ensure that their ability to relate to the world is not compromised by technology. Children actively need playful, open-ended and self-directed mental stimulation for their young brains to develop and grow. Public school standards stifle a child’s right to succeed in alternative strengths and inhibit opportunities for self-exploration and self-expression. Game design and fort construction are examples of accessible, hands-on activities in which a child can creatively immerse themselves. In doing so, they can begin to interact with the tangible world, …

Ocean State Food Stories, Charlotte Clement

Masters Theses

Many Rhode Islanders lack access to local food system education. They struggle to connect with local food outlets as well as understand why supporting a resilient local food community matters. Local food producers face great challenges within the system such as finding stable ways to produce, distribute, and sell their merchandise. In addition, the RI government’s agricultural marketing efforts are not innovative and local food-centric nonprofits are swamped with work resulting in the outsourcing of creative marketing jobs that have yielded questionable results. In order to engage with a wider audience, both the government and the non-profit sector need to …