Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons^™

Compost Rich Of Resistance: Wayfinding In Tel Aviv And Jerusalem, Taylor K. Miller

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

It is not common to travel to a region searching for what is wrong and askew. But this is precisely how I move through greater Palestine-Israel each time I visit. Explosions and incessant pummeling have forced the sidewalks and retaining walls to heave–Styrofoam slabs serve as an equally hasty and hideous shim. But in this, there is hope. Even where the sidewalk momentarily ends–likely that in just a few months a new road, deeper into the West Bank will be built–it is glaring that these foundations are laid at an unsustainable pace. In a land where the forest often obscures …

A World Of Possibilities, Austen Linder

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) has been shrouded in stigma­ – so many people afraid to even try it out due to those undesirable personas constructed around the game. It’s hardly ever looked at as the incredible creative exercise and amazing bonding experience that it presents, a surefire potential to bring a group of people closer together as they joke, problem-solve, and process both game and real life together, while learning about how very much those two realms overlap. With how much the game has meant to me and how highly I regard the potential of its power, I …

Making Sounds, Patrick Costello

Theses and Dissertations

Using collaboration and performance as tools, I situate my personal story, my body, and my skills and interests within a contemporary landscape that is intersectional, full of partialities, and rooted in evolving ecologies.

Art Interventions And Disruptions In Financial Systems: An Interview With Paolo Cirio, Marisa Lerer, Conor Mcgarrigle

Articles

Prior to the release of the 2016 Panama Papers and 2017 Paradise Papers – leaked documents that uncovered the movement of funds through offshore tax havens – conceptual artist Paolo Cirio’s (b. 1979) project Loophole for All (2013) revealed and documented the mechanics behind offshore financial centers. In this interview, Cirio expounds upon his investigations of offshore banking practices, describes his projects for instituting alternative financial models, and explains his hacktivist (i.e. Internet activist) strategies that engage with legal and economic systems. Defining the foundational movements that inform his work, Cirio in turn illuminates his methods of direct provocation and …

Ice Cream, Richard Frank Peterson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ice Cream is a series of 2D and 3D depictions of lawn ornaments, Charlie Brown, and novelty ice cream bars, which question how White America is indoctrinated through seemingly innocuous images and objects. The exhibition unveils the white supremacy fostered within the American way of life and articulates an environment where Americans act in racist ways when they believe they are acting morally. The research found within Ice Cream attempts to dismantle the foundation these justifications are built upon. This honesty, coupled with acknowledging that these historic traditions are rooted in racial constructs, will result in a double consciousness and …

Real Goner, Nicholas Cox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis paper is to tell the story behind, and outline the theoretical and conceptual framework underlying the exhibition, Real Goner. The exhibition combines a number of elements drawn from music and art history, as well as the theoretical writings of Albert Camus, Guy Debord, and Joseph Kosuth. Together, these elements produce a cryptic exhibition that attempts to address the inherent chaos, and apparent meaninglessness of existence; and to see art as a proposition, a performance, and a practice. The exhibition addresses issues of celebrity, the production and consumption of culture, and where that cycle leaves us …

Milk, Lindsey Heiden

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My work is a composition of contemporary fairy tales of visual, written and oral forms. I examined the historical evolution of formula, from animal milk, to powder formula and now to a combination of animal milk, human milk and powder. The current scientific research being done with formula and animals, coupled with a fairy tale is the inspiration behind my current tale. The importance of women both in regards to the historical development of keeping a cultural tradition alive through oral tale-telling and the much larger role of keeping humankind alive through reproduction and birth, further build the base that …

For Wintonbury: An Expansion Of Narrative And Painting, Cassaundra Kayla Sanderson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In March 2017, I began planning the narratives of what would become my Thesis Exhibition. One year later marked my installation of the exhibit: For Wintonbury, located at the Fine Art Center Gallery at the University of Arkansas.

A merging of the visual arts and literary fiction, For Wintonbury offers a more immersive experience in storytelling. The painted scenes, drawings, three-dimensional compositions, and short stories each serve their own purposes in presenting partial glimpses into the longer narratives of Wintonbury. Through multiple media and entry points, the viewer is given the choice in which sequence and manner to take in …

The Flow Of Art: A Study On The Human Experience And Nature, Matthew R. Schott

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through all of human history, artists and other creators have been able to access the extraordinary state of flow to achieve amazing feats. Whether it be for a divine purpose, or simply making someone’s day a little better, art has been used to lift the spirits and nourish humanity. In our attempt to cope with the world in which we live, we have found this great mental resource, that has allowed for achievements that not one person could not attain on their own. In my observation, I have seen this euphoric cycle of flow change the lives of so many …

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, Alyson Krajewski

Honors Projects

I have great pride for the neighborhood in which I was raised – a community that, while founded in strong Polish roots, has developed into an amalgamation of culture. Growing up with a deep connection to my Polish heritage as well as my Toledo pride has compelled me to introspectively question my identity, both as an individual and within my local community. These questions of self-identity vs. “identities within communities” have roots within topics of upbringing, social clubs, education, race, gender, and inclusivity.

Within my own neighborhood, one of the few remaining places where large bodies of citizens still gather …

The Work Of Living Art, Empathy, And The Creation Of An Aesthetics Of Perception In The Early Twentieth Century, Sarah Peil Winstead

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Adolphe Appia (1862-1928), theorist and pioneering voice of the New Stagecraft Movement in twentieth century theatre, was a transformative influence on the history of scenic design. This paper looks at the links between Appia’s theories in theatre scenic design and contemporaneous German aesthetic theory. At the time German theorists like Adolf Hildebrand and August Schmarsow developed an aesthetic theory, Einfülung or empathy theory, based on the connection between the human body and perception. I will argue this theory influenced not only Appia and his contemporaries it also shaped the landscape of mid-century theatre design. Appia’s own theories revolved around three …

Hortus Conclusus 囚, Lantian D.

Artists-in-Residence Programme : Exhibition Catalogues

The Work of Lantian D.

One of the most basic things to understand about Lantian D.’s work is that it is born out of an acute awareness of the weaknesses inherent in contemporary art. The sorry state of the contemporary artworld is even the theme of one her earliest paintings, Crime and Punishment, which contains some suggestive depic­tions of artists and intellectuals who may bear some responsibility for the present situation: Jacques Derrida, Marcel Duchamp, Tracy Emin, Michel Foucault, Clement Greenberg, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Charles Saatchi, and Andy Warhol are all depicted as witch-like creatures from one of …

Paradise Entertainment's Feature Of The Week: Splint, Brittney Callahan

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

Watching television has been part of my daily ritual since childhood. Every time it was turned on, I was able to enter into new worlds that were exotic compared to my house. Each story on the screen filled me with hope, inspired me with passion, and took me to a place where everything, no matter how terrible, seemed to have a purpose, an arc, and an end. These visual narratives birthed the idea of an equational life, one that seemed simple and mathematical. After I realized that life couldn’t be firmly calculated, I decided to invent my own alternative realities …

Hearing Through Walls, Bradley Marshall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses work in “Hearing Through Walls”, a Masters of Fine Arts thesis exhibit held at downtown Tipton Gallery from February 19th through March 2nd, 2018. The exhibition consists of 15 archival inkjet prints and one two-channel video piece, representing the artists three-year exploration into narrative forms in image making. Using non-traditional approaches to photographic portraiture and experimental exhibition layout, the artist forms questions around themes of domesticity, lost youth, and American masculinity. Among these themes is an investigation into photographic issues, including the cultural role that photographs play in perpetuating, miming, and disrupting the facades of everyday life. …

It Can't Leave You The Way It Finds You, Kyle Nobles

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

There’s a beautiful innocence in childhood where, although the world is large and new, it feels as though your place in it and the roles that you play are stable and unchanging. In our youth, outside of extraordinary circumstances, we are unburdened by the awareness that everything and everyone is subject to radical change—including our own sense of self. As we grow older though, looking back it becomes clear that this was never the case. In a matter of years, you can change so dramatically that you did not even notice as you became an entirely new person. For me, …

The Us’S Economic Promises Are Over: An Interview With Miguel Luciano, Marisa Lerer, Conor Mcgarrigle

Articles

Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017. The island was left without electricity and clean water for months. However, the natural disaster was not the only cause of this lasting devastation. The financial fall-out from predatory loans, which led to Puerto Rico’s inability to invest funds in its own infrastructure, caused an enduring humanitarian disaster. Artist Miguel Luciano (b. 1972) in this interview discusses his work in relation to the 2017 Puerto Rican debt crisis and the legacy of the over 100-year span of Puerto Rico’s colonial status as a US territory, which gives the US disproportionate control over …

Insurgent Finances: An Interview With Gabriela Ceja And Fran Ilich, Marisa Lerer, Conor Mcgarrigle

Articles

When the financial crisis of 2008 exposed the opaque workings of global financial markets, it led to calls for alternate economic models to replace the excesses of contemporary capitalism. A decade on, it can seem that those calls went unheeded. However, in the collaborative social practice of Fran Ilich and Gabriela Ceja, sustainable alternatives modeled on ancient modes of exchange are being developed with projects that are deeply embedded in economic practice; whether that is running a functioning microbank complete with complex financial instruments in Spacebank or serving Zapatista coffee from Chiapas, Mexico in the Diego de la Vega Coffee …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Creative Micro-Entrepreneurship In Practice: Exploring Digital Tools For Small Creative Businesses, Olivia Messina

Honors Scholar Theses

For the scope of this thesis, my focus is on independently owned businesses

run by “creative micro-entrepreneurs.” I’m using this term, coined by the digital

selling platform Etsy, to encompass artists, craftspeople, and others who sell artistic

goods and services they have made themselves. In addition to being part of this

community personally, I also think that it is important for these small businesses to

have the resources they need to thrive in our rapidly changing economy. Selling

online, clothing & accessories businesses, and cooking & baking businesses are

among the top 5 “side hustles” for Millennials, making creative small …

A Sumitography: A Listing Of Postage Stamps Celebrating Contributions To Civil And Human Rights By Martin Luther King Jr. And Associates, Lillie R. Jenkins

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

This "sumitography" (from Latin "sumit" means postage stamp) is a listing of postage stamps celebrating contributions to civil right and human rights by Martin Luther King Jr. and associates. In addition to USA postage stamps, this listing includes stamps from other nations, including Cuba, Ghana, Sweden, Turks & Caicos Islands, and others. Also included are postage stamps honoring King associates--in the struggle for civil and human rights, Mohandas K. Gandi, Rosa Partks, A. Philp Randolph, and Malcolm X.