Art and Design Commons^™

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 …

Nurture, Lauren Taylor League

Graduate Theses

Nurture is a series of sculptural and performative works created to explore the emotional and psychological effects of objects as they relate to familial memory and the various processes one uses to nurture and express love. These moments incapsulate the need for comfort and connection, the need to be nourished, the need for protection, and the need to remember. The filmed interactions with each individual sculpture evoke the natural relationship of emotional release to the processes of remembering and healing.

By using sculpture as a residue of performance and creating work that serves as a memory of interaction and experience, …

Animals In Drama And Theatrical Performance: Anthropocentric Emotionalism, Peta Tait

Animal Studies Journal

This article outlines how nonhuman animals are framed by the emotions of drama, theatre and contemporary performance and considers a distinctive tradition in western culture of enacting animal characters who function as surrogate humans. It argues that, contradictorily, while animal characters confirm anthropocentric emotionalism, drama also contains pro-animal values and concern for animal welfare. Animals embodying emotions in theatrical languages are part of the way animals are used in the traditions of western culture and to think and philosophize with, but they also indicate thinking about the emotions in theatrical performance. The article considers if, however, staging living animals can …

Spontaneity And The Supernatural: Simulating Improv On Twine, Angelica Zadak

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

This thesis is an improv-based digital role-playing game (RPG) created on Twine titled Spontaneity and the Supernatural. The game synthesizes Dustin Edward’s scholarship on remix and digital rhetoric, Kathleen Blake Yancy and Stephen J. McElroy’s application of assemblage theory in composition, and Viola Spolin’s improv theory and practices to take improv from the stage to a digital space. This game uses Twine as a development tool to deliver improv concepts, such as Spolin’s ensemble, environment, and intuition, procedurally. To incorporate these elements into the game, the thesis engages potential players with a narrative that suggests all players can practice improv …

Evaluating Audience Engagement Of An Immersive Performance On A Virtual Stage, Victoria J. Kraj, Thomas Maranzatto, Joe Geigel, Reynold Bailey, Cecillia Ovesdotter Alm

Frameless

Presenting theatrical performances in virtual reality (VR) has been an active area of research since the early 2000's. VR provides a unique form of storytelling, which is made possible through the use of physically and digitally distributed 3D worlds.

We describe a methodology for determining audience engagement in a virtual theatre performance. We use a combination of galvanic skin response (GSR) data, self-reported positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS), post-viewing reflection, and a think aloud method to assess user reaction to the virtual reality experience.

In this study, we combine the implicit physiological data from GSR with explicit user feedback …

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.

The Scenic Design Of "A Little Night Music", Kathleen Holmes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Little Night Music by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim was produced by the University of Arkansas Department of Theatre in 2018-2019 academic school year. The scenic design process entailed a series of private meetings, design meetings, independent research, and analysis that all culminated into a full scenic design package. The show itself has many locations that quickly transition into one another. It was my challenge as the designer to cohesively design the scenery so that it could be transitioned easily and in time with the music. The major themes of the show that I based the design around were …

Washing The River In Relation To Interpellation, Theatricality And Spectatorship, Patricia Miller

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Patricia Miller's Master of Fine Arts Thesis Paper

A Shift In The Articulation Of Urban Society’S Working Space, Ardianti Permata Ayu, Danny Eko Sulistyo

International Review of Humanities Studies

Swift technological development has caused shifting habits and changing behavioral pattern or lifestye in all respects, notably among urban society, including in terms of work and self-identity production. Members of society now have elevated flexibility to have their own working spaces. Work now can be carried out independently by a mere piece of gadget anywhere within the virtual room. It is co-working space which facilitates independent workers with a flexible, open-space, relaxed, cozy, entertaining, eye-catching, and now even instagrammable space organizing system. Now that plenty of co-working spaces have been produced, the spatial design of co-working space is gaining much …

Theatre Crawl: A Series Of Community Engagement Projects, Anna Rich

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis will focus on Theatre Crawl, a devised and immersive theatre experience grounded in the techniques of drama therapy. Beginning as a creative outlet for drama therapy graduate students at Lesley University, Theatre Crawl has provided performance opportunities for students to exercise the creative and theatrical skills which initially brought many of them to the field of drama therapy. From April 2018 to January 2020, four Theatre Crawl events have been facilitated. All events originated from the belief that providing opportunities for drama therapists to engage in personal art-making is an essential practice for the field of drama therapy …

Female Leaders Navigate The Arts, Post 'Me Too', Peyton Kennedy

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

As the lights dim and the curtain rises on a theatrical production, there are roles to fill onstage and off. Perhaps the most important roles in modern theatre are those of leadership. Leaders in the arts have the power to influence company communication, shape the culture of the rehearsal room and navigate through a crisis. However, leadership and power can be manipulated, as the world witnessed through the ‘me too’ movement. As allegations rose against prominent leaders, the push for change strengthened. We are now three years past Hollywood’s ignition of the ‘me too’ movement, which prompts the question: have …

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Hysteria, Fear, And/Or Delight, Alessandra Ferrari-Wong

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

My Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis statement, Hysteria, Fear, and/or Delight, establishes the forms and concepts of my art practice as it stands as of May, 2020: performance-based and interdisciplinary. My practice implies narrative while acknowledging the audience. Physical language, in both dance and gesture, can be a means of communication or subversion. Pieces exist as ephemeral, often private, performances and then separately in archival forms ranging from video, to photography, to installation. The body of the statement details my thesis project, a remaking of Giselle, a 19th century Romantic-era ballet, into a performance series and video trilogy. …

The Magic Circle: An Essential Experience Through Virtual Theatre, Brandon Roye

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the similarities of video game design elements within the world of theatrical scenic design. Using my 2019 scenic design of Marc Camoletti’s bedroom farce Boeing Boeing as the backdrop, I discuss the core concepts of game design. I then describe the scenic process of the production and the journey from concept all the way through to a virtual reality recreation of the design. The study of game design in theatre has the potential to open a wide new world of opportunities in the scenic design industry. This paper examines how the theatre can benefit from game design …

Volume 12, Haleigh James, Hannah Meyls, Hope Irvin, Megan E. Hlavaty, Samara L. Gall, Austin J. Funk, Karyn Keane, Sarah Ghali, Antonio Harvey, Andrew Jones, Rachel Hazelwood, Madison Schmitz, Marija Venta, Haley Tebo, Jeremiah Gilmer, Bridget Dunn, Benjamin Sullivan, Mckenzie Johnson

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction, Dr. Roger A. Byrne, Dean

From the Editor, Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy

From the Designers, Rachel English, Rachel Hanson

Immortality in the Mortal World: Otherworldly Intervention in "Lanval" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" by Haleigh James

Analysis of Phenolic Compounds in Moroccan Olive Oils by HPLC by Hannah Meyls

Art by Hope Irvin

The Effects of Cell Phone Use on Gameplay Enjoyment and Frustration by Megan E. Hlavaty, Samara L. Gall, and Austin J. Funk

Care, No Matter What: Planned Parenthood's Use of Organizational Rhetoric to Expand its Reputation by Karyn Keane

Analysis of Petroleum Products for …

Virtual Touch: Embodied Experiences Of (Dis)Embodied Intimacy In Mediatized Performance, Naomi Petrea Bennett

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore a phenomenon I call virtual touch, in which embodied sensations of touch are felt through non-tactile senses. In the digital age, online interactivity has expanded the ways in which individuals experience connection, intimacy, and touch. Digital media, which have traditionally been thought of as disembodied, nevertheless have the ability to elicit intense feelings of touch. Through analysis of digital and virtual installation art, I examine the ways that non-tactile touch remains rooted in the embodied experience. The works I include in this study create a feeling of virtual touch through a co-functioning of the …

El Artista Está En Línea: E-Performance En El Tiempo De Covid-19, Ezequiel N. González

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Esta investigación propone una lectura detallada y comparativa de varias e-performances creadas por el artista visual uruguayo Ernesto Rizzo y la performer argentina Susy Shock, trazando un corpus de trabajo creado durante la crisis de COVID-19 y compartido en Instagram desde finales de marzo a finales de mayo de 2020. Al centrarse en el giro digital del arte de performance debido a las particularidades de la cuarentena, esta investigación busca distinguir este momento de "e-performance", entendiendo cuáles serán sus ramificaciones para el/la artista y el arte de performance en general. Así, a través de una reflexión teórica sobre el terreno …

Illustrated Choreography Of Spirals, Kasey Britt

Selected Undergraduate Works

This independent project was created for the yearlong Anatomy component class in Dance. The author utilized movement practice, viewing video recordings, anatomical study and analysis, sketching and drawing, to develop and produce a detailed visual representation of Spirals, choreographed by Irene Dowd © 1991.

Spirals is a complex and comprehensive warm up and cool down choreographic sequence for dancers, built upon functional anatomy and neuromuscular training principles. During the fall semester and for the first eight weeks of the spring semester, the author learned and refined their performance of this material, as well as making anatomical drawings and engaging in …

Memory Bread, Nisiqi

Art + Design Masters Theses

Memory Bread, constituting a daily performance ritual and the post-action objects, seeks to address the generational decline of mother language use in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a post-colonized province of China. I chose to eat sliced white bread in the performance and later casted concrete sculptures as the extension of the action for both substances’ capitalistic nature. Being an invasive material that took over the traditional architectural lifestyle, the use of concrete mirrors the pervasive cultural and ethnic assimilation in China. Meanwhile, the materiality of concrete being a mixture of various substances also metaphors the mixed culture that Chinese-Mongolians …

Surrogate Memories In Animation And Sound, Jared Duesterhaus

Theses and Dissertations

A document in support of my exploration into memory in relation to the mediums of animation, sound, and theater. A reflection on remembering as a creative act.

Animal Studies Journal 2020 9(1): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Editorial And Contributor Biographies, Melissa Boyde

Animal Studies Journal

Animal Studies Journal 2020 9(1): Cover Page, Table of Contents, Editorial and Contributor Biographies.

Provocation From The Field: A Multispecies Doula Approach To Death And Dying, Kathryn Gillespie

Animal Studies Journal

Death doulas can help to make meaning in the dying process, to be present for what arises at the end of life, and to move alongside those who are dying and their loved ones. At the end of life, doulas can offer help reflecting on what this life has meant, planning for the coming death, holding space during the active dying process, and grieving the loss of the one who has died. This paper extends a doula approach – typically work done with humans – to death and dying in multispecies contexts. Many other species are routinely rendered killable, disposable, …

Should Animals Have A Right To Work? Promises And Pitfalls, Charlotte Blattner

Animal Studies Journal

The view that non-human animals are ‘co-workers’ is a common trope used by researchers and the farming community, and increasingly forms the centre of inquiry in sociology, philosophy, and political economy. Scholars like Barbara Noske, Jocelyne Porcher, and Diane Stuart claim that animals are alienated from their labour, and that their contributions to our society are not recognized by it. Building on these findings, moral and political philosophers have recently argued that animals should have rights at work, like the right to remuneration or retirement. The much more pressing question, however, is whether animals should have a right to work. …

Free To Be Dog Haven: Dogs Who May Never Be Pets?, René J. Marquez

Animal Studies Journal

I am an artist who runs a sanctuary for dogs. I did not start the sanctuary as a studio project, but, as it turns out, it is very much an extension of my studio work. The sanctuary focuses on acknowledging canine subjectivity and agency in the context of colonialist, Western, modernist human fictions, a context explored throughout my work, in general. Our sanctuary is a site of ongoing investigation: we seek to map the territory between ‘free’ and ‘pet’. This paper examines the thinking behind and the practical life of my dog sanctuary: exigencies of doghuman collaboration and what it …

Should New Zealand Do More To Uphold Animal Welfare?, Andrew Knight

Animal Studies Journal

Governmental and industry representatives have repeatedly claimed that Aotearoa New Zealand leads the world on animal welfare, largely based on an assessment by global animal protection charity World Animal Protection (WAP). New Zealand’s leading ranking rested primarily on favourable comparisons of its animal welfare legislation with that of 50 other nations, within WAP’s 2014 Animal Protection Index. Unfortunately, however, review of welfare problems extant within the farming of meat chickens and laying hens, pigs, cows and sheep, reveals the persistence of systemic welfare compromises within most New Zealand animal farming systems. These are contrary to good ethics, to our duty …

'From Here To Everywhere': Foucault, Fonterra And Richie Mccaw (A Cow’S Tale), Chevy Rendell

Animal Studies Journal

This research paper attempts to provide a Foucauldian analysis of Fonterra’s television commercial ‘From Here to Everywhere’. With the cooperation of former All Black captain, Richie McCaw, ‘From Here to Everywhere’ is a play of power to construct a certain truth, that the dairy industry is the beating heart (and deliberately not the bountiful udder) of Aotearoa New Zealand’s economic and physical wellbeing. However, the Fonterra-McCaw narrative mystifies the often-violent realities of dairy farming while masquerading as natural certain ideologies, such as carnism, that perpetuate species and gender inequality. The recent Mycoplasma bovis outbreak in New Zealand inserts a measure …

How To Help When It Hurts: Act Individually (And In Groups), Cheryl E. Abbate

Animal Studies Journal

In a recent article, Corey Wrenn argues that in order to adequately address injustices done to animals, we ought to think systemically. Her argument stems from a critique of the individualist approach I employ to resolve a moral dilemma faced by animal sanctuaries, who sometimes must harm some animals to help others. But must systemic critiques of injustice be at odds with individualist approaches? In this paper, I respond to Wrenn by showing how individualist approaches that take seriously the notion of group responsibility can be deployed to solve complicated dilemmas that are products of injustice. Contra Wrenn, I argue …

The Grieving Kangaroo Photograph Revisited, David Brooks

Animal Studies Journal

Early in 2016 a photograph circulated widely of a male kangaroo holding up a dying female in the presence of a joey. Although initially taken as a moving and powerful photograph of grief, ‘experts’ quickly determined that this male may have killed the female in the process of coition. The male was in effect accused and convicted of rape and murder. Was this judgement correct? Was the male innocent or guilty? What are the nature, strength and politics of the assumptions involved in this judgement? Might he be exonerated, and why should this matter? The photograph is read and contextualised. …

[Review] Animal Experimentation: Working Towards A Paradigm Change. Edited By Kathrin Hermann And Kimberley Jayne. Brill, 2019. 714 Pp, John Hadley

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change. Edited by Kathrin Hermann and Kimberley Jayne. Brill, 2019. 714 pp. This is a very large volume. In almost 700 pages, no less than 51 authors contribute to 28 chapters (there is also a Foreword, by Peter Singer, and an Afterword, by John P. Gluck). The majority of chapters focus upon ethical or political matters and are readily accessible to scientists. Likewise, non-scientists ought to be able to follow the more technical or science heavy chapters.

[Review] John Simons. Obaysch: A Hippopotamus In Victorian London. Animal Publics Series, Edited By Fiona Probyn-Rapsey And Melissa Boyde, Sydney University Press, 2019. 226 Pp, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] John Simons. Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London. Animal Publics Series, edited by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey and Melissa Boyde, Sydney University Press, 2019. 226 pp. John Simons’ riveting biography of a hippo invites the reader into the experience of Obaysch who was captured on the Nile in 1849 then became a ‘star’ animal in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens in London. Obaysch is not just figured symbolically, politically and culturally, as so many historical animals are; Simons entices him from the archives to inhabit his own embodied narrative – a process which springs him from entrapment as a spectacle behind …