Digital Commons Network^™

Peacebuilding: Scoping An Empathic Design Approach Through Speculative Fiction, Koskinen Ilpo, Philip Ely, Markus Wernli

IASDR Conference Series

Despite an apparent period of geopolitical stability following the establishment of the UN in 1945, questions of war and peace remain as perennial concerns. . This paper presents an attempt to scope a design approach for peace building. It grounds its approach on Johan Galtung’s notion of positive peace as justice and John Paul Lederach’s middle-ground theory of peace building but underlines the importance of an empathic dialogue that brings parties in conflict together to find common ali ties and develop skills useful in post-conflict societies. The paper scopes an approach through a piece of speculative fiction about a design …

Rethinking Public Space Design And Assemblage Affordances: A Perspective From China's One-Child Generation And Solitude, Xia Bi, Yijia Jiang, Caterina Villani, Kin Wai Michael Siu

IASDR Conference Series

This paper explores how urban public space design in China responds to the growing demand for solitude, with a particular focus on the unique social and cultural preferences of the one-child generation. Drawing on relational thinking and affordance theory, the study examines how public spaces intentionally designed to promote social interaction are appropriated for solitary use. Through case analyses of public spaces in Shanghai and Yantai, China, the paper reveals the emergence of improvised and serendipitous affordances that reflect changing user behaviours and cultural expectations. This paper highlights the need to move beyond intent-driven design toward a relational model that …

The Inside-Out And The Outside-In Interpretation: Evoking Personal Perception Of A Place, Chih-Sheng Su

IASDR Conference Series

In this pictorial, we present the Inside-out and the Outside-in Interpretation, an 18-week design curriculum to evoke personal perception and awareness of the space that our bodies live in, but we might not notice it from the outset. We use a “Set Design for Theatre” workshop as a starting point, to visualize the story in our minds, and then condense the external environment into a limited space. We integrate our curriculum with theoretical perspectives from HCI and drama theory through an inside- out, outside-in interpretation. We expect to help students create spatial sensations based on their own lived experiences and …

Ai As Cultural Decoder: Multimodal Analysis Of Object Evolution In Chinese Domestic Space, Ziyuan Yang, Yuji Li, Limin Song

IASDR Conference Series

Historical design research often prioritizes grand narratives, while the cultural sig- nificance of everyday objects and their spatial contexts is frequently overlooked. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the evolution of "object-space" order in domestic environments through an integrated approach combining computer vision technology and natural language processing. By analysing image data across different periods, we identify object categories, placements, and spatial configurations, revealing micro-level organizational patterns and macro-level influ- ences of functionality and socio-cultural factors. Combining qualitative and quanti- tative methods—including interviews and computational analysis—we trace the transformation of Chinese residential spaces since the 1980s. Findings demon- strate how …

Squeeze Machine: Designing Uncomfortable Interactions For Critical Heritage, Piyakorn Koowattanataworn, Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Steve Benford

IASDR Conference Series

We present Squeeze Machine, an experimental interactive experience, aiming for a critical-heritage exhibition at MUNCH museum. Our design process weaved together three research threads: (1) designing embodied interaction for critical heritage, (2) using uncomfortable interaction, and (3) facilitating critical reflection focusing on social beliefs of authority. We conducted interaction tests at a university laboratory (N=16, 8 pairs). Participant responses illustrate that Squeeze Machine could evoke visitors to reflect on their personal experience, increase visitor curiosity about the exhibition and support reflection on curated artefacts. The exploration also brought out some challenges for applying discomfort through control in an exhibition context.

Speculative Filmmaking With Children: Envisioning The Future Of Humans, Machines, And Nature, Sumit Sharma, Behnaz Norouzi, Leena Ventä-Olkkonen, Marianne Kinnula, Tommi Nevala, Charu Monga, Tuure Haarjärvi

IASDR Conference Series

With children’s increasingly entangled relationships with technology, it is imperative for them to critically explore, reflect on, and envision how technology impacts them and society at large, now and in the future. We conducted a speculative filmmaking workshop with 9-10-year-old school children where participants worked in groups to envision the future of human-machine relationships, creating stop-motion animations showcasing their imagined futures. Analysis of the films highlights unexpected explorations of conflicts involving nature, alongside anticipated human-machine dynamics. These reveal children’s expectations for humans and machines and their roles and responsibilities. Our work showcases how speculative filmmaking with children scaffolds critical explorations …

Blurring Boundaries: A Speculative And Generative Exhibition Exploring Hospital In The Home, Troy Mcgee, Amy Killen, Rowan Page

IASDR Conference Series

This pictorial presents Blurring Boundaries, a speculative exhibition and workshop series staged during Melbourne Design Week 2025, that explores the shifting landscape of Hospital in the Home (HITH) care. As healthcare moves from clinical to domestic settings, design plays a critical role in navigating the tensions, values, and lived experiences this transition provokes. Over five days, more than 80 designers, architects, clinicians, patient advocates, and students co-created artefacts that were progressively integrated into the gallery, transforming the space into a dynamic, participatory installation. Framed in three acts — Surfacing, Envisioning, and Together ing — the exhibition scaffolded collective futuring through …

Attuned Design Practice: A Design Vocabulary For Embodied Knowing, Anne Marleen Olthof, Jouke Verlinden, Somaya Ben Allouch

IASDR Conference Series

This poster introduces Attuned Design Practice (ADP), a concept that examines how design practice can be used to interpret and articulate alternative understandings of studying human-computer relationships, by prior it ising ‘embodied knowing’ as an alternative design vocabulary. We shortly introduce the current state of scientific research in general, explain the notion of ‘attunement’, and show an existing framework that has inspired us to start an eighteen-months field study of body-based inquiry in the domains of Design, Art and Technology. In our field study, we have explored developmental paths of scientific and artistic inquiry towards constructing embodied knowledge, and have …

A Burlesque: The Shimmering Body Of Revealing, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

A Burlesque: The Shimmer Manuscript is a hybrid critical–creative work that examines burlesque as an embodied methodology and a mode of knowledge production. Drawing from my two decades as a performer–scholar, the work reframes glamour, desire, and adornment as epistemological practices rather than theatrical ornamentation. The project is significant in that it expands understandings of performance studies, autotheory, and feminist aesthetics by foregrounding the performer’s body as an intelligent, sensing, world-making apparatus.

The methodology is creative practice research and archive-driven, integrating backstage documentation, AI-assisted photomontage, and theoretical reflection. The work draws from poststructuralist and feminist frameworks (Irigaray, Deleuze & Guattari, …

Script To Animatic: Reading Between The Lines, Kallie Jenkins

Master of Fine Arts in Digital Media Culminating Experience

This capstone describes the foundational steps created as a process for developing three scripts of varying genres into full animatics. This project guides you through the process of adapting a script written by an outside author and visually developing it to represent the story being told. Looking past the script, this project explains how to add depth to the characters in ways that shape their visual direction. It shows how those character choices influence body language, acting, and the environments around them, emphasizing the importance of composition, camera work, and the way a scene’s framing depends on the personality and …

Make Ready: Productive Disruption And Interstitial Sites Of Graphic Design Practice, Peter Maybury

Theses

This thesis draws on five publications produced between 2010–22: My 2020 film installation Landfall; a series of four museum and gallery-published books made with artist Gerard Byrne (2010–18); Gall, my practice enquiry with Tom dePaor which encompasses film, writing, books, sculpture, curation, and gallery works; releases and live performances by my band Thread Pulls during the period 2010–12; and my exhibition, conference talk, and book Make Ready (2015), the structure of which is taken as ‘armature’ for the writing of the thesis. Through these wide-ranging pursuits, this thesis articulates a non-normative role for the graphic designer. It identifies my operative …

Guiding The Story World: A Comparison Of Diegetic Cues In A Snow White Vr Narrative Game, Jiayi Xu

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality (VR) narrative games must guide players through complex story worlds without undermining immersion, yet prior work rarely compares different forms of in-world guidance under tightly controlled conditions. Designers routinely mix diegetic text, character behavior, and environmental motion, but it remains unclear how these cue families differentially shape cognitive load, task performance, and narrative experience when they convey the same instruction.

This thesis investigates how three common diegetic cue types—diegetic text, non-verbal gestures from a non-player character, and environmental motion and highlights—affect players in a first-person VR retelling of the Snow White story. In a between-subjects laboratory study, each …

Su Drama Bernarda Alba Production Photos, Henry Killbourn, Alex Jainchill, Reyna Sanchez

Drama - All Scholarship

This project strengthens the Syracuse University Department of Drama’s ability to document its theatrical productions through high-quality digital photography. With support from the SOURCE grant, the department acquired updated photography equipment that enables students to capture clearer, more accurate images of performances. These photographs document acting, staging, costumes, sets, and lighting in a professional and archival manner.

Movement Lab Lunchtime Presentations: Hunter Whitaker-Morrow | Poster, Hunter Whitaker-Morrow, Movement Lab

Personal Work

No abstract provided.

Movement Lab Fellow Lunchtime Presentations: Patrick Buhr | Poster, Patrick Buhr, Movement Lab

Personal Work

No abstract provided.

Godspell Costume Construction, Catherine E. Michel

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This submission contains progress photos and written documentation of a student's experience constructing a costume for the musical Godspell. This costume was a simple dress for the character performed by Sarah Lenahan.

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Brochure: 48th Annual Literary Festival, 2025: Suspend Your Disbelief, Kris Cameron, Sarah R. Glaser, Supercompstudios

48th Annual Literary Festival at ODU: October 5-10, 2025

No abstract provided.

V.1 Fall 2025, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Fall 2025 issue contains articles on the intersection of the natural world and human experience, technology, identity, immigration, activism, divestment, institutional history, political resistance, decolonization, and the digital vs. physical realms. The issue contains experimental poetry, visual essays, and reflections on the "nature of publication".

Uprising, Issue 20 [Fall 2025], University Of Northern Iowa. Northern Iowa Student Government.

Uprising

Contents:

Bagel Steak & Bluff Street --- 8
Which Band Member are You? --- 18
My Vine --- 20
Feminine Devine --- 22
Butterfly Effect --- 32
Glass Women --- 34
Artist --- 35
Artist Spotlight --- 36
Braided --- 46
Tied Together --- 48
Reflection of Self --- 58
Feeling out of Tune --- 59
Amalgam --- 60
Girlhood --- 69
Solitude --- 70
Games --- 72
Behind the Scenes --- 75

Mechanisms Of Space Formation In Image Theatre By The Director In Arab Theatre, Yahya Al-Bashtawi, Mohammad Al-Abas, Mohammed Alrefai, Mutasem Al-Karablieh

Jordan Journal of Applied Science-Humanities Series

This study aimed to explore the mechanisms of space formation in image theatre as applied by Arab directors, given that experiences in image theatre have significantly impacted the Arab theatre scene. The study investigates the formation of space through the experiences of two Arab directors. The first is the Tunisian artist Al-Habib Shbiel, who established triangular theatre in 1978. The second is the Iraqi Salah Al-Qasab, who has extensive experience in space theatre and developed a unique language of performance based on expanding the audience’s appreciation experience. The authors reached several conclusions, including that image theatre elevates the audience to …

Restorationland: The Lost And Found Objects Of Atlanta's Doll's Head Trail, Thomas Fish

Faculty Articles

The Doll’s Head Trail is a grassroots, low-art installation nestled within a Southeast Atlanta wildlife preserve. Constructed by volunteers and visitors from decades of environmental debris, the trail converts waste into folk art-inspired “junk” displays. The creative upcycling ranges from a miniscule shrine to “Toxic Masculinity” to a stark shoe pile commemorating child gun violence. This article details how queer theory’s “temporal turn” provides insights into material performance as collaborative regeneration. The curious vignettes playfully invert hierarchies, revealing the merits of small-time memorialization. Through these defiantly unofficial grassroot performances, the Doll’s Head Trail both remembers and restores community ruins, demonstrating …

Dónde Están: Searching For Desaparecidos Of The Argentine Dirty War, Paula Fleischer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a data physicalization textile representing the 30,000 'desaparecidos' from the Argentine Dirty War of late 1970s. The large quilt visualizes the official count of 9,000 missing persons in the shape of a headscarf worn by their mothers and grandmothers, while the overall dimensions of the quilt acknowledges 30,000 missing persons. The quilt and accompanying missing persons posters encourage the viewer to interact with the data, however the observed reluctance to engage influenced the direction of this discussion about the hegemonic disinclination to get involved when authority figures 'disappear' fellow residents of our communities.

The Image Of The Settler In Arab Theatre, Yahya Al-Bashtawi

Jordan Journal of Applied Science-Humanities Series

This study aimed to identify the image of the settler in Arab theater. The settler is a Jewish immigrant with extremist religious orientations and beliefs. He came from outside Palestine and settled in the occupied territories to establish a state alongside his fellow settlers. The significance of this research lies in exploring the image of the settler in Arab theater, investigated through the selection of two short theater texts: "The Settler" by Gamal Banoura and "Amos’ Nightmare" by Ghannam. Additionally, two theatrical productions were examined: "The Eye and the Tooth" directed by Francois Abu Salem, and "Return to Haifa" by …

In Tensile // In Between, Corinna Di Niro

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

"In Tensile // In Between" operates as both artistic artefact and theoretical critique, demonstrating how creative practice can embody and extend academic discourse. This creative-critical work examines shifting perceptions of course delivery within creative tertiary education, arguing that project-based learning enables the seamless embedding of socio-cultural discourse and theories within practical making processes.

The poem interrogates how educational environments can cultivate critical thinking through what I term "tensile pedagogy"—an approach that maintains productive charge between opposing forces rather than seeking synthesis or resolution. This concept builds upon King's (2017) work on pedagogy as tension, which argues that "tension and incompleteness …

Ddx173.2 Ux Design: Ui Design - Sun Theatre, Sae University College

Exemplars

The work showcases how the website's user interface (UI) design responds to the findings of the user experience (UX) report and improves its usability.

We Are All Old: Decentralising Visions, Hayley Ho, Elsa Vaara

Nordes Conference Series

This paper seeks to understand how a mixed methodology of speculation, design practices, and artistic practices can help design researchers understand how people of different ages and backgrounds may distribute their visions about being old. Our overall motivation for the research is that countries in the world are struggling to shape good societies while the pace of population aging is accelerating faster than in the past. The world’s problems are often perceived as complex, leading some to lose faith in their ability to effect change. Every person is a piece of the larger puzzle, and we argue that when individuals …

Designing Relations All The Way Down: Hyperlocal Eco-Social Arcs Of Care And Roleplay, Ann Light, Ruth Catlow

Nordes Conference Series

We use the relational as a lens to examine how a workshop, created to inspire sensitivity to the interdependent nature of all life, is itself a nest of relations—shaped by intentions, co-created content, and outcomes beyond organisers’ influence. With a practical mission to decentre humans and acknowledge interdependencies – in a turn to more-than-human ethics and a commitment to the hyperlocal eco-social – the workshop employs live action roleplay (LARP) to engage a small English town in facing future uncertainties. We explore the place of care, solidarity and collective agency in confronting readiness to deal with coming challenges. Linking theories …

Cartography, Botany, And Violence In The Codex Rodriguez-MondragóN, Maria Davison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Sandy Rodriguez deploys the visual language of the Florentine Codex and other sixteenth-century Mesoamerican sources to examine the persisting effects of colonialism on people and land in Mexico-U.S. borderlands in Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón (2017-present), her ongoing series of maps, botanical illustrations, and landscape paintings.

The Uses Of Dramaturgical Research In Cinematic Storytelling, Asset Design, And Adaptation In Animation, Delaney L. Walker

All Theses

“The Black Hair” is a creative project that explores the convergence of cinematic adaptation, dramaturgical research, and animation design in retelling a traditional Japanese short folktale from the Heian Era. Rooted in the practice of theatrical dramaturgy, this thesis advocates for a research-driven creative pipeline by developing a culturally respectful and historically grounded approach to developing cinematic storyboards. By thoroughly examining the chronicles of history and the sociocultural context, the project seeks to foster deeper cultural appreciation while reintroducing a lesser-known narrative to modern audiences through a visual medium. The project draws stylistic and narrative inspiration from iconic Japanese filmmakers …