Art and Design Commons^™

(In)Equality., Jongin Choi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

(in)Equality. centers around my experiences as a transnational person and those around me who have affected my current concept of equality and cultural histories. My visual methodologies cover digital photography and editing, inkjet printing, and laser engraving: multimedia in a process of new discovery, translation between analog and digital, and rearticulation. The exhibition includes portraits peering down from above, illuminated by projected patterns and manipulated messages from Nike’s “Equality.” (2017). The purpose of this thesis paper is to describe the elements of identity, marginalization, and personal reaction to advertising, as well as the and theories which have shaped this project. …

Blaze, Meg Roussos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses her work in “BLAZE,” a Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibit held at the Tipton Gallery from September 16th through October 4th, 2019. The exhibition consists of 11 archival inkjet prints, two photographic artist books, a nine-channel video installation, representing the artist’s exploration of how to experience the landscape. Using non-traditional approaches to photographic imagery, experimental exhibition layout, the artist forms questions around themes of walking and landscape. The artist investigates sculptural land art installations represented through photographic documentation. A catalog of the exhibit is included at the end of this thesis.

Roussos examines formal and conceptual …

An Uncertain Line: Making Art About Photographs Of American War And Violence., Cassidy Meurer

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Photography’s power in capturing a moment in history is indisputable, but inevitably flawed. Assumptions of objectivity and truth are made that do not count for the bias of the photographer, or the bias of the viewer. These assumptions do not explain the warped effect of freezing life at a fraction of a second. Information is left outside the frame; stories are fragmented in their retelling. Certain historical photographs have become iconic over time. My interest lies in images of American battle, violence, and trauma; those that have political and propagandic weight. Coded, controversial, and inherently emotional, these photographs have become …

Rui(N)Ation: Narratives Of Art And Urban Revitalization In Detroit, Jessica Ks Cappuccitti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation considers the City of Detroit as a case study for analyzing the complex role that artists and art institutions are playing in the potential re-growth and revitalization of the city. I specifically look at artists and arts organizations who are working against the popular narrative of Detroit as “ruin city.” Their efforts create counter narratives that emphasize stories of survival and showcase vibrant communities. By focussing on artist-led and institutional initiatives, I emphasize the importance of art in both community and narrative-building.

This research has taken the form of a written dissertation and two adapted projects, and positions …

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, And Paradox In Subaltern Labor Photography, Mahnure Janis

Theses and Dissertations

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, and Paradox in Subaltern Labor Photography is an expanded cinema performance examining 'cheap' labor in the fast fashion industry through a self-reflexive diasporic lens. The images and narration explores the garment factories in Bangladesh and contains ‘a photographer’s cognitive meta-data’, including ethical dilemmas while taking the images.

The Standard Model, Manny Llanura

CGU MFA Theses

Photography is my medium. “The Standard Model” is a body of work created from photographs of the Los Angeles Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019 Collection runway.

Each final work starts with over a thousand photos that become the raw materials from which I eventually produce my final piece. Deep in the final piece are the lights, shadows, hues, tones of a themed shoot.

I believe that the ability to focus on what is in front of you is not directly proportional to how detailed the image is. My goal is to incite appreciation of what humans have done or …

The Wild Beasts, Peter Cochrane

Theses and Dissertations

The Wild Beasts springs from my desire to thank my ever-expanding queer chosen family and mentors for their strength. Working through the often violent and othering aspects of the lens and photographic histories I create floral portraits responding to each person’s being and our relationship. Using the 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera—the same used by colonialists and ethnographers to “capture” the divinity of Nature—I erect each as a traditional still life studio setup at the threshold between the natural world and that constructed by humans. These environments speak both to the character of each friend and also to …

The Zone, Jordon W. Soper

Senior Projects Spring 2019

There are places, soft spots, in our world where the membrane between realities and possibilities is thinner. Here the familiar constant fundamentals described by natural science to order our understanding of the world are inconsistent. Natural laws are stretched, warped, and refracted in chimeric distortions. To enter is to encounter the unreal and the unknowable, to comprehend the incomprehensible. The familiar and the unfamiliar intertwine and overlap. In the zone we see in circles, sensory experience expands, and minute details become revelations. At the fringes of consciousness and perception we meet with the shimmer of simultaneous wonder and terror.

Within …

I Become A Beam Of Light., Leor Miller

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Who am I and what do I do about it? I come to a clearing in my mind. It is a landscape, constantly in flux: people running in and out, feelings swelling and crashing down, understanding moving in and out of focus. I am confused. I watch people and the ways they move, engage with each other, engage with the world, and wonder: how do I engage with myself, my surroundings, and the people who exist within them? Do I do it normally? Probably not. Maybe I should be asking if I do it well, or if the way I …