Art and Design Commons^™

Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press And Fluxus, Meghan A. Dellacrosse

Theses and Dissertations

"Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press and Fluxus," positions Knowles’ Big Book (1966) as a case study of historical methodology and interdisciplinary artistic practice in the post-war period. This comprehensive analysis of Big Book, a work of art no longer extant, contextualizes its publisher, Something Else Press through Dick Higgins’ concept of “intermedia,” and important lesser-known junctures relevant to Fluxus and the group’s leader George Maciunas are illuminated. Knowles' early and lesser-known silkscreen paintings are also examined.

Translating Transformative Human Rights Education Through Visual Languages & Informal Spaces, Jazzmin Chizu Gota

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project examines methods, theories, and practices of translating human rights education through multiple vernaculars. Developed as a workshop in sociocultural syntax deconstruction and an educational human rights education website focused on the domestic population of the US, the project focuses on localizing human rights concepts to the public vernacular of the country. Human rights education (HRE) and media and information literacy (MIL) are expanded and redefined as social literacy, or the ability to navigate and decode the present, complex realities that both HRE and MIL were developed to address. Reframing media and visual arts as an archive of past …

Remembering Vietnam War Veterans: Interpreting History Through New Orleans Monuments And Memorials, Catherine Bourg Haws

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This thesis is concerned with the question of how America’s citizen soldiers are remembered and how their services can be interpreted through monuments and memorials. The paper discusses the concept of memory and the functions of memorialization. It explores whether and how monuments and memorials portray the difficulties, hardships, horror, costs, and consequences of armed combat. The political motivations behind the design, formation and establishment of the edifices are also probed. The paper considers the Vietnam War monuments and memorials erected by Americans and Vietnam expatriates in New Orleans, Louisiana, and examines their illustrative and educational usefulness. Results reflect …

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

Gesture As Revelation, Laurel Panella

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The two divergent paths of fine arts and psychological research come together to demonstrate how physical gesture and facial expression communicates significant meaning regarding human emotion and intention. The conceptual framework of these paintings arises from the artist’s engagement with peer-reviewed psychological studies on Affective Science. The paintings balance qualities of both emotional and intellectual thinking, with the goal of calling them forth in equal strength during the viewing experience. The symbolic and representational language of gesture is examined through the painting titled Precarious Extension. Dynamics of compassion and affect theory are analyzed through the painting Transmission of …

Interface Fantasies And Futures: Designing Human-Computer Relations In The Shadow Of Memex, Rachael Bradshaw Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is about how designers, experimental writers, and innovative thinkers have imagined both computer interfaces and the human/machine relations that might emerge through engagement with different kinds of interfaces. Although futuristic thinking about digital media and their interfaces has changed over time, we can isolate some constants that have persisted through almost all mainstream practices of interface design, particularly in American culture. Drawing from a historical trajectory that I associate with Vannevar Bush and his speculative invention, which he called “memex” in a 1945 essay, I name these constants sterilization and compartmentalization. They are two tendencies or values that …

Creative Collaboration On A Creativity Book, Jane Harvey

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Based on existing roles as writer and designer, two Master’s students partnered on one project. This project was dually about the creative product and creative process. The final product result is a book on creativity, but much of the project learning was about collaboration during the creative process itself. The project included the creation of written and visual content and a production-ready book layout on the subject of creativity. This paper describes the process followed to create a fast reading, jargon-free book with a special academic end section.

Investigating A Cartographic Niche: Drawing Maps For Historians, Kate Blackmer

Masters Theses

Drawing maps for historians involves a number of distinct challenges. The historical cartographer must grapple not only with geological changes over time, but geographical ones, from human-cultural to physical, and from political to spatial. Original manuscripts must be read with close attention toward extracting geographical data, map sources must be vetted, and design challenges must be resolved. Furthermore, many of the antiquarian sources that are used to create current-day maps of historical times have unique scales, projections, and senses of place—all of which present complications that need to be overcome when creating historically based maps for publication. This thesis describes …

The Effects Of Brand Familiarity On Perceived Risks, Attitudes, And Purchase Intentions Toward Intimate Apparel Brands: The Case Of Victoria’S Secret, Jennifer Lynn Rose

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of brand familiarity on reducing consumers’ perceived risks in intimate apparel shopping, which in turn influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward intimate apparel brands. To predict relationships among perceptions of risk and consumer behaviors, the present study adopted the perceived risk theory (Cox, 1976) and a modified version of the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).

An online survey was conducted by recruiting adult females through a large Mid-Southern university in the U.S. Reliable and valid measures from previous research were adopted and modified to assess …

Art And..., Dayna J. Kriz

Graduate School of Art Theses

Almost anything goes in this time of contemporary artistic production as long as an artist can ‘back’ their ideas and the position they operate from. This expanding territory of production and engagement is an exciting potential for working artists, providing freedom to self-determine ones modus operandi within an expanding support system to engage the world with. While this is an exciting growth it is also potentially dangerous. The un-named and historically ambiguous position that Art1 operates from has created a rootless position to the production of culture. This rootlessness or, universal position has historically established itself as the gatekeeper and …

Pressing: Where The Objective Meets The Subjective, Mariana Parisca

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

Through this essay I describe the theoretical and anthropological ideas that led to the creation of the Cushing Series. An interest in the obsession with photography in popular culture leads to an understanding of the permeation of structured reasoning beyond scientific research and into everyday life. Taking evidence from photography, and philosophy of science I establish the limitations of structured reasoning, both as a way of perceiving the world and as an understanding of identity, and define surface and frame as its physical representation. Using Sartre’s existential theory and phenomenological anthropology I then describe the infinite subjective existence of …

Noise., Laura Katherine Polaski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research is in the realm of the psychological, the emotional and way these drives manifest physically. The works in Noise. aims to give a physical representation to the non-physical. Research on Affect Theory and the teachings of Silvan Tomkins were paramount to understanding emotional drives and the ways in which they manifest.

The purpose of this research is to understand how emotions are generated and communicated and to ask if specific emotions can be generated upon viewing inanimate objects. I create abstract figurative sculpture, which imitate emotion that has no specific physicality. These works exist with one foot in …

Presence-At-Hand, Eric Lyle Schultz

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The writing that follows is intended to provide a theoretical framework for the motives behind my practice. The primary concerns addressed are the reception, transmission, and physical shape of knowledge. I will discuss a human condition that exists as a byproduct of both the legacy of representation as well as the innate biology of the brain. I will argue that as a society we are governed by the residue of an extreme logic, and that this condition places severe margins on our potential for creative solutions. I will propose that our ability to create meaning is stifled by the …

Power To The People: A Comprehensive Look At Crowdsourcing Initiatives In Cultural Institutions, Danielle Pace

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Today, crowdsourcing has become an integrative approach to completing projects using the help of the general populous. These projects aid museum staff by processing large quantities of data, which otherwise could not be completed due to time and/or staff restraints. Through crowdsourcing, cultural institutions have the ability to outsource these tasks to volunteers, who can complete them at much faster rates. Although staff members are needed to validate and supervise these projects, crowdsourcing remains a useful tool in increasing public interactions and project efficiency.

This thesis presents a thorough outline of what crowdsourcing is, how it is being utilized, and …

A Resident Advisor’S Guide To Students With Perceived Eating Disorders, Danielle Smith

Honors Projects

Abstract
According to an extensive 2013 survey conducted by the National Eating Disorder Association which examined 165 different college campuses to see what was being done on campuses nation wide to spread awareness about disorders as well as treat them. There is still a significant gap in perceived need and available counseling or nutritional services by staff specializing in eating disorders on college campuses throughout the country” (National Eating Disorder Association). Therefore, the purpose of this honors project is to develop a comprehensive training guide for resident advisors on Bowling Green State University’s campus to utilize in order to support …

Dispersal: A Multidisciplinary Investigation Of Plant Life, Alexandra E. Arzt

Theses and Dissertations

Using plants as a basis for exploring the interstices between the human and nonhuman, this thesis investigates ideas of awareness, intelligence, deep time, animism, and the fluctuating human perception of the agency of Nature. It outlines environmental art practices since the 1950s involving vegetal life. In addition, the paper provides a critical analysis of plant perception of Jakob von Uexküll’s work and theories of vital materialism and “critical plant studies” while noting recent studies in plant neurobiology. In my work, plants become active participants via their movement, seeding, and smell. This study takes the form of imitation, purposeful symbiosis, anthropomorphism, …

Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production, Jennifer E. Figg

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes of representation …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Walls Have Ears But They Also Speak –A Comparative Study Of Two Playgrounds, Anna Hirson-Sagalyn

Senior Projects Spring 2015

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Militarization And Modern Gaming: An Analysis Of The Relationship Of The Military And The Video Game Industry, Steven Chapman

Online Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the influence of militarism and the military itself in modern video gaming. The military's involvement includes developing its own, free of charge, video game title used as a recruitment tool, and training games used to desensitize new soldiers. Surrounding this direct involvement is a massive gaming industry that markets war and killing in the execution of the former in a "realistic" yet intensely glorified manner. The macro-cultural and societal implications of this phenomenon are explored.

Investing In The Arts As A Regional Economic Development Tool: A Case Study Of Suny Buffalo State College Arts Students, Dinash Lal Mpa

Public Administration Master’s Projects

The intent of this study was to determine the financial needs of the art students attending Buffalo State College when considering producing their art. In order to establish this need, this case study required the opinions of arts students on their current and future potential financial circumstances including, prospective income supplementation to produce their art work, ability to produce art work given their current and future financial outlooks, the importance of their financial circumstances in relation to the production of their art, the degree to which they currently or foresee the use of financial products and services to produce their …