Digital Commons Network^™

Encapsulating Scars, Ashley Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work explores scars through encapsulation, a desire to enclose and express the emotional scars of memories or physical scars of the body. Life’s experiences impact the living, leaving behind scars that we feel the need to understand. Through the mediums of metal and mixed-media photography, I utilize found and created imagery, as well as a triality of text in order to preserve and remember these scars.

"‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎", Stephen Harmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My work tries to perplex the viewer to acknowledge themselves in the act of seeing. In order to perplex them, I use ambiguous reference to figure and space using multiple perspectives, vantage points, gaze, marks, mediums, and, more recently, light and site specificity to establish liminal relationships and experiences. Liminality is a kind of in-betweenness, being on the threshold of places or states of being. My experiences in and studies of the Jewish Diaspora have been my path towards understanding liminality, but liminality is not unique to diaspora or to the Jewish experience and my work does not attempt to …

Perplexions: Perceptions, Plexi And Prose, Amy B. Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An understanding of our world is unique to each individual and their experiences. While experiences are often shared, we all process them according to our own schema. Through exploration into the multiple facets of plexiglass, my work examines trauma, loss and its lasting effect on a person's memory of the past, present and perception of the future. These experiences can cause an abrupt shift in personal schema and reshape one’s perception of the world. Through the combination of visual and linguistic stimuli, my trauma-informed work can be a catalyst for my viewers to discuss what they are experiencing and why. …

Plausible Expositions With Possible Expeditions, Nikolaus D. James

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by video games and cinema, in this body of work, Plausible Expositions with Possible Expeditions, I use objects to create scenarios that suggest a narrative. The scenes are then photographed and displayed through cathode-ray tube televisions and viewers use their own knowledge and ideas about the objects to create that narrative. Each of these objects has is own data set, and the most common have a universal data set—information surrounding the object that is widely recognized, much like how a crowbar is commonly associated with crime. Similar to playing a video game, an algorithm is used when viewing my …

Deconstructing Abject Complacency Of Ascribed Gender, Kyle M. Hooten

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My life has been dedicated to the relentless pursuit of masculinity throughout my transition from female to male. While originally focusing on the physical transition, my attention is now focused on the social aspects of transition. For me, this involved coming out, managing legal name/gender change paperwork, and understanding a newfound, cultural privilege. This is where I draw inspiration to create my work. My process and techniques are informed by Drag Kings and Queens as well as contemporary culture and art. After performing as a Drag King for a year I developed a sense of gender that differed from what …

Narrowing The Margin: The Role Of The Black Superhero, Julian S. Strayhorn Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comic books can be understood as a visualization of popular culture in the U.S. For a long time these tales were formed by a white power fantasy, circulating in mainstream culture as over-exaggerated narrations. To give an example of white power fantasy, Dwayne McDuffie, a prolific writer in popular entertainment states:

“…if I write, as I have many times, a story where Daredevil, who doesn’t have powers, gets the drop on Thor, who has unbelievable powers, people go Oh, that was so cool! Daredevil was so clever! If I have Black Panther do the same thing that’s impossible! It’s like, …