Art and Design Commons^™

Parts Of The Sum, Andrew Cho

Art and Design Theses

Parts of the Sum is an installation of ceramic, wood, and drawn components which examines the symbiosis of individual and cultural identity: a recursive relationship which engenders unceasing diversity. The installation uses patterns and rule-based compositions as vehicles to address the development of complexity from compounded simplicity as it relates to personality. An immersive meta-network that emulates the complexity underlying identity, Parts of the Sum ultimately relies on the active participation and inclusion of the viewer for completion.

Repetitive Acts Now, Leigh K. Peacock Ms.

Art and Design Theses

This paper explains at the intersection of Memory theory, Feminist Theory, Existential Psychology, Faith and Contemporary Art, I have found a way to embrace and integrate memories and experiences into my art and be a more fully integrated, emotionally healthy person living fully in the present moment. I articulate my exploration of the broad concept of memory and addressing unresolved negative memories in order to realize healthy change in forming my identity.

Through art and philosophical research I have found substantial corroboration, conceptually supporting my information supporting my Post Minimal art making process. I employ memory evoking materials through the …

Ambient Void, Joy Phoenix M. Savage

Art and Design Theses

The constructed works of Phoenix Savage point to the negotiated world of African Americans. Savage explores her artistic process in relationship to racial tensions both personal and historical.

Luce E Ombre - Light And Shadows, Robert L. Foah

Art and Design Theses

This thesis focuses on the oppositional and complimentary forces of light and shadows in the culture of Naples, Italy. Demonstrating, through photographs and the analysis of these photographs, how the light of Naples, a ‘northern’ light, and its resultant shadows echo (metaphorically and in reality) the light and shadows of the society, culture and history of Naples, Italy.

Foster Child, Brooke N. Creef

Art and Design Theses

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Foster Child is my attempt to bring to light my love for dolls as creatures to be created and imagined again and again. In terms of childhood play, toys function and exist on many levels. Each becomes a friend to some and, in some cases, a confidant. Dolls become more than a plastic play-thing and through the eyes of the individual take on a life of their own based upon the user’s own …

Wisp, Karen E. Cleveland

Art and Design Theses

WISP is a forest that requests a reconsideration of the human relationship to nature and to the woods. It beckons the spirit and threads the supernatural through the everyday. The forest installation is comprised of drawings, sound, and suspended inorganic and organic objects that create an intimate entanglement and engages the body and senses. This paper reflects the experiences and the philosophies that led to this installation.

Looking Back: An Examination Of Family Archives, James E. Bentley Iii

Art and Design Theses

With digital technology now dominating the film and photography industry, analog resources are becoming scarce. Simultaneously, memories preserved through personal family archives also are in danger of deterioration. Time, heat and humidity can cause film to decay just as the passage of time and the erosion of memory allows their contents to fade. In Looking Back, my family film and photography archives are exhumed and collectively examined by myself and my family. Reflecting upon this massive accumulation of imagery and their attached memories seems an endless task. However, as expressed in Looking Back, the greater the effort to …

Conscious Living: A Look At Two Low-Impact Intentional Communities, Carmen S. Price

Art and Design Theses

Conscious Living is a series of visual solutions to a current and escalating problem in increasingly populated modern societies between its citizens and the environment they inhabit. Documented in the photographs are two dissimilar intentional communities that both strive to operate harmoniously with the surrounding ecology.

Originally intending to address the misconception that low impact living is uncomfortable or unsatisfying, this research and my firsthand experience has led to conclusions that are more complex and less didactic. Although the images focus on these two communities, ultimately the intention is to provide the viewer with new perspectives on these niche groups, …

Shirin Neshat: A Contemporary Orientalist, Mojgan Khosravi

Art and Design Theses

This thesis analyzes Shirin Neshat’s Women of Allah photographs by exploring key socio-political events that have shaped Iranian history since the reign of Cyrus the Great, ca. 600 B.C. Since Neshat’s photographs have been largely intended for a Western audience, it is important to explore the concept of colonialism that has created East/West polarities and so greatly influenced our modern era. This paper intends to demonstrate that Neshat’s images perpetuate Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, which allocates the Oriental to an inferior position vis-à-vis his Occidental counterpart. For a Western audience, Neshat’s consistent use of the Muslim veil, illegible Persian …

Critical Regionalism And The Contemporary Indian Workplace, Cynthia Lakshminarayanan

Art and Design Theses

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This paper represents an exploration into the expression of critical regionalism in a globalized design market. The research looks at the historical progression of Indian design and analyzes traditional concepts and patterns that can be melded with an international design language to create a design solution that speaks to both sides.

From Performer To Petrushka: A Decade Of Alexandra Exter's Work In Theater And Film, Laura A. Hunt

Art and Design Theses

The subject of my thesis is Russian artist Alexandra Exter’s work in the performing arts, with a focus on her theatrical set and costume designs in the Kamerny Theater, her creations for Iakov

Protazanov’s 1924 science fiction film, Aelita, and finally her exquisitely fabricated set of approximately forty marionettes. Within these colorful wooden figures are reconciled conflicting notions of stasis and dynamism, sculpture and performer, human and object. Drawing upon Victor Shklovskiĭ’s formalist definition of “enstrangement,” I examine her introduction of the object in place of the human performer as a means of exposing the creative process, forcing the …

Best Of, Nimer I. Aleck Ii

Art and Design Theses

The majority of modern popular trophies seem to act as memorials to small victories. Foiled plastic figures sitting atop extruded tubes of holographic tape are given for everything from internationally recognized achievement to participation in regional events. These architectural sculptures are icons of success. This thesis explores the themes, processes, and contexts that inform the ways that we perceive value. Using the iconography of the popular modern trophy, this thesis and the artwork associated with it examines the constructs of value within visual culture. My goal is to display and understand the way we appreciate and define that which implies …