Art and Design Commons^™

Words With God, Krista Fassett

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

As a studio artist using multiple media, I investigate subjectivity of the female body as depicted within the context of evangelical doctrines and traditions. I explore misogyny and the absence of bodily autonomy in the bible, which designates women as property to be owned, purchased, and sold. Some overlapping themes include religious trauma, domestication, submission, and virginity. The intertwining of topics allows me to share my lived experience, and ignite conversation into certain religious doctrines that simultaneously live among cultural and political lines.

Emphasizing ‘holy’ scripture, my art varies through domestic materiality and includes crocheted textiles, oil paintings, installation with …

An Empirical Study On The Efficacy Of Llm-Powered Chatbots In Basic Information Retrieval Tasks, Naja Faysal

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The rise of conversational user interfaces (CUIs) powered by large language models (LLMs) is transforming human-computer interaction. This study evaluates the efficacy of LLM-powered chatbots, trained on website data, compared to browsing websites for finding information about organizations across diverse sectors. A within-subjects experiment with 165 participants was conducted, involving similar information retrieval (IR) tasks using both websites (GUIs) and chatbots (CUIs). The research questions are: (Q1) Which interface helps users find information faster: LLM chatbots or websites? (Q2) Which interface helps users find more accurate information: LLM chatbots or websites?. The findings are: (Q1) Participants found information significantly faster …

Fragments Of Forgiveness, Sarah Hayashi

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Trauma lives in the body, with or without conscious memory of the events that placed it there. To cope with the pain of trauma we might disconnect from our bodies, choosing to view ourselves as some separate entity living within the body. Disconnection offers a sense of protection by allowing compartmentalization of pain, grief, and trauma, but the harder these emotional fragments are fought, the more they demand acknowledgment.

Referencing my torso for size, I handbuild biomorphic sculptures from clay, finishing them with glaze that mimics the dewy texture of raw clay, using a palette derived from my skin tone …

Show & Tell, Mia Jae Tiffany Hutchinson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My work examines the concept of the fetish through subject and materiality. By weaving together elements borrowed from Baroque and Pop art, I intentionally disrupt historical norms. The overarching Camp aesthetics serve as a vehicle for subverting established references, while simultaneously imbuing them with a queer sensibility. By recontextualizing classical representations of the figure, I put myself into the work to examine how identity is the Subject but is conflated with the ideas of Objecthood.

References to pornography and sex work play a pivotal role in this body of work. For many trans women, sex work becomes a pragmatic choice …

Things That Are Long, Frankie Gutierrez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Bigfoot has become an important motif for Frankie Gutierrez, especially since his transition in 2021. The characters in this exhibition showcase the deeply personal exploration of transness and non-mainstream trans identities, the in-depth observations of others, and their interactions with transgender people. He compares transness to the likeness of bigfoot, typically an elusive and hard-to-find character that everyone suspects, but has rarely been seen. Evidence of their existence surrounds us, but only those with open minds can truly see them. The characters in this show look like you and me, and no one at all. This exhibition is not meant …