Digital Commons Network^™

(Re)Producing Orientalism: Industry Logic Of Chinese Mobile Game Re-Skins In The Global App Empire, Yizhou Xu

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Through the case study of the mobile title Game of Sultans, this article examines the proliferation of iterative and copycat games through the practice of reskins in the mobile game industry. Based on year-long autoethnographic fieldwork working in a Chinese mobile game company, I provide an on-the-ground perspective of how Orientalist representations in reskinned games are instrumentalized through the roles of “cultural brokers” and the work of localization for Western markets. By taking a theoretical and technological understanding of reskins, I argue that reskinned games, as a form of industrial mimicry, while an important aspect of standardized game production, …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

Collection-Based Research On A Kampilan Sword In Jambi People’S Struggle Museum, Irsyad Leihitu, Ujang Hariadi

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article discusses the kampilan sword in Jambi People’s Struggle Museum. Kampilan is a traditional weapon originating from the Philippines but has spread to several regions in Indonesia, including Jambi. The kampilan sword collection is often overlooked, and there is not much information regarding these objects, despite the museum’s primary function is research and communication. Therefore, we conducted a study of a collection of kampilan swords to explore information related to these objects, allowing the museum to utilize and develop them in the future. The research model was based on the material culture study, using the social life of things …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Living In Untranslatability--Performance Art In China And Usa, Ziyun Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis embodies discontinuities in performance art and its non-equivalent Chinese term “行 为艺术” between language and cultural context into a migrating journey. A comparative analysis on the disciplinary history of performance art studies in the US and China laid a foundation in exploring the dynamics of marginality in two contexts. Extracting from the narrative mechanism and body view of Chinese performance art, I demonstrate how the philosophy of living (生) inspired many artistic creation, which also echoes my research journey. And from our mutual living experience, I pose the concept of constructive untranslatability that applies positionality and situated knowledge …

Standing On The Edge Of A Dream, Parto Ahmadpour Mobarake

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Standing On the Edge of a Dream delves into the intricate tapestry of lived experiences shaped by relocation, emphasizing the nuanced space that exists between reality and imagination. As an individual who has undergone the transformative journey of immigration, I recognize that the concept of relocation is like standing on the edge of a dream. This notion becomes a living structure, intricately woven with threads from our past, present, and future. My artistic exploration extends beyond my artworks, yet it remains deeply rooted in my personal narratives. The artworks in the exhibition continue to draw inspiration from personal memories and …

Mapuche Women's Cooperative And Sustainable Development, Peter Kent

Peace and Conflict Studies Journal Conference

This study looks at a Mapuche cooperative (Chol-Chol) in southern Chile. The review focuses on how this woman owned and run enterprise overcomes primarily culturally ingrained indigenous biases, and how these women deal with a dominant Euro-centric culture that refuses to acknowledge them both as a distinct group within Chile and as capable and contributing members of the Chilean economy.

The study follows two specific members of the cooperative. One is the Executive Director of the organization, charged with oversight of the cooperative members, from financial accountability to negotiations, within the group and outside of the group with local municipal …

Experiential Humanitiesx

DePaul Magazine

DePaul University's HumanitiesX program promotes project-based learning through innovative community collaborations.

Innovative Collaboration And Co-Designing With Santhal And Mohli Tribes Of Dumka, India, Nilanjana Bairagi, Ajithsen Selvadhas, Sowndarya Archarya

IASDR Conference Series

Tribal communities use locally available resources to fulfil their daily needs in India. Santhal and Mohli tribes in Jharkhand, India have an intergenerational skill of using bamboo and other natural fibres to make utility crafts like baskets and mats, which is used as a part of their lifestyle. However, it was limited in terms of product range and market reach, which resulted in the tribes’ livelihood stagnancy and other financial difficulties. Therefore, the objective of this research was design intervention and product development based on collaborative designing, as the researchers were outside of the tribal community. And also to propose …

The Body Gets The Notion: Performative Design Practice For Human Computer Integration To Encourage Innovation In The Domains Of Health And Well-Being., Anne Marleen Olthof, Jouke Verlinden, Somaya Ben Allouch

IASDR Conference Series

This PhD-project delivers a design methodology that studies how cyber-physical systems can integrate with the human body to improve the quality of life for people with progressive and permanent disabilities. In this project, the perspectives of the ‘deviant body’ (Murray, 2007) and the ‘disabled body’ (Goodley, 2017) are seen as bodies of knowledge that can question, collapse, or even eliminate traditional perspectives on what it means to be ‘human’ in hybrid realities. In recent debates on human-computer integration (HInt) (Farooq & Grudin, 2017; Mueller et al., 2020, 2021; Danry, V.et al., 2021; Semertzidis et al., 2022; Barbosa et al., 2023), …

Exploring And Facilitating Daoism's Contributions To Design Prototype, A Case Study From A "More-Than-Human" Social Innovation Project: Hokkhi, Jixiang Jiang, Shu Zhang, Yizao Wu

IASDR Conference Series

In the face of the current environmental crises and the emergent debate over how we as a species should respond to it, local-context discussions, research, and practice are rapidly growing in a number of regions. Within the confines of the design community, there is an ever-growing view of these discussions as representing a culturally diverse perspective on design, as opposed to the current Western-centric design shaped by modernism and capitalist market economies, and as representing the emergence of an emerging design scene of pluriverse. This study extends the concept of the oyster reef conservation project referred to as "Hokkhi," produced …

Identities And [Changing] Identities: A Crossroads Of Cultures, Translation, And Digital Innovation, Valeria Bucchetti, Anna Barbara, José Allard, Peter Scupelli, Reejy Atef Abdelatty Mikhail

IASDR Conference Series

Will the design system be emancipated enough to contribute to the transformation processes of identities in different cultural contexts? The notion of identity constitutes a fundamental axis for reflecting on design’s renewal and transformations. Identity is not immutable; it transforms with growth and social changes from a multicultural and intercultural perspective. The paper critiques the contributions submitted to the Identities and [Changing] Identities track for the tenth Congress of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR 2023). The contributions reflect on four main areas: cultural identity concerning the identity roots of design, the authorial identities with their poetics, …

Aqueous Logics: Towards A Hydro Feminism Approach To Sustainability, Beatrice Maggipinto, Valentina Nisi, Sarah Fox, Nuno Nunes, Tom Ainsworth

IASDR Conference Series

In the popular imagination, sustainability is often synonymous with environmentalism, but it encapsulates much more. While environmentalism and conservation are often a focal point of sustainability efforts, so too are the people who impact the environment through their actions and associated activism. In this paper, we examine the discourse on sustainability, nature conservation and climate change. We focus, in particular, on the relationship between humans and the seas, where three main topics entangle: eco-feminism, ocean conservation and well-being. This paper highlights its implications for research on sustainability, nature conservation and climate change by outlining an aqueous logic — a fluid …

Places Of Worship Digital Information Dissemination Design Strategy In Communication Ritual View, Yihong Lin, Meiling Zhou

IASDR Conference Series

Based on the ritual concept of communication, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of Places of worship space design and cultural communication and inheritance in the digital era based on six classic Places of worship interaction cases and proposes five spatial design and interaction design strategies: personalized communication rituals leading to emotional resonance opportunities, interweaving multi-level media to create a cross-dimensional panoramic presence perception, creating a herald of faith with symbols, maintaining cultural order with solemn rituals and interpretations, and constructing a continuous narrative context of Places of worship space.

A Study On Technology Acceptance Model Of Ai Speakers Among Middle-Aged People, Yun Jing, Ryoichi Tamura

IASDR Conference Series

This study focuses on China, which is entering an aging society. The aim is to investigate the acceptance of smart speakers among middle-aged Chinese people through an online questionnaire. To achieve this, a new analytical model was developed using the technology acceptance model as a template. Structural equation modeling was conducted to quantitatively analyze the data, taking into account differences in whether or not middle-aged people have used smart speakers and gender for categorical discussion. The study identified the different concerns of these groups regarding smart speakers and examined the relationships between different potential factors. Finally, design concerns for improving …

Sonic Memories: Towards A Participatory Memory Archive, Pinar Yelmi

IASDR Conference Series

This short paper puts forward the outcomes of the workshop related to information visualization for the archive of memories linked to urban soundscapes. Memories as well as urban soundscapes are integral parts of cultural heritage and deserve to be protected for maintaining cultural identity. It becomes very urgent to start protecting especially those which are at risk of getting lost in current daily life conditions that have been changed due to the pandemic. This study was carried out by employing a collaborative visualization design workshop method which is a user-centred workshop structure for gathering ideas on information visualization. The main …

Product Design For Cultural Digitization - The Example Of Salt-Making Portrait Bricks From The Han Dynasty In China, Wenwen Yang, Shuang He

IASDR Conference Series

An emerging area of interest is the creation of digital cultural studies products that combine digital narrative techniques with traditional culture to create new consumption hotspots. In this context, this paper focuses on the salt-making portrait bricks, which were a pictorial version of the Han dynasty encyclopedia and reflected the lives of Sichuan people during the Qin and Han dynasties. This paper aims to integrate an interactive AR scanning experience and the Salt Island game into toy brick products to expand the cultural popularization of the salt-making portrait bricks. Users can experience a sense of accomplishment from the cultural science …

The Use Of Collaborative Media In Societal Crises – Towards A Conceptual Framework, Mari Karhu

IASDR Conference Series

The COVID-19 pandemic and environmental crisis are examples of long-lasting crisis situations that challenge everyday life as we know it. Based on a set of user studies, this paper suggests an initial conceptual framework for the use of collaborative media in societal crises. News and social media construct crisis awareness and a sense of crisis that, in turn, may channel into media-enabled collaborative activities. These activities occur in a socio-technical shaker, setting the boundaries for crisis collaboration. After all, the activities grow into use purposes including collaborative crisis intelligence, collaborative crisis action, and collaborative crisis adaptation. The suggested conceptual framework …

Speculating Gender In Conversational Interfaces, Patrizia Marti, Stefano Varlaro

IASDR Conference Series

The paper investigates gender biases and stereotypes in the design of conversational interfaces such as chatbots and virtual assistants. Recently the topic has received a growing attention in the design community. In our research, we focus on the issue of the lack of diversity and viewpoints that may unintentionally create services that are biased towards a particular group of users, while ignoring the needs and perspectives of others. To address this issue, we organised a speculative design workshop inviting 9 people with different gender and sexual identity to reflect on gender biases in conversational interfaces with the ultimate objective of …

Designer-Researcher’S Positionality; Materialities Matter, Amber De Coen, Niels Hendriks, Andrea Wilkinson

IASDR Conference Series

With the rise of cross-cultural, participatory research projects, there is a growing need for reflexivity in the design research community. One way to address this need is by using positionality, which acknowledges the researcher's personal, social, cultural, political position in relation to the subject, participants, context, and process of a study. However, this paper argues that in design research, additional reflections should be made on the research materialities, seeing as these may also reflect the designer-researcher's biases and assumptions, which have implications for the research process and outcomes. Drawing on the example of a participatory design research project researching the …

Participatory Design For Craft Sustainability In Rural Areas: A Multi-Sited Approach, Peining Sheng

IASDR Conference Series

This second-year ongoing doctoral research explores how participatory design can help rural-based craftspeople add value to their craft practice and balance selling prices against hidden costs, which will stimulate the development of a creative economy and reinforce local cultural identity. This research project aims to: a) contribute to implementing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8, 11, and 13; b) reform stereotypes surrounding the ‘Made in China’ label; c) develop an effective strategy for rural craft development and sustainability. The need to achieve SDGs is urgent today, as COVID-19, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, has impacted people’s daily lives …

Yearning For Revival_Using Healing As The Linking Strategy To Recreate Emotionally Resilient Communities, Tanhao Gao, Yujia Liu, Lingyu Zhu, Hongtao Zhou, Li Zhang

IASDR Conference Series

COVID-19 and Omicron variants have caused unprecedented impacts on global operating systems, society was forced to accept a painful coexistence with the pandemic, and the derived economic, social, and cultural disasters have left communities plagued by the "Long Covid" aftermath and psychological pressure. Worse still, society has witnessed an increasingly severe problem between spaces and services, including delayed regeneration, disorganization, and isolation. Therefore, it has become crucial and urgent to discover linking strategies between spaces and services, residents and communities, and the broader interrelated field during the recovery and change transition. Through comparative theoretical analysis, we identify the conceptual definition, …

E-Motioning: Exploring The Effects Of Emotional Generative Visuals On Creativity And Connectedness During Videoconferencing, Tianqin Lu, Jun Hu

IASDR Conference Series

Videoconferencing has become an essential part of business life, and the trend of remote collaboration is set to continue in the future. However, research has shown that the lack of social cues in videoconferencing negatively impacts human social connectedness and hinders the production of creative ideas. Therefore, E-Motioning has been proposed as a system that generates geometrical-based visuals according to users’ real-time emotions, and these visuals are used, as backgrounds for videoconferencing. An experiment was conducted with twenty-four participants to examine the effects of E-Motioning on creativity and connectedness in Microsoft Teams compared to a control condition that uses the …

Decolonizing Creativity In The Digital Era, Laura Herman, Payal Arora

IASDR Conference Series

This paper explores the importance of decolonizing creativity in the digital era within the context of the platformised creator economy. We argue that technology has largely been designed for Western audiences by Western audiences, thereby overlooking an enormous segment of global Internet users who exist outside of the Global North. To take a truly inclusive approach to design research, it is imperative to consider local impacts and vernacular realities of designed platforms. Therefore, we share the results of fieldwork conducted with young people in India to produce a non-Western, decolonial perspective on digital creativity and algorithmic cultures. In sharing these …

Meet Me At The Local Shop: Designing Community Anchors For Customer Engagement, Eunji Woo, Chorong Kim, Hyejin Kwon, Yedam Ryu, Youngok Choi, Ki-Young Nam

IASDR Conference Series

Design plays a vital role in facilitating community-building by triggering interpersonal social interactions, enhancing a sense of attachment, and connecting individuals. This study aims to identify how local creators are currently casting community anchors for their customers and explore design opportunities to further enhance these practices. First, a literature review is conducted to establish the significance and concepts of ‘local creators’, ‘community anchors’ and ‘level of customer engagement’. Subsequently, 40 practical cases are thematically analysed to identify which and how local creators cast community anchors to engage customers for community-building. Consequently, fourteen types of community anchors and five ways of …

Exploiting Co-Design, Game Thinking And Citizen Science In A Workshop-Like Experience For Stimulating Reflections With Teens, Chiara Ceccarini, Tommaso Zambon, Catia Prandi

IASDR Conference Series

Teenagers are constantly overwhelmed with information and activities, both considering school activities and their free time. How can we actively engage them in educational experiences to stimulate discussions and reflections about social issues? To answer this question, we conceived a workshop-like experience where we put into practice three well know methods and concepts, such as co-design, citizen science, and game thinking. The final output of the activity is a low-fidelity prototype of a mobile application, co-designed by a group of students. By taking advantage of open-ended making to engage participants in the ideation of a gamified/game-based citizen science application, we …

El Vínculo Entre El Arte, La Política Y El Espacio Público: Una Investigación De Colectivo El Muro Cusco Y Su Resistencia Contra Poder Estatal Y La Censura Del Espacio, Stella Gould

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El Colectivo El Muro Cusco es un colectivo libertario y autogestionado dedicado al apoyo a las luchas sociales y al intercambio de información alternativa. Activo durante los últimos 20 años, El Muro,1 como se le conoce coloquialmente, ha sido un proveedor de la verdad en Cusco, utilizando el arte y la protesta para expresar descontento con las injusticias perpetuadas por el gobierno peruano. Utilizando el muro del Paraninfo Universitario de la UNSAAC ubicado en la Plaza de Armas de Cusco como su centro focal, el Colectivo utiliza el espacio como galería de arte y lugar de exposición, pero también como …

The Role Of Moroccan Street Art In Decolonial Discourse And Binary Deconstruction, Taylor Rokala

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a country historically subjected to French colonialism and currently the site of a burgeoning street art scene, Morocco is a locus for street art that contributes to the decolonial project and deconstruction of remaining colonial structures left by the French. Drawing from Edward Said’s concept of orientalism, the idea of gaze, and bell hooks’s counter concept of oppositional gaze, this paper seeks to understand how Moroccan street artists use their art to challenge the binary opposition between tradition and modernity constructed during the French Protectorate. I will discuss the theme of temporality, because of street art’s ephemeral nature and …

Art As A Form Of Therapy: Afghan Women And Their “War Rugs” Highlight The Trauma And Violence Of The Soviet-Afghan War, Abigail Turano

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

HIS 490 History Honors Thesis

Textile Intersections Conference 2023: Doctoral Consortium, Katharina Bredies, Ramyah Gowrishankar, Elaine Igoe, Jussi Mikkonen, Neelam Raina

Textile Intersections Conference Series

No abstract provided.