Digital Commons Network^™

Sweet Spot, Kajin Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Disparate projections, transparent prints, iridescent screens resonate with each other in the installation Sweet Spot, creating an environment where images are touched and looked through. This overlap of images creates an imaginary coexistence of here and there - each one connected with the others, but also separate, on its own terms.

Water Gets Lost In The Sea, Sun Gets Lost In The Desert, Rocio Paz Guerrero

Theses and Dissertations

The absence of happiness, the absence of nature, the absence of justice, the absence of absence, which is presence. My desire is to make these voids visible and sensible by connecting to and with others, from our intimate and collective life experiences, with empathy, and by sharing. Through a hybrid of sculpture, installation, and performance, I move within this tense in-between space, asking myself about that void, if it is possible for it to be filled, or if it is perhaps too big, or if it is perhaps too late.

Hybrid Being: Lonely Electrons And A Motherland, Yin Ting Lau

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper summarizes the contextual core of the artist’s graduating exhibition, as well as expanding upon certain concepts embedded within the artworks that are not fully explained within the show itself. Overall, this paper and its correlating show reflects on hybridity and its overlap with the immigrant experience.

The Effect Of The Fresh Program On Fruit And Vegetable Consumption In Nyc, Haido Andrianos

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines whether the NYCEDC's FRESH Program has had an effect on the fruit and vegetable consumption of NYC residents. Using data collected by the NYC DOHMH, a difference-in-difference regression with fixed effects was run. Stratifications for race and sex were also performed.

Searching For Sapphistries: An Archive Of Felt Photographs, Lauren Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

Using the holdings of the Peter J. Cohen Collection in New York City as a platform from which to engage the queer impulse of feeling backward, this thesis posits that vernacular photographs can be included in sapphistry through the creation of a counterarchive of “felt photographs,” where a reading of photographs is animated by a queer positionality and knowing.

Appropriation Of The Highest Order: A Study Of Harry Smith’S Master Work, Film No. 18 Mahagonny In Relation To The Brecht-Weill Opera The Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny And Duchamp’S The Large Glass, Rose V. Marcus

Theses and Dissertations

Harry Smith’s Film No. 18, Mahagonny, 1970 – 1980, is a transmutation of the original Brecht-Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, a 1930, into a feature-length experimental film. This paper shows how the original opera and Duchamp's The Large Glass prove inherent to Smith’s double-pronged homage to both original works of art. The failure in the opera narrative and the chance shattering of The Large Glass inform Smith’s complex methodology to approach and spatialize cinema. Harry Smith’s use of the tools of the screening apparatus are traced in order to study Mahagonny in detail. The …

Musical Irony In Selected Piano Sonatas By Ludwig Van Beethoven, Andrew J. Hochler

Theses and Dissertations

In the third variation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 111, there is an abrupt shift in rhythms that almost resembles an excerpt of early jazz. This passage is so seemingly out of place that it appears to be an ironic commentary on the music that came before. This variation thereby raises an interesting question: how can irony play a role in music?

In an attempt to answer this question, this thesis examines the aesthetic property of irony, suggesting ways in which might be understood to impact three piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven: namely, his …

Uncovering Potential Biofilm Modulators, Liliana Margent

Theses and Dissertations

Biofilms have negative and positive impacts depending on the context they develop. In this work, I optimized a biofilm assay to evaluate the effect of three different types of compounds indole derivatives, 2,5 Diketopiperazines, and 12-hydroxystearic acid on the biofilm formation of E. coli.

Digital Earth: The Impact Of Geographic Technology Through The Ages, Mishka Vance Huq

Theses and Dissertations

Geographic technology encompasses a wide range of geographic knowledge, concepts, processes, and artifacts. Because of its interdisciplinarity and integration with other technologies, the paper examines the diffuse impacts of geographic technology within the evolving relationship between technological and societal developments over time.

Amazing Stories: Science Fiction’S Inception In Interwar Pulp Magazines, Zachary Doe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation of the science fiction genre through the pulp magazines of the 1920s. Hugo Gernsback, the creator of Amazing Stories is the first to title the budding genre as science fiction. Through his editorials, one can see a desire to create a wide community heavily involved in genre creation. By exploring these initial stories and editorials we can better understand how science fiction began as well as evolved into what it is today.

Pepón Osorio And Merián Soto: Multidisciplinary Collaborations, From 1985 To 1995, Zuna Maza

Theses and Dissertations

This paper assesses Pepón Osorio and Merián Soto’s collaborative multidisciplinary works created from 1985 to 1995. Underdiscussed in their individual scholarships, these joint works are reexamined through their collaborative approach, multidisciplinary framework, and their thematic explorations of the nuances of culturally specific subject matter.

Yankee Go Home: Roci In Latin America, Vitoria Hadba

Theses and Dissertations

In 1984, at an event hosted by the United Nations, American artist Robert Rauschenberg announced his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—or ROCI. Blending primary source documents with social art history, I retrace the artist’s steps—and missteps—during the first leg of his tour through Mexico, Chile, and Venezuela. This thesis investigates the convoluted political implications of ROCI in Latin America during the transitional period in which binary Cold War politics were ebbing amidst the rise of a global free-market economy.

Matson Jones, Jasper Johns, And Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking The Boundaries Of Advertising And Art, Ximena Santiago

Theses and Dissertations

Matson Jones, formed by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, has scarcely been the focus of art historical scholarship. This thesis examines works created for New York City department store window displays, revealing that the Matson Jones collaborations were rooted in intersubjectivity and challenge historical hierarchies of high and low art.

Kinstitution: A Topia Between Archive And Proposal, Christopher Lineberry

Theses and Dissertations

Situating Topher Lineberry's work, this paper offers a primer on institutional critique, preliminary developments of "kinstitutional critique," and the cultivation of family-derived art history through the work of the artist's grandmother, Helen Lineberry. Feeding into a working understanding of family-and-kin-as-institution, the paper ultimately locates Topher Lineberry's work between relations to place, historical archives, and speculative proposals.

To The Studio, In The Studio, Home, Miquel R. Veldkamp

Theses and Dissertations

A curated series of poems and mini essays that reflect on personal life, politics, art history, folklore, science, identity and race. It addresses the questions that inform my work, and echoes its ethos of play, exploration, curiosity, vulnerability.

A Draft: Up N’ Upper Or Sisyphus Lounge; Notes, Poems & Essays From The Road & The Cabin, Andrew M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations

This text imagines a reconciliation where the slick, sterile nature of contemporary objects and conditions might offer a sort of soft retreat. Sisyphus Lounge, a modular installation of light, near-defunct-technologies and carefully cluttered “stuff,” attempts to locate and explore value systems fogged by dis/information and the impossibility to articulate is-ness.

Errantry, Simon A. Benjamin

Theses and Dissertations

Errantry, Simon Benjamin's current body of work, named after Édouard Glissant’s theory, is comprised of a series of multi-channel video installations and related works. Errantry is centered on the polyphonic rhythms of coastal space, the Caribbean sea, and the life sustained by it in a non-linear narrative that raises questions about time, labor, environmental degradation and the ongoingness of colonialism.

Home, It Turns Out, Is Always A Matter Of Paperwork, Leonardo Madriz

Theses and Dissertations

A meandering of life-thinking on notions of migration & diaspora, assimilation, place & home, family & loss, cruel optimism and new imaginaries - through text, film & video, installation, and expanded cinema.

Yellow, Sisi Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The following paper is a constellational unpacking of yellow through notes on critical race and feminist theories, myth, science, science fiction, disparate histories, cyborgs, biography, virtuality, materiality, fungi, porcelain, language, internalization, melancholia, smells, sounds, tastes, feels, and more feels.

White Racial Identity And Its Impact On Punitive Attitudes Towards Juvenile Offenders, Rossol Gharib

Student Theses

White Racial Identity is a relatively new concept with little to no consensus as to the operationalization of such identity. The first ever White Racial Identity model was developed by Janet E. Helms in 1990. The role of White racial identity has been studied in the context of the racial gap in employment and its influence on racial attitudes, but it has yet to be studied in the context of the juvenile justice system. The criminal justice system is racially imbalanced, with Black males imprisoned 5.5 times more than White males. One of the factors contributing to this imbalance is …

Flooding Effects On China And Indonesia, Junhao Tan, Yuxuan Zhao, Yujie Li, Denny Caisaguano, Tanvir Hossain, Allan Zhu, Abdou Bah

Publications and Research

As climate change continues affecting the world, the damages and the problems follow by the flooding in certain regions are increasing. The research will be focuses on the impact of flood on two counties. The causes of flooding, the damages of flooding, and the solution developed to prevent and protect the cities.

Interfacial Dynamics And Ionic Transport Of Radiologic Contrast Media In Carbohydrate Matrix: Utility And Limits Of X-Ray Imaging, Lin Mousa, Hayley Sanchez, Subhendra Sarkar, Zoya Vinokur

Publications and Research

Hello, our names are Lin Mousa and Hayley Sanchez, this semester we participated in a research project dedicated to analyzing the interactions of contrast media with the molecular components of fruits to compare how they would react with the human brain. This project involved the injection of fruits with varying contrasts and the imaging of the diffusion and interactions of the contrast within the fruits with X-rays. With setup technical parameters on the x-ray equipment images were taken with identical setups at an hourly rate for several days. The final results of this experiment indicated that contrasts such as Gadolinium …

Understanding Of Aerosol Transmission Of Covid 19 In Indoor Environment - Part 2: Approaches To Mitigation, Adama Barro, Cathal O'Toole, Jacob S. Lopez, Matthew Quinones, Sherene Moore

Publications and Research

The challenge we face in implementing solutions for new HVAC ventilation and filtration design, is to effectively improve air quality for virus mitigation without losing performance efficiency. The purpose of this improvement is to decontaminate the occupied enclosed areas, reducing the transmission of the corona virus aerosol transmission. Our research seeks reliable approaches to mitigate the further spread of aerosol transmission in indoor spaces. The methodology is to examine innovative HVAC engineering solutions that combat epidemiological problems of Covid-19 for the post-pandemic era, by researching scholarly articles and ASHRAE journals. We are achieving the goal of finding highly efficient resolutions …

Paint The City, Juan Estrella

Publications and Research

Paint the City lets you create, share, and discover street art in augmented reality. Imagine having a secret world hidden in your phone where you are free to express yourself and develop a community full of potential friends. CREATE Choose from a variety of colors and brush sizes to create your masterpiece, we give you the tools to be as detailed as possible!

SHARE When you are done you can publish your work which will be shown to people passing by. You can also share it with your friends and create your own private art gallery. All of your work …

Quiet: Art Set Between Utopia, Dystopia, And Atopia, Dana A. Notine

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the interactive art piece, Quiet: We Live in Public by Josh Harris, through the lenses of Utopia, Dystopia, and Atopia. This thesis considers the status of the little-known work outside of the art historical canon and renews attention to its prophetic and complex message regarding the internet and selfhood.

Structures Of Time: Expressions Of Subjectivity And Social Politics In Works By Silvia Gruner, 1986–2014, Silvia Sampaio De Alencar

Theses and Dissertations

The works of Silvia Gruner (born 1959) illustrate the use of time registers as strategies to express contemporary subjectivity’s experiences with globalized environments between 1986-2014. Through this approach, the artist connects her production to the social politics of Mexico to critique the effects of globalization on Mexican society and culture.

Mitochondrial Distribution Of Glycine Receptors In Motor Neuron Cell Lines, Katsiaryna Milashevich

Student Theses and Dissertations

Although non-essential, glycine plays an important role in major metabolic reactions and is most known for its anti-inflammatory effects. An accumulation of contemporary research has shown that glycine is able to stabilize membrane potential using glycine receptors at the cellular level and to protect mitochondrial function directly, whether it is from inflammation, heavy metal poisoning, or ischemia-induced neuroinflammation. In this research, the existence of a hypothetical mitochondrial glycine receptor is examined. Immunofluorescence imaging was used to examine the presence of the glycine receptor subunits alpha 1 and alpha 2 in both non- differentiated and differentiated neuroblastoma cell lines. The preliminary …

International Migration From The Latin American-Caribbean Region: Taking Environmental Indicators Into Consideration, Chelsea Wepy

Student Theses and Dissertations

International migration, the act of leaving one’s country to permanently settle in another country, is driven by many socio economic/political factors, such as lack of economic opportunity, access to education, governmental corruption, and violence. These factors have proven to be the reason that many citizens within the Latin American-Caribbean region either choose or are forced to relocate internationally. While these factors are important to consider independently; these issues are often exacerbated by changes in the natural environment. The objective of my paper is to highlight the importance of considering changes in the natural environment. In doing so, I hope to …

Guía Básica De Análisis Del Documental "Rigoberta Menchú: Daughter Of The Maya" (Dawn Gifford Engle, 2016), Álvaro Baquero-Pecino

Open Educational Resources

Guía básica de análisis del documental Rigoberta Menchú: Daughter of the Maya (Dawn Gifford Engle, 2016). La guía está destinada, principalmente, a estudiantes de español. Se compone de una breve serie de preguntas para antes, durante y después del visionado. El objetivo es ayudar a la comprensión del documental por parte de los estudiantes y fomentar la discusión en clase.

Student Well-Being Matters: Academic Library Support For The Whole Student, Marta Bladek

Publications and Research

In response to a marked increase in the prevalence and severity of mental health problems among college students over the last decade, colleges and universities have been expanding their well-being initiatives and programs. No longer limited to health services departments, the support of student well-being has been taken up by multiple campus units, including academic libraries. As well-being has been shown to impact academic outcomes, the well-being initiatives libraries develop fit in with their commitment to enhance learning and student educational experience overall. A comprehensive review of wellness interventions in academic libraries, this article presents findings on student well-being and …