Digital Commons Network^™

Bridging Reality And The Reel: An Ar-Enhanced Application Model For Memorable Tourist Experiences, Hyunyim Park, Jingyi Cheng, Shuyun Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Over the past decade, the convergence of technology and entertainment has opened new avenues for improving the experiences of film enthusiasts and tourists alike. Focusing on merging reality and reel to enhance memorable tourist experiences, this paper introduces a comprehensive design model for developing smart film tourism applications. A qualitative approach was employed to explore the expectations and potential issues faced by film tourists throughout their journeys. Subsequently, insights are generated and translated into four key design aspects and corresponding features, integrating augmented reality technology. The convergence of elements within the model aims to facilitate a deeper connection between tourists …

Creating A Mess! Design Strategies For Managing Visual Complexity In Second-Hand Shops, Lea Becker Frahm, Linda N. Laursen, Bo T. Christensen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Enhancing the consumer experience in second-hand shopping is essential to support the sustainable reuse of products. Up to 80% of shopping decisions are unplanned, making store design significantly important. However, knowledge of the design strategies utilized in second-hand shops is limited. Second-hand shops grapple with store design challenges due to their vast array of unique products, resulting in high visual complexity and clutter. Current literature links such visual clutter to consumers' feelings of cognitive overload but also shows it connotates creativity. This study investigated the design strategies of professional second-hand retailers through observations (n = 25) and interviews (n = …

Radical Reimagining Of Future Courts, Sankalp Bhatnagar, Dan Jackson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

No abstract provided.

The Uses Of Enchantment: Playful Design Tools That Evoke ‘The Unsayable’ For Teenagers With Lived Experience Of Loneliness., Eloise Belladonna Day

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This project introduces tools that involve teenagers, with relevant lived experiences, in co-creating a social-purpose advertising campaign as a way of meaningfully engaging young audiences. Many co-creation methods rely on direct, text-based, or individual spoken contribution methods. These disregard young people’s unconscious knowledges and collective ways of knowing. The research was conducted through ethnographic methods alongside semi-structured interviews with the participants of a co-created campaign workshop. The result is a suite of novel playful tools which generate collective insight and creative ideas by engaging teenagers’ collective, embodied and imaginative ways of knowing. The key concept of ‘enchantment’ is used to …

Using Living Labs To Engage Communities And Stakeholders In The Development And Knowledge Exchange Of Urban Health And Sanitation Solutions In The Global South, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Roger Pickup, Manoj Roy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Engaging communities and stakeholders in developing user-centred urban health solutions, whilst linking the research to their own development, pose major challenges for design researchers working in the Global South. In a number of circular sanitation projects in a community school in Ghana, we co-designed and installed an anaerobic digester delivering electricity and sanitation improvements. To enhance impact we developed and pilot-tested a Living and physical Lab design approach. One project focussed on hand hygiene. We introduced students to ‘making the invisible visible’ by visualising microbes from their hands and assessing handwashing effects. Our findings suggest that visualisation of microbes not …

Engaging The Public In Technological Futures: A Participatory Speculative Design Approach To Polyphonic Representational Spaces, Nuri Kwon, David Perez, Naomi Jacobs, Mariana Cavada, Rachel Cooper, Jose Maron

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores the concept of polyphonic representational space as technological imaginaries of multiple individuals regarding public space. The context of this research relates to implementing digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things and AI, in the public realm and their impact and challenges on policymaking, everyday practices and spatial experiences. Speculative design offers a way of creating multiple scenarios for the future and provoking conversations regarding technological futures. This research adopts a participatory speculative design (PSD) approach to engage with people, not necessarily designers or technology experts, in the future prototyping process. We introduce a study conducted in …

Counterism And Trust; From Critical To Tactical Design, Fernando Galdon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this paper we explore the emerging qualities of Counteristic Design practises as they depart from Discursive models. In this process, Counterism is under-pinned as an emerging field of study that seeks to design trust. Counterism offers a way of resistance by creating systems of autonomy, accountability and repara-tion that values difference and creativity. The two projects analysed vary in ap-proach, with some developing new methods by incorporating new technologies, while others reimagine existing methods. These approaches can offer interesting ways towards a new future for citizens at the intersection of social justice, and technology. Counteristic practises operate within the …

Unleashing Collective Imagination Through Controversies: Lessons From A Smart City Project, Julieta Matos-Castaño, Corelia Baibarac-Duignan, Michiel De Lange, Anouk Geenen, Mascha Van Der Voort

DRS Biennial Conference Series

We explore the role of futures-oriented design interventions in leveraging socio-technical controversies to foster collective imagination. We elaborate on a practical application of a speculative and scenario-based design tool called Future Frictions. Our study focuses on the use of Future Frictions to engage citizens in the development of an assessment framework for implementing sensors in Amsterdam. By employing the "controversing" framework to operationalize controversies through design, we explore how Future Frictions provides an interface that bridges speculative and real-life urban contexts. This interface facilitates recontextualizing controversies in daily life, fostering sensemaking, and making space for collective agency. This, we argue, …

Embodied Prototyping In Vr: Ideation And Bodystorming Within A Custom Vr Sandbox, Joshua Robin Mcveigh-Schultz, Elena Márquez Segura, Katherine Isbister

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Social virtual reality platforms present new opportunities for embodied design processes. This paper illustrates a range of embodied design techniques made possible through social engagement with VR/XR technology. Drawing from a case study involving the prototyping of a conversation visualization system for VR meetings, we present several novel embodied design methods in VR (also applicable to XR). These include: new techniques for supporting embodied ideation; new ways of acting out and improvising scenarios together; and new opportunities for preparing and manipulating assets, environments, and lo fi interactions for embodied design processes. These novel techniques and approaches point to exciting new …

Drifting By Friction: Playing With Ontologies Of Design, Mathias Poulsen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this paper, I will trace the ‘drift’ that has happened in my PhD project, ‘De-signing for Playful Democratic Frictions’. I argue that it has been driven primarily by the friction that emerged between the diverse components in my ‘research-assemblage’. The aim is not to resolve the friction, but rather to enhance and fol-low it as far as I can. I suggest that a playful attitude is helpful for lingering with this friction, and that such a stance can allow us to see things otherwise ob-scured by tales of historical necessity. This notion of drifting by friction may in-spire strategies …

Acts Of Interfacing In An Entangled Life, Yuxi Liu, Elisa Giaccardi, Johan Redström, Dave Murray-Rust

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Digital interfaces are becoming increasingly simple and intuitive. However, beneath the surface, the technological infrastructures underlying these interfaces are growing more complex and elusive. This paper draws on theories from human-computer interaction, software studies, and social practice to revisit the notion of the interface as a site of representation and control. By briefly tracing the historical development of digital interfaces, we propose to shift from ideas of representation and control towards a notion of co-performance and negotiation. Through this lens, we reconceptualize the interface as acts of interfacing—a new concept that captures the contested, constructive, and performative character of interaction …

Towards A Mapping Of Empathic Design Methods, Luce Drouet, Froukje Sleeswijk Visser, Brian Pagán, Carine Lallemand

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Empathic design methods support designers in developing an empathic understanding of the people they design for. While researchers and designers use many of these methods, the literature falls short in providing an overview of these methods and what they contribute to the innovation process. We conducted two iterative workshops with 5 researchers in empathic design to define and map the properties of 10 selected empathic methods. By providing an overview, a mapping of empathic methods can support the deployment of empathic interventions. This mapping acts as a guiding tool to support designers in choosing the empathic methods that are the …

A Theory Instrument For Reimagining Embodied Practices, Ayşe Özge Ağça, Jelle Van Dijk, Jacob Buur, Harun Kaygan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Embodied Sensemaking Theory describes how people make sense in ongoing interactions with the social and material world. It has potential in projects aimed at changing embodied practices. However, designers often find it challenging to use this complex theory. We build on recent research on tangible ‘Theory Instruments’ for designers. We designed a Theory Instrument for embodied sensemaking with design students who design for social interactions and with young people who investigate their energy consumption. Our analysis of 12 experimental sessions shows how Embodied Sensemaking Theory helps reimagine human practices towards more sustainable futures. Our contribution is two-fold: We show that …

Co-Creating The Spectacle: Identifying Design Dimensions Of Opening Ceremonies To Embed Participatory Approaches, Xinwei Wan, Virgilio Vasconcelos, Sandy Claes

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Opening Ceremonies of mega-events captivate a global audience and have the potential of nurturing a sense of community belonging among the population of the host country. From the visual identity to the stage design and its live media broadcast, such ceremonies unite different design practices. The underlying design processes usually depart from a top-down perspective, often prompted by specific social and political realities. As a result, inhabitants may experience a diminished sense of belonging. Participatory approaches are able to challenge oppressive power relations, and are increasingly deployed in mainstream media, yet the scale and complexity of the design of opening …

Half Dawn, Catherine Ashley

Masters Theses

By presenting these words on paper, I have given entry into a microcosm of recent research, questions, and creative explorations. There is potential for disconnection when trying to turn your head inside out and present it in a way that feels beautiful for other people. I’m trusting the moments of authenticity I’ve found in my wandering. Segue. Relationship. Gesture. Illusion. My musings all stem from notions of temporality. Time dances on the farthest ends of both immensity and desolation. I’ve spent stretches of time asking the people, texts, and experiments around me to define time in a way that I …

Inside The Adventure: A Case Study On The Immersive Engagement Practices At Universal Studios Hollywood, Jordan A. D'Acquisto

Experience Industry Management

The success of theme parks relies heavily on immersion and identification of the elements that create such immersion to further enhance it. Universal Studios Hollywood utilizes many engagement tactics to immerse their guests in the worlds of their park. The purpose of this study was to analyze guest engagement through themed, immersive experiences and touchpoints at Universal Studios Hollywood. A case study was conducted on Universal Studios Hollywood to analyze what immersive engagement tactics were utilized as well as their effectiveness. The results of this study determined that the park very effectively engages guests through themed experiences with its newer …

Later Traumagator, Jyllian D. Brown

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Call And Response : Experiments In Storytelling, Deanne Fernandes

Masters Theses

Being part of RISD's inaugural Masters of Illustration cohort has been an immense honor. This journey has been nothing short of transformative and healing, as it has allowed me to unearth layers of self-discovery through my creative practice.

In my thesis, I introduce a fresh research methodology rooted in the principles of call and response, with adaptability, creativity, and storytelling as its foundational pillars. Through the lenses of visual storytelling, experimental animation, graphic journalism, and fictional world-building, I demonstrate how these techniques can effectively bridge the gap between theory and practice. This dynamic approach fosters meaningful connections among diverse perspectives …

Repair Rolodex: Exchanges, Changes, And Patchwork Parables, Ethan Howard

Masters Theses

This book is an index of nine exchanges with strangers whom I met online through email Listservs or by word of mouth. In these transactions, I offered to repair broken things for a trade-in-kind payment. Through the brief relationship between owner and designer, each interaction suggests that an object is almost never entirely obsolete despite its perceived obsolescence.

At the core of these trades is a grassroots protest of the landfill and a critique of our global capitalist commerce system. The apparent desire for and nature of these trades demonstrates that stories make our objects meaningful. Each interplay studies peoples’ …

This Is For You: A Handbook For Design Students, Gabriel Drozdov

Masters Theses

This Is For You is a handbook for design students. It is a collection of stories, projects, and conversations on the subjects of design, code, and teaching. The book’s first part, “Learning,” contains stories about the experiences that shaped me as a designer. The second part, “Making,” summarizes the projects that taught me how to design. The third and final part, “Sharing,” is a series of conversations with the people that helped me along the way. In collecting and publishing these resources, This Is For You is an attempt to create an open-source example of what a career in design …

“Touching The Untouchable”: Time As Material And The Fragmented Self In The Maximodern Era Shori V. Sims © 2024 Shori V. Sims All Rights Reserved Shorisims., Shori V. Sims

Masters Theses

In the conventional division of disciplines, film/video/moving images and stationary sculpture are categorized as formal and conceptual opposites. In my work and in this thesis, I am arguing that moving images constitute a form of sculpture in the style of assemblage by the manipulation of time around them. Yes, the image is flat and stationary on its own: but the cut of time which it represents exists multi-dimensionally (spatially and temporally) to be combined in a collage-like manner. In my practice, moving images constitute a form of assemblage that manipulates time and space in ways normally attributed to sculpture.

This …

Umbrales (Thresholds), Maureen Scally

Masters Theses

Umbrales is Spanish for Thresholds.

Thresholds are by nature ambivalent spaces, inviting two distinct realities into play. As an artist, I materialize my experiences as a migrant into an architectural form. A series of textile walls shape a space that is simultaneously interior and exterior so that the audience circulates in the negative space in between. It is in the construction of this threshold condition — a simultaneous placement, neither here nor there — that a complex narrative of place unfolds.

I Am Becoming., Dai Asano

Masters Theses

This is a collection of essays documenting my grappling with the idea that time is always in motion. When you say now, it is not now anymore, but we are still in now, a new now. How can I stay in the now without being swept away by the current of time? Describing a film by Ozu Yasujiro, Deleuze writes, “The vase in Late Spring is interposed between the daughter’s half smile and the beginning of her tears. There is becoming, change, passage. But the form of what changes does not itself change does not pass on. This is time, …

Embodied Abstractions: Identity And Representation In The Digital Era, Srikar Hari

Masters Theses

The digital image is a copy in motion. As it accelerates, it deteriorates.

It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, squeezed through

digital connections, resized, uploaded, downloaded, reformatted

and re-edited.

- Adapted from “In defense of the Poor Image” by Hito Steryel

With today’s digital technology, the image is no longer a stable

representation of the world, but a programmable database that

is updated in real time. It is not only part of a program, but it

contains its own operating code: the image is a program in itself.

Consequently, the image’s rhetoric has taken on …

Perform—Produce, Rebecca Wilkinson

Masters Theses

Perform — Produce defines graphic design as a discipline rooted in work rather than a process that springs forth spontaneously from the creative imagination.

Perform — Produce is driven by strict constraints and machine-like craft, employing outdated tools and the physical body in processes of making that are stubbornly slow.

Perform — Produce deploys performance as a tactic to expose the otherwise invisible labor of design, and to reveal the ways design acquires value.

Perform — Produce proposes a new organizational model that integrates live happenings, cross-disciplinary exchange, and self-publishing to consider not just the product of design but also …

Cooking In Times Of Oppression, Dorota Koczanowicz

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

In 2017, Marije Vogelzang's interactive performance at the Museum of Rotterdam, 'Black Confectti', was designed to enable the experience of a difficult wartime past. Using authentic recipes from the war press, she prepared dishes based on the creativity of the crisis. In the face of starvation and the struggle for life, the selflessness of creative action in the kitchen and the effort of documentation in the form of recipes from the past and culinary fantasies from the past proved to be a helpful tool for surviving the most oppressive situation. The effectiveness of this strategy is clearly demonstrated not only …

No Longer On Fire, Vikki M. Parker

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Capturing the poetic, lyrical essence of the ethereal universe, the pencil portal births whispers of the self in these Sourcedoodle collections, beginning as intuitive drawings and revealing their deeper essence through digital wizardry, healing art comes through for remembering the soul's purpose. A journey to gently collect the fragmented parts of a broken self. Like little souls dancing, each image has a story, a capturing of energy, an anchoring of light intensity, a glorious weaving of fluidity and a playful curiosity. A permission to be whole & a celebration of source discovering embodiment underpins this spiritual quest for discovering existence …

Exploring The Effects Of Trance States Through Ritual, Kriya Yoga, And Expressive Arts For Adults With Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Alexandra (Lexi) Faith Traub

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

struggling with substance abuse often have complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) and seek altered states beyond the mundane via substances. What if expressive art therapies and ancient spiritual practices creating trance states could meet this need to alter states, while healing CPTSD symptoms by developing self-awareness, affect regulation, and reprogramming the subconscious mind through imaginal realm parts work? This capstone thesis explores this using yogic philosophy, shamanic drumming, Himalayan singing bowls, aboriginal grief rituals, and expressive art therapies rooted in transcendental theater, bilateral stimulation, and natural materials like clay therapy. A methodology combining ancient wisdom, arts, and modern psychological theory …

Examining How Artistic Expression In The Classroom Can Increase Students' Academic Performance And Understanding Of Course Material, Jake Taylor Marrazzo

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study examined how artistic expression in the classroom can increase students’ academic performance and understanding of course material. This study consisted of graduate students in the Masters of Arts in Higher Education program at Rowan University, during the Fall/Spring 2023-2024 semesters, enrolled in at least one of the following courses: Crisis Management, Higher Education in America, and The College Student. The study utilized an artistic expression activity, painting, in connection with participants' course material and readings to understand the benefits of artistic expression on student success in the classroom. Some findings of this study show that artistic …

Chasing Wins To Chasing Memories Visitor Trends Playing Their Hand In The Casino Floor Through Informed Architectural And Interior Design Cues, Taylee Kelly

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Integrated resorts throughout Las Vegas captivate audiences through its immersive architectural design and unique thematic branding. Beyond hotel accommodations, integrated resorts offer a variety of amenities for the enjoyment and convenience of visitors from dining, retail, entertainment and more. Among the heart of these resorts lies the alluring casino floor, filled with endless gaming options for visitors optimistic in the possibility of winning big.

Las Vegas’ identity as a gambling mecca has heralded slot machines and table games as the cynosure of casino floors, strategically placed and oriented by designers in aims of optimizing gaming revenue and increasing engagement among …