Digital Commons Network^™

A Virtual Reality Based Powered Wheelchair Simulator, Yuliia Sergeeva

Masters Theses

Power wheelchairs provide great assistance for people with locomotion disabilities. However, for those who have tremor, operation of the wheelchair can be challenging and result in a chance to get into an accident. The focus of this research project is to create a semi-virtual reality power wheelchair driving simulator that can be used for testing a notch filter for tremors in a safe laboratory environment and obtain data on human operator movements for future mathematical modeling. The simulator incorporates a realistic and immersive virtual environment and power wheelchair movement into it. For the experiment, a physical PWC joystick was connected …

Effects Of Low Dose Mixtures Of 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone And Cocaine On Locomotor Activity And Brain Monoamine Content In Sprague-Dawley Rats, Robert J. Kohler

Masters Theses

Synthetic cathinones, known as “bath salts” on the illicit drug market, pose a significant and growing public health concern. 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), one of several popular constituents of the illicit bath salts, produces similar pharmacological actions to cocaine, albeit with greater potency. The present study sought to characterize behavioral and neurochemical effects of repeated exposure to MDPV alone and in combination with cocaine. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: 1 mg/kg MDPV, 5 mg/kg cocaine, 1 mg/kg MDPV + 5 mg/kg cocaine, or saline. Locomotor activity was assessed for one hour immediately before and one hour …

Shifting Focus: The Role Of Visual Literacy In The Twenty-First Century English Classroom, Bryanna Tester

Masters Theses

Ultimately, the English language arts classroom seeks to help make students “literate” members of society. Due to the dominance of images in twenty-first century communication, the term “literate” has also slowly shifted to include an individual’s ability to effectively and accurately communicate with verbal text as well as with visual images and symbols. Although students are native image-viewers, they are not able to be image-readers without instruction and training on how to critically “read” images. Therefore, an English teacher’s literary curriculum is not strictly bound to the written and spoken word. Instruction in reading and writing written texts are vital …

The Creative Process : Gathering For Meaning, Charity Appell Mcnabb

Masters Theses

The creative process of visual artists is not a well-understood methodology for intellectual inquiry. In particular, there are amorphous and individual aspects of it that defy narrow categorization. These aspects, like the gathering and associating labors, which vary from artist to artist, are nonetheless fundamental to our practices. The author investigates how the creative process has been defined and how the creative process is being used outside the traditional artistic context. Artists exist in a space where categories and definitions can be abandoned, where thought is advanced through the act of making, where worldviews can be imagined, where apparent contradictions …

Similarity In A Distance, Ran Zhuo

Masters Theses

I grew up in an interesting yet contradictory environment. As both of my parents were busy with their jobs, I was raised by my grandparents and I believe that’s where the contradiction aspect of my personality came. My grandfather was a professor of physics in a university and my grandmother was a professor of violin. Unconsciously, I was influenced by them and developed a keen interest in cross-disciplinary and cross-media subjects. The two subjects of music and physics represented art and science, emotion and reason, abstraction and concreteness, and invisible and visible to me.

My work is primarily engaged with …

In The Marketplace, Anina Major

Masters Theses

The decision to voluntarily establish a home contrary to the location in which I was born and raised (The Bahamas) motivates me to investigate the relationship between self and place. To further explore my own migration and the emotional complexities that surface, with a desire to fabricate terms of cultural integrity and its defining influence. To express poetically the kindred ideals that resonate from home and intertwine those values to cultivate moments of reflection and acceptance. To promote encounters between past, present and future by weaving the memories of my own background and experiences, consequently unveiling a rich culture composed …

Sometimes The Sh*T Stays Messy : Critical Frameworks For Arts-Based Researchers & Educators, Zoe Schein

Masters Theses

The standards by which we assess the legitimacy of knowledge production are deeply biased: resting ideologically, systemically, and formally on processes that are deeply rooted in systems of oppression. Consequently, our current body of “legitimate” or scholarly knowledge presents only a partial, partisan picture of what it is possible—and worthwhile—to know. This thesis addresses how hegemonic institutions (like the academy) rely on two central notions: (1) that their methods are “objective,” “value-neutral,” or otherwise impartial (2) that these methods are the best—if not the only—ones through which “real” knowledge may be accessed and communicated. As this paper demonstrates, each of …

Researching + Observing + Reflecting Of Chinese And American Landscape Architecture Pedagogy : Focusing On Department Of Landscape Architecture In Risd And Bfu, Change Gao

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the Chinese and American landscape architecture education, typically in Beijing Forestry University (China) and Rhode Island School of Design (USA). By relecting back to author’s graduate and undergraduate study in landscape architecture in these two schools, this thesis provides a view of an observer and outsider instead of an experiencer and insider to look through the teaching and learning in landscape architecture. Through the voice from students and academia in both schools, this thesis functions as a platform sharing the learning and teaching experience, providing a cross-culture access to other people’s experience and as a chatbox …

Let's Get Hairy : Women, Body Hair And Stigma In Arts Education, Chaitra Bangalore

Masters Theses

A woman who is visibly hairy might be viewed as masculine, dirty, unprofessional, or as a radical feminist. There are variations on what it means to be a woman; feminine does not have to be synonymous with “hairless”. Body hair is a stigma because it is a physical characteristic that is undesirable and shamed when exposed.

Body hair as stigma can be explored in terms of creativity and pedagogy. How can creativity work to dismantle stigma? Talking about stigma gives one the chance to express themselves in a way that is exploratory, sparking new ways of understanding. Arts education already …

The Artist, The Object And The Meaning Between : An Exploration Of The Joys Of Incorporating Meaningful Objects Into Art Practice And Teaching Pedagogy, Sarah Leis

Masters Theses

The Artist, the Object and the Meaning Between begins by exploring the human motivation and delight in keeping physical ephemera, tokens, specimen, souvenirs, relics, etc. Material things can be tools to understand and interact with the world around us; a name for this is “Object-based Learning”. I use Qualitative and Arts-based research to make the case for object-based learning as a complement to digital resources. Though anyone may benefit from these practices, the focus of the thesis is the teaching artist and her opportunity to encourage in her students a rich experience of the three-dimensional in a world that seems …

Familiar Strangers, Rebecca Li

Masters Theses

I am interested in dialogues of connection – from our ongoing internal ramblings, to the moments where strangers do not feel like strangers, to the conversations that wander late into the night. Our connections are the foundations of the human experience; they give weight to the every-day and ground us in time and place.

Today, our digital devices have become invaluable tools for bringing people together. No matter where we ind our physical selves, we have the ability to tap into our digital worlds and access our most intimate social circles. But our seemingly insatiable desire for constant communication often …

Content-Aware : Investigating Tools, Character & User Behavior, Llewellyn Hensley

Masters Theses

Content—Aware serves as a platform for investigating structure, corruption, and visual interference in the context of present-day technologies. I use fragmentation, movement, repetition, and abstraction to interrogate current methods and tools for engaging with the built environment, here broadly conceived as the material, spatial, and cultural products of human labor.

Physical and graphic spaces become grounds for testing visual hypotheses. By testing images and usurping image-making technologies, I challenge the fidelity of vision and representation. Rooted in active curiosity and a willingness to fully engage, I collaborate with digital tools, play with their edges, and build perceptual portholes. Through documentation …

Identity Production, Boyang Xia

Masters Theses

What are we talking about when we talk about identity? People are likely to define themselves in terms of what is relevant to their time and place, in other words, context. This indicates that identity is not a fixed definition, but more of a malleable construction; it develops its attributes via context. I am constantly recalibrating the relationship between the two. Context is ubiquitous, unnoticed, coexistent and interchangeable. Identity is reflexive, fragmented, shapeable and fluid. Identity Production explores and unveils how identity is adapted and manifested in contemporary conditions, as well as its external validation which paradoxically defines this indefinable …

Twilight Revelation, Shuwen Xu

Masters Theses

The first inspiration came from the thrilling phenomenal nuance caused by the natural light, especially the diffused and cool light — that’s why I am so fascinated with the dawn. Also, the “conditional” idea proposed by Robert Irwin in his book “Being and Circumstance — Notes Toward a Conditional Art” influenced my attitude towards landscape and public art: the design could be a tool to “reveal” the phenomenal changes and make people become more aware of them, instead of changing the existing condition arbitrarily.

Then I chose “threshold” — the space between private and public condition, interior and exterior, which …

Thresholds : Natural Phenomena, Urban Form, Equilibrium, Peiyi Liu

Masters Theses

My research topic is finding methodologies to address thresholds between natural processes and the urban network to achieve equilibrium between the two at Battery Park community.

Phase 1, In this phase, this investigation will seek to look at the definitions of thresholds, and then generate a system to categorize the operations of thresholds in order to understand and access more possibilities for thresholds within landscape.

Phase 2 will build on phase 1 by looking at the existing features and subtle processes of the site in order to understand its potentials and problems.

Phase 3 will build on phase 2 by …

How To Become Ocean?, Elaina Runge

Masters Theses

A shifting viewpoint transforms into multiple perspectives to explore surface and depth.

By compressing time into an instant, or expanding a moment out in infinite directions, patterns reveal and obscure themselves.

A process that is both rational and intuitive emerges through the use of different systems to approach the unknown.

The ocean operates as a metaphor. The beyond guides the search of one who is tethered to the shore.

Plastic, linen, silk, elastic, glass, cellulose, protein: fold, curve, bend, distort, resist to create forms that are neither unfamiliar nor named.

Blue, blue-grey, blue-green, blue violet, azure, cobalt, sapphire, lapis lazuli, …

Talistones : A Handful Of Help For Homecoming Soldiers, Atulya Changanty

Masters Theses

We are creatures of habit influenced by our environments. We function on a 24-hour clock known as our circadian rhythm that is dictated by the solar cycle, seasonal shifts, and our daily schedules to determine our understanding of time to que our behaviors. The circadian rhythm can be disrupted by trauma to the brain, shift in lifestyle and habits, or inability to determine the passage of time and can lead to profound effects on mental health. Soldiers who are transitioning out of military service into civilian life, particularly those who have experienced combat, are an archetypal population who encounter damage …

Impractical Community, Zixin Xiong

Masters Theses

Zixin lost her phone and she went on a journey with a girl to find it. During the journey, they collected cellphones to let these machines get a good rest; they explored a sandwich city and took a risk to follow an insect who ate people’s profiles. They were trapped in a forest of lies and heard about lots of silly questions, etc. After experiencing these weird adventures, Zixin found a new friend underground and dove into a magic river to live with her.

The Impractical Community is a magic realist fiction that reveals the disadvantages of our technology in …

Dermis, Julia Betts

Masters Theses

I create situations that hold onto spaces or things. That psychic energy can be transferred to a viewer. I’m curious about this transference and The Aesthetics of Disengagement and the empathetic nature of making work.

I often engage the viewer through overwhelm (such as: texturally, amount of objects, length of performance, mark making…) to create anxiety/tension around a body or around how a body relates to space. To create this overwhelm, I use ritual, repetitive labor that is between obsessive and meditative. In this boundary, I wonder about whether art is healing or can be. I’m interested in creating spaces …

I Am Come Back To You, Eleanor Tomlinson

Masters Theses

Through various forays into psychological science and affect theory, this work attempts to understand how quick and simple commodities might coalesce into a complex portrait of individual and collective memory.

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?, Felicia Leroy

Masters Theses

I began freediving, a sport in which one dives as deep as possible on single breath hold, as a way to approach the inaccessible space of the deep, to expand my understanding of the unobtainable.

This space (the deep) seemed to me to be representative of something that is totally unknown, its power existing in its inaccessibility, in its un-know-ability.

Through training/experiential data collection and using human physiology at depth as a framework, this thesis work book explores a single breath hold to the other side.

Work made in support of this exploration touches on darkness, depth, the edge, the …

A Theatrical Life : Negotiating Biracial Identity, Timothy Lai

Masters Theses

My paintings and drawings use autobiography, fiction, and theatricality to examine biracial-identity formation and the negotiation of different cultural ideologies. The personification of these ideologies in narrative accounts pose questions to which the characters must answer and respond. This leads to humorous, sad, problematic, empowering, and chaotic compositions that become an intimate chronicle of my own endeavor to find those “perfect” answers.

In my practice, painting and drawing are ways to explore a broad range of topics that stem from personal and familial stories. Using allegorical personifications, symbols, and metaphors derived from my family, I see the home as a …

Proximity, Interaction, And Evolution : Taking A Deeper Look At The Systems Around Us, Rachel Back

Masters Theses

In the new age of the sharing economy, the society is more connected than ever, but humanity has never been more disconnected from the environment and the natural world. This thesis begins with studying the dynamics of physical and non-physical systems, at all scales. Additionally, this thesis explores the physical and emotional connection to place, time, and memory. Finally, the goal of this thesis is to create spaces that reintroduce nature into architecture, and allow the inhabitant to experience the mystery and awe of the living systems.

Naturally Occurring Form, Margaret Kristensen

Masters Theses

I am trying to find art in my body, attempting to create images that personalize and desexualize the nude. Between the body of images that we have access to via social media and the images we have seen of female nudes, emphasis is put on finding the form to be within western society’s acceptable range of beautiful; so rarely do we find organic figures existing in the photographic environment.

Having been taught how to photograph the body by looking at images of women taken by men, I don’t see myself. The photographs by Edward Weston and Irving Penn look, gaze, …

From Florine To Flocking : Observations Of A Painter - Printmaker - Embellisher, Elizabeth King

Masters Theses

I am a painter-printmaker-embellisher. The hierarchy of these labels shift to best suit the needs of each piece. Making an image that encourages looking takes precedent over how it is labeled. A quickly read painting is the enemy. I weave together complex passages on the surface to function as a speed bump, to slow down the viewer’s navigation of my paintings. I value color, pattern, and texture above a narrative. Borrowing the palette of Florine Stettheimer and the repetitive touch of Edouard Vuillard, my paintings teeter dangerously between being about the idea of decoration and being decorative. Domesticity, femininity, and …

The Little Girl (Kinda), Hanna Kim

Masters Theses

My work has always been about the personal relationships I've had in the past. It is driven by the

nostalgia of what was, and how it came to be within the present. It is not the act of languishing in a better time or the need to replay a scenario from when life was thought to have been easier. It is replaying the past that makes me chuckle, even if at the time the said event was not so hilarious or amusing. While I am heavily influenced by the psychological workings of the human mind and sociology, I ultimately decided …

Wellness Within Reach : Life / Work Balance Within The Risd Campus, Kyunghwa Kang

Masters Theses

Academics often overlook the importance of a balanced life and even encourage a competitive work environment. However, life balance, health and mental wellness have strong influence on academic performance, social relationships and even life satisfaction. Working environments matter, too: lack of natural light and ventilation, noise and lack of privacy often contribute to elevated levels of stress, anxiety and depression. In the case of students from the Rhode Island School of Design, most devote almost all time to work without satisfying the body’s need for rest. However, studios do not integrate spaces for relaxing, resting and refreshing and do not …

Re-Structure : An Exploration Of Relational Engagement Through Objects & Object Making, Mark Epler

Masters Theses

Home is a loaded concept. For each of us it means a vast spectrum of associations, emotions and values. However, there are also a myriad of universal commonalities of what home is in our collective imaginations and experiences despite the increasingly transitory and elusive ideas about what home means for each of us. Whatever or wherever we might call home, our experiences within the walls of what we understand to be home impact and shape us. It is the physical and sociological structure that shapes our lives and the shelter from which we depart to grow into the larger world …

Healing Landscapes, Siyi He

Masters Theses

This thesis divided to three parts; it mainly looks at the scenario of healing landscapes in the Financial District. Phase one focused on the overall history and site condition of the Financial District, and tried to combine it with the typology of a traditional healing landscape. New typologies of healing landscape for high density and unhealthy urban areas were explored. Phase two evaluated various site conditions and documented the flow of people in the Financial District. The typology of healing practice forms was developed. Phase three tried to locate the specific location of healing practice paths and the area of …

Between Thoughts : On The Interconnectivity Of Things, Yunzhu Wang

Masters Theses

My furniture designs are sensory tools that offer a bridge between our mental world and the physical world. With a strong belief in systems of interconnectivity and equilibrium, I use my designs as tools to calibrate awareness to the flow of changes that occur as enduring undercurrents in our everyday lives. Using as stimuli basic mechanisms of measurement as well as sensory cues, my works are antennae to our perception, inviting finely-tuned attention to the subtleties of response between our body and the physical environment. In the process of our participation, we come to see the dynamics of action and …