Digital Commons Network^™

An Intricate Ensemble : The Art-Science Of An Ecological Imaginary For The Anthropocene Epoch, Alyce Santoro

Masters Theses

The contradictions inherent in European Enlightenment-based “logics” that externalize humans from “nature” were a concern for the Romantic Naturalists, Dadaists, and Surrealists. More recently, some in the environmental humanities and socio-ecologically-concerned arts and sciences have also posed challenges to anthropocentric, hierarchical, positivist modes of thought. I suggest that by engaging the ludic, imaginative, and collaborative while bearing the empirical in mind, dualisms (such as objective and subjective, individual and collective) dissipate, and existence as a dialectical state of intricate ensemble can be revealed. In light of catastrophic disruption to Earth’s life-sustaining processes by exploitative forms of human activity, I argue …

Remembering Culture In The Modern Era : Cultural Center Spa Grössling, Alex Trajanov-Godmas

Masters Theses

Review and explanation of the important questions. Culture, tradition and heritage are important terms in a country’s history. Once these terms are no longer present or forgotten about, the country suffers, therefore this problem needs a solution.

The Movement In Nature : Deep Missing, Missing You From Far Away, Chia-Chi Wu

Masters Theses

The Movements in Nature

Soft waves, soft clouds, soft grass,

In the ocean, in the sky, on the ground. Mellow, smooth, satisfying,

No sharpness, no harm, just round circles.

Imagination of the mixture of the nature.

The In-Betweens: Exploring Integration Within The Arts, Ruchi Pathak

Masters Theses

This research analyzes the possibilities of integration within the arts and its potential in affecting change in the teaching and learning environment. To approach to this larger question, I conducted two in-depth case studies as a participatory observer playing two radically different roles:- the role of a student at New Works, a performing arts program at Brown University, and the role of a curriculum planner and programming researcher at Providence CityArts. The nature and educational level of the two programs were drastically different. Providence CityArts is a youth directed community-based nonprofit organization that offers after school art programs while New …

The Moment Someone Opens A Book, A Venus Flytrap Is Tightening Its Cage, Chenlu Hou

Masters Theses

his thesis examines transitions as a form of transformation.

In-Between Places, Jonah Fleeger

Masters Theses

I am an emerging artist originally from Northwest Indiana. I attended a small boarding school called Verde Valley School, in Sedona, Arizona, which is where my love for pottery first started. I received my BFA in ceramics from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After college I was fortunate enough to find studio space and work at the Lillstreet Art Center, where I was a teacher, teaching assistant and glaze maker. Since then I have completed post-baccalaureate programs at The University of Colorado Boulder and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. This book is a presentation of myself …

Train Boy, Shannon Gross

Masters Theses

This thesis tells the story of the author's interactions with the hallucinatory figure of Train Boy.

Tell Me About A Class At Risd : Classroom Experiences Of Multilingual, International Graduate Students At The Rhode Island School Of Design, Madeline Conley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the experiences of multilingual, international graduate students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Through interviews with eight international and multilingual graduate students from different RISD departments, the researcher asks students to identify what helps and hinders their learning. The author situates interviewee responses in the context of scholarly literature that examines the experiences and predicted challenges faced by multilingual international students enrolled in art and design schools and more broadly in higher education. Further, this thesis’ research questions are examined within the complexities of and ongoing conversations about creating a more equitable and inclusive RISD …

Personal Trauma, Community Healing : Reimagining Sanctuary For Survivors Of Gun Violence, Eva Mccarthy

Masters Theses

of communities who suffer through high levels of gun violence experience post-traumatic stress disorder at rates equal to military veterans. At the same time, religious participation in the US has plummeted, and churches, once the center of many of these communities, have lost their value as support systems. These structures must become a new type of sanctuary for those dealing with pervasive, gun-related trauma. The reimagined typology will prioritize progressive, sustained benefit over revelatory moments of transcendence, by opening sightlines through a space of safety and support to the outside.

The decaying Bethel Holy Temple Church in North Philadelphia is …

Throngs, Yinan Chen

Masters Theses

Ceramic is an important element of my artworks. It is a material with strong bearing capacity, and at the same time, it is a tool with the attribute of nature and social function, for the similarity with humans can be found in it. Thanks to its characteristics, I am able to transform the forms, colors, and quality to complete my works. Collected from nature, carved with human hands, the clay is cultivated and my expectation of the outside world is satisfied.

Mis Jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens

Masters Theses

This thesis offers an insight into the complex relationship between identity, memory and the creative process. A Q&A follows, designed to deepen the understanding of the self in different situations, places, cultures and design objects.

Apparently, memory has a leading role in triggering creative processes and this has forced me to do further research on my own past and on the objects that my memory retains. In the end, this “research on the self” has produced an interesting view on this particular creative process of designing.

Grid As A Frame, Young In Sa

Masters Theses

A grid is a type of framework applied to an area in order to articulate information through coordinates and units. Nowadays, the world we experience has become overwhelmed by digital displays. How can we perceive the different form of reality when both experience and our perspective are shaped by digital representation? What if our life continues in virtual topography where I can see my GPS location, or in a rectangular camera frame instead of on the spherical earth? I walk with my feet touching the ground and I see the landscape around me, but still, now, I navigate myself in …

Conversations In 2019, Kit Howland

Masters Theses

This thesis is a collected series of interview questions and my responses. The topics include aesthetics, phenomenology, queerness, the void, distinctions between art and design, designing emotional content, scale, minimalism, duality, multiplicity, formalism, intellectualism, the experience of living with your work, the critique, presentational strategies, and otherness.

Field In Adaptive Reuse : Discussion Of The Existence Of The Field And Its Influence, Yilun Shao

Masters Theses

In a building like a pavilion, the walls are abstracted into pillars, and this hollowed -out design aesthetically reflects the concept of negative space in Asian aesthetics. The creation of the field is not by the enclosure of wall, but through the radiation of the pavilion’s spirit to create a negative space with fuzzy boundaries. If the spirits which dwell in the pavilion cannot radiate outward but must be contained within, visitors will not see this buildings, but sculptures form.

What is fascinating about architecture is that it can divide the space so that people enter and feel the effects …

Tea Journeys : Exhibition As Experience, Liujun Liao

Masters Theses

In the past, the public came to see the exhibition because it was a rare opportunity to learn about the culture on the other side of the earth.

With the development of science and technology, exhibition forms are becoming more and more diverse. People can see more exhibits and smaller details without leaving home.

Therefore, I would like to ask: " When it becomes so convenient to get information in modern life, is there any reason for people to enter the exhibition hall?" "When people go into the exhibition hall, what do people really want to get? ”“What can be …

Integration As A Catalyst For Change : School For Rohingya Children, Naeera Ali

Masters Theses

Ruplal house, built during the rise and growth of the merchant class in Dhaka, is now neglected and decaying. How can this space be repurposed as an education center for refugee children, become a long term stratergy for basic education that provide relief,hope for the community of refugees and revive the dying heritage of Old Dhaka?

The Rohingya refugee crisis is said to be the world’s fastest growing human rights disaster. The Rohingya are an ethnic group consisting of a majority of a Muslim population who have lived in the Buddhist majority country of Myanmar. Due to ongoing violence the …

Architecture As Magnet : Extension To Fort Adams, Mingyi Hu

Masters Theses

According to a study from KADK (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture), social interaction mainly depends on whether people have common interests, such as the economy, politics or ideology.¹ However, it is difficult for some who feel they have different experiences or beliefs to interact within a group, which will affect their psychological state. These people need a physical environment designed to create conditions for more extensive and effective communication opportunities.

Architecture can provide a platform to help people gather together, share ideas, and create a sense of community. Architecture that holds visitors in an enclosure …

Re-Activating Collective Memory : Museum As A Workshop, Sfoorti Sachdev

Masters Theses

Many of Delhi’s national treasures are dying due to apathy and neglect. With centuries of history embedded in these places, they lie in the heart of densely populated ‘urban villages’ and yet are isolated, increasingly subject to vandalism and encroachment - their cultural significance seemingly lost. In the last century, the collective memory of the communities around these monuments has been shaped by poverty, depression and an influx of immigrants with no prior connections to these places. This is clearly illustrated by the state these monuments are suffering.

Research suggests that sense of identity comes from a sense of place. …

Works And Process, Alex Hsu

Masters Theses

This thesis is a collection of furniture and objects that seek to embody the harmonious pleasantness of things through thoughtful consideration of their aesthetics, utility, and place. It reflects on the ownership and creation of objects and the role they play defining who we are. More specifically, it’s a reflection on how where I’ve come from and learning how to create have influenced these complex ideas. It’s a document that looks inward and serves as a manifestation of my developing process and its effects on my identity as a result. It grapples with my desire to create things that are …

Breaking Barriers, Opening Doors : Integrating The Formerly Incarcerated With Community, Ruoyi Song

Masters Theses

We have all experienced the trauma of building new relationships from little or nothing. Some of us were able to blend in quickly, while others remain outsiders or foreigners. As a student studying interior architecture, I believe that design can influence human behavior and help to reshape the relationship between communities.

485 Plainfield St, a historical building built for ice cream production is currently owned by an organization called “Open Doors,” who provides temporary housing and skill classes for the formerly incarcerated to re-enter society. Interactions between the surrounding community and formerly incarcerated are infrequent, and due to the lack …

Playfulness : Exploring Experience Through A Trajectory, Yingjing Qu

Masters Theses

People of all ages feel from time to time a lack of freedom because of spiritual, physical and material constraints. The young are anxious about the future, while the old are bound by the body and both feel the pressure of the social and economic context. The desire to escape the social order makes public space
a window to catharsis. People’s behavior in public spaces like streets, surrounded by strangers, tends to be more uninhibited.

Playing games embodies several benefits such as the increasing of one’s imaginative ability, mind-hand coordination, enhancing of creativity, passing time and ‘play’ characteristics of seeing …

Sky Is Sinking Below The Trees : Two Years Of Documentation And Observations, Xuelun Li

Masters Theses

I see landscape through my own eyes, hands and body, and also through the lenses of Chinese poetry, calligraphy and ink painting. These art forms are rich in metaphor. The way they imagine and depict landscape is romantic, often including observations on dual concepts as lightness and heaviness, movement and stillness, change and stability, all of which have inspired this collection of work.

These furniture pieces include benches, tables and lamps. They are abstracted landscapes, to spark imagination about natural forces and transformations, both through the process with which they’ve been made and through their final forms. I engage with …

American Slavic : And Other Writings, Zac Banik

Masters Theses

My current cycle of work deals with the exploration, digestion and reinvigoration of traditional Slavic craft and material culture with goal of contributing to a contemporary design vernacular which eschews the idealization of Western-European forms and stands on its own: aesthetically discrete and externally respected. This line of inquiry arose from my own journey to understand myself as a Slavic-American; what it means to be such a thing; how to reconcile assimilation against perceived authentic identity and what value the voice of the diaspora can bring to the discourse of the old world. The outward mission of this project is …

Glossary I : Graduate Thesis, Eli Backer

Masters Theses

Situated across various contexts and spaces– studio, domestic, gallery– Eli Backer’s work explores open collaboration with machines, often producing multiples to reflect on, obfuscate, and to futilely hold the space and shape of loss. In this text, she surveys radio stations, music, writing, and art that has formed and driven her practice and sets a framework for the limited continuation of this document.

Road Home : Family Renovation In Rural China, Guijiadong Lin

Masters Theses

As a traditionally rural- based country, the countryside of China has undergone drastic changing settings since the hasty urbanization procedure and township development over last thirty years. One outstanding manifestation is how residents take shelter. The centuries-old dwellings with rich ornamentation or great historical value caught eyes of researchers, designers and developers, while the rising defective undertow in civilian houses is somewhat neglected.

Rural residences are no longer related to their local context, through wide acceptance of western styles and easy access to modern, standard non-regional materials. In the lower Yangtze River region (also known as Jiangnan district), where the …

Stepping Aside, Juan Pablo Gutiérrez García

Masters Theses

Over time, our connection with materials has changed. Centuries ago, artists interacted with just one material for years, gradually integrating the knowledge of its different properties into their existing expertise. They were learning processes which were acquired through the sum of different personal experiences and the reciprocal action between artist and material. Now, times run fast; we are exposed to a wide range of materials, and knowledge is indirect. We learn through books or by copying established industry processes, replacing our practical experiences. New potentialities of material are not sought frequently, and we end up validating only what has already …

Externalized : Origins Of Aesthetic Motivations, Tim Miller

Masters Theses

My thoughts and behaviors are influenced by a compulsive disorder. Observing this, I’ve learned how much my outlook can be shaped by my own ritualistic patterns. I live with a heightened sense of awareness toward my particular compulsions which has shaped how I see the world. In this thesis writing and collection of designed objects, I am seeking to further explore my own experience with compulsive thoughts and behaviors, unpacking how they manifest in the day-to-day, how they direct my perception, and ultimately how they serve as a driving force behind my design process. By observing these tendencies and articulating …

[Super] Structure : Expanding The Network / Reclaiming The Path, Anna Albrecht

Masters Theses

In 2016, the Human Rights Council at the United Nations declared internet access to be a basic human right. In rural West Virginia, 30% of residents do not have access to reliable broadband internet. This lack of access limits economic development and opportunities and contributes to the divide between rural and urban communities. That divide has resulted in, among many things, a dearth of innovative design in rural America.

Often with technological and economic progress comes homogeneity, erasure, and environmental devastation; the latter has been endemic in the region since the Industrial Age. By reviving a network of fire lookout …

Exhibiting Materiality : Object For Love Attachment Therapy, Yunhong Hu

Masters Theses

What is the interaction material culture and the monetary value of museum objects through by highlighting the opposite sides of exhibited objects’ value and design commodities’ commercial value, an exhibition aims to question and confuse the traditional understanding and distinction between museum objects and design commercial objects. Corporate museums serve as the reference for this discussion because they represent a hybrid of a traditional museum whose exhibited objects are also commercial products collected for their material worth. The exhibition space mixes traditional museum objects with retail design merchandise in order to encourage visitors to discuss the meaning of material value, …

Distance Is A Place, Zhiqing Guo

Masters Theses

Distance is a Place documents a body of work and a process — a journey in translation, where a quality of feeling becomes an effort of physical capture in jewelry.

The desire to reveal how a deep responsiveness to the atmospheric distance of the sky is associated with an innermost nonverbal place of refuge motivates me to make perceptible this awareness for contemplation. Incorporating photographic images of the immeasurable dimensions of sky within translucent resin, a spatial distance collapses into wearable, tangible stillness to be worn on the body as an eternal present. 8