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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

Ritual Embodiment: The Body Remembers Through Ritual, Ayesha Mohyuddin May 2015

Ritual Embodiment: The Body Remembers Through Ritual, Ayesha Mohyuddin

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

Ritual externalizes religious belief through physical embodiment and codified performance that allows it to be shared through a community. In a post 9/11 American society where Muslims are subject to increased scrutiny,. In a secular society that regulates religion to the private sphere so as not to conflict with the identity of the state, externalized religious identity can become problematic, especially as a Muslim living in post 9/11 United States. Ritual thenritual becomes a way to otherize a community based on shared practices. an identity under increased scrutiny. However, looking beyond the framework that the specific rules of ritual creates …


Pressing: Where The Objective Meets The Subjective, Mariana Parisca May 2015

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 …


Imagining New Possibilities Through Social Practice, Sarah O. Hull May 2015

Imagining New Possibilities Through Social Practice, Sarah O. Hull

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

In my practice, I have significantly questioned the role of the arts in social change. I have explored various forms of social practice, especially political art,public art and community art. Social practice lives in-between the world of art and social action and can add an important voice to both. Still, social practice, (like all forms of art) is limited and cannot be the sole source of social change. It is by working with others already organizing for social change, but bringing in the unique skills and perspectives of an artist that social practice is most effective. In this thesis, I …


Paiting, Lucas Page May 2014

Paiting, Lucas Page

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

My work is motivated by the painting “as such” – as an inquiry into and intervention upon what constitutes a painting, how they are constructed, how they function, etc. Through an investigation of painting as a genre, both in its historical canon and contemporary forms, I deconstruct the formal and cultural elements surrounding the field. Four major axes serve as the basis for my inquiry and intervention of painting: Painting, Abstraction, Representation, Control. Taking as a point of departure the comment, “Your work is a representation of abstraction,” I aim to figure out how “the painting” (in all of its …


Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, Ambika Subramaniam May 2014

Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, Ambika Subramaniam

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

The following thesis examines the work of Ambika Subramaniam, in particular her thesis installation Ergonomically Designing Art Objects, for the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Washington University in St. Louis. Based within a discussion of semiotics, the thesis researches furniture signification and tracks its evolution through traditional form, ergonomic function, and consumed product. Major points include the ways in which objects are capable of collapsing and retaining the semiotic divide between a sign and referent, and how that signification relates to contemporary design-oriented products. Using the chair as the exemplifying object, the thesis installation questions how objects have …