Art and Design Commons^™

Game On, Theresa Loong

Theses and Dissertations

Game On is a 25-minute documentary about game designer Brenda Romero, a successful woman in a male-dominated industry. Brenda, whose career spans over thirty-five pioneering years, has contributed to almost fifty game titles, developing innovative video and board games. How is her life a game space?

Framing The City: Photography And The Construction Of São Paulo, 1930–1955, Danielle J. Stewart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1930 and 1955 São Paulo, Brazil experienced a period of accelerated growth as the population nearly quadrupled from 550,000 to two million. In response, the municipal government undertook an aggressive public works program and commercial building boomed. Photographic representations of the cityscape were essential in directing modern São Paulo’s physical evolution because they reflected both the real—a chaotically growing megacity—and the ideal—a literally new, modernized space. This dissertation centers on four case studies of artists practicing different photographic modalities in order to analyze the symbiotic relationship between São Paulo's urban development and its photographic representation.

Construction sites, scaffolding, and …

Dance Of Exile: The Sakharoffs’ Visual Performances In Montevideo (1935–1948), Pablo Munoz Ponzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life-work chronology of the dancers and choreographers Clotilde von Derp (whose surname then was Sakharoff) and Alexander Sakharoff, who were exiled in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1941 and 1948. During their stay in the Rio de la Plata region, the Sakharoffs stirred up the art scene by performing extremely detailed dances with great attention to costume design. This thesis begins with a review of the reception of the dancers’ performances by the artistic and cultural circles in Montevideo, arguing that the Sakharoffs’ “queer” trajectory resonated with the Uruguayan artistic community, influencing the creation …

Duik Bassel In Usage In After Effects And An Animated Short Film, Kennedy L. Galpin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis was made with the goal of creating a 2D short film in the end, with mainly using a program that is not normally used for character animation: Adobe After Effects. With the usage of an originally French plugin called DuIK Bassel (v16.0.9), I was able to create a model in Adobe Photoshop and then put it into After Effects. When the files were imported, the plugin would then assist in the rigging process, wherein I would be able to create the character’s rig and make the 2D model within the program. This document discusses the entire creation of …

Time, Space, And Reality, Hugo Patao

Graduate School of Art Theses

I am a mixed media artist working primarily within painting. I make layered, photo-based works that come from dreams and my own photographic archives. At the moment I am making oil paintings on board. What interests me the most is the nature of reality, including perception, memory, time, and dreams. I create environments that I like to call my own mindscapes; imagined places that have the potential to become real. I am engaged in creating worlds that are “in-between” reality and the imagined, dreams and waking life, conscious and unconscious.

My work engages and expands within the tradition of Western …

Reworking The White-Masculine Ideal, Steven H. Gonzalez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This text functions as an exploration of self through artistic practice, a designated space for reflection on contemporary Queer experience. In looking specifically at the permeation of the idealized-white-masculine figure as found within Western visual culture, social media and gay pornography become isolated as sites where these figures are commonly found. This line of inquiry defines how the ideal is reified through these differing digital platforms and the social implications the homogenized male form has on raced individuals. In addition to determining the image of the perfect masculine physique through research, this text expands on how its' imaged representation becomes …

The Pedagogy Of Design And Technology At Xavier University Of Louisiana, New Orleans, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Abstract. Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) is a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) university located in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a Historically Black University (HBCU), the university serves a diverse community of students in which many are first-generation, college graduates. Students enrolled in Design courses at XULA are studying in Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Art programs and majoring in subjects such as Computer Science, Physics, Mass Communication, Art, Business, and Science. The interdisciplinary student environment offers a unique opportunity for collaboration and peer learning, whereby students are able to share diverse perspectives on a topic by relating …

Advancing Film Through Art & Design: A Study Of The Influence That Film And Fine Art Have On The Independent Film Market, Jamall Rashaud Mcmillan

Masters Theses

The Influence of Graphic Design and Fine Art in Film is a exploration into the impact that an investment of the arts has on film and more specifically the independent film market. Most independent filmmakers have to develop their productions with little to no budget. In doing so they must work to create a marketable film to the best of their ability. There in-lies the issue; they are doing it to the best of “their” ability. The issue that is in focus with the notion of ability is that a major component that is left out of the equation to …

Behind Closet Doors: Horror And Dislocation In The Queer Closet, Corey C. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

“Behind Closet Doors: Horror and Dislocation in the Queer Closet,” is composed of a collection of sculptures, videos, and sound works that are directly associated with themes of horror and anxiety derived from the precarious space of the queer closet as detailed in this thesis of the same name.

Jet Magazine: Celebrating Black Female Beauty, Jazmyn Shepherd

XULAneXUS

Once referred to as, “the Negro bible” by famed actor and comedian Redd Foxx^[1], Jet has continued to be a pioneer in representing Black Americans as beyond the stereotypes to which they are so often relegated. The magazine has not only provided accurate coverage throughout momentous Black historical movements such as the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, the Black is Beautiful movement of the late 1960s, and the Natural Hair Movement of the 2000s, but it has also catered to the daily interests of Black Americans, such as fashion and beauty, lifestyle advice, dating advice, politics, health …

Now You Seaweed, Now You Don't: Photographing Rongcheng's Disappearing Seaweed Houses, Yanjing Liu

Social Space

This county-level city is known not only for its picturesque beauty, but also for being the site of seaweed houses— traditional homes built from natural seaweed and stones. Inhabited mainly by local fishermen, these structures are a reflection of northern Chinese marine culture and fishery customs.

Pièce De Résistance: Art Movements And Their Power To Change The World, Stephanie Tran Rojas

Social Space

The Harlem Renaissance was highly intertwined with the growing social consciousness of Black American communities. The goal of many artworks was to present a realistic depiction of Black Americans and challenge common stereotypical depictions of Blacks as inferiorto Whites.

Teaching Visual Literacies: The Case Of The Great American Dust Bowl, Mary F. Rice, Ashley K. Dallacqua

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using The Great American Dust Bowlby Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, The Arrival (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand …

Of Martyrs And Minstrels, Trevon J. Coleman

Honors Undergraduate Theses

"Our search for understanding in matters of race automatically incline us toward blackness, although that is not where these answers lie." – Nell Irvin Painter. Over the course of, and in partial fulfillment for, the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and the degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production, I have produced a multimedia body of work. I made this body of work as a reflection and result of my processes and studies, and as a method to examine perception, and representation in relation to identity. This body of work combines drawing, painting, printmaking, …

The Attention Crisis Of Digital Interfaces And How To Consume Media More Mindfully, Kristen M. Liu

Scripps Senior Theses

Digital forms of media are monopolizing individuals' attention spans, utilizing visual strategies that demand our interactions. Throughout the history of media technology, mediums have become increasingly immersive, presenting more information than ever before. The user interface designs of digital platforms can damage our ability to focus and distribute attention in meaningful ways. Through analysis of our digital media consumption, this capstone project ultimately proposes mindful practices that help us lead more balanced lives and thrive in the digital age. The second half of this capstone project is a digital zine with digital illustrations, animations, and editorial-style articles. The digital zine …

Let Me Tell You A Story = 讓我說一個故事, Sau Ping Adam Wong

Artists-in-Residence Programme : Exhibition Catalogues

"Let Me Tell You a Story" is a showcase of nine short films made by the students and a trailer of them edited by the Artist-in-Residence, Mr Adam WONG Sau Ping.

Wong’s films show a humanistic perspective and employ storytelling to reveal incidents and experiences of real people contemporary society. In the spring of 2019, he teaches the course VIS3298 Studio Practice with a theme on “The Art of Storytelling by Film and Video” and gave a seminar on “Adam Wong On His Filmmaking, from VHS to 4K” at Lingnan University on 25 March. In his course, Wong guides nineteen …

Globalized Interfaces And Anticolonial Engagements With Material Technologies Of Empire: Tabita Rezaire And Morehshin Allahyari’S Works, Neelufar Franklin

Scripps Senior Theses

The virtual is far from immaterial and its expressions are multifarious. The infrastructure of a technologic-globalism has opened new pathways of desecration, created new networks of exploitation, and reinforced fraught foundations. Tabita Rezaire and Morehshin Allahyari are two artists whose radical technofeminist and new materialist practices engage with counterdiscourses in the face of the globalized interfaces of technology; from mappings of submarine fiber optic network cables or understanding water as a knowledge repository, to 3D printed queered figures of Islamic mysticism and hypertext narratives. In these anachronistic approaches to technological use and analyses, archives become possibilities for renderings of futurity …

Designing A Website For A Non-Profit Organization, Kristen Lauck

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this honors project is to redesign and launch a website for the nonprofit organization Better Future Facilitators. Better Future Facilitators is a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps homeless men and women start their own businesses by providing them with the education, skills, and support necessary to be successful and break the cycle of homelessness.

Starting June 3rd, I will be writing website copy, taking photographs, reorganizing content, and designing a simple website layout for betterfuturefacilitators.org via Wix.com’s website creator. This website will allow the organization to better communicate with their target public and create a secure place …

Graphic Content Warning; Personal And Political Traumas, Emily K. Wardell

Theses and Dissertations

The written portion of this thesis work is meant to address and further investigate the visual work created using mediums of print and found video. This artistic research has been interested in examining varying associations with truth, recollection, and evidence. This includes the recollection of public histories and news-media narratives as well as my own history and trauma. Through this work my aim was to create a deconstruction and revolt against how associations are formed, and how to understand imagery as information. This thesis first discusses my relationship to appropriated imagery, then connects and examines it through the addition of …

Equals: Redefining The Way Graphic Design And Narrative Film Combine To Create Visual Metaphor, Kevin Harris

Masters Theses

This paper provides a methodology for combining Graphic Design and Narrative Film together in a way that creates a type of visual metaphor that is central to the story and characters of the film. Because visual mediums of communication are so intrinsically tied to verbal means of communication, this methodology is grounded in the linguistic study of poetry and metaphor. Thus, the concept of metaphor will be analyzed thoroughly in language, poetry, fine arts, and modern arts. The ways in which metaphor is created visually through the art forms of graphic design and narrative film will be of upmost interest …

Fake Or Visual Trickery? Understanding The Quantitative Visual Rhetoric In The News, Rohit Mehta, Lynette Deaun Guzmán

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In online and video/television spaces, news media discourses incorporate multimodal design as a discursive move capable of steering meaning toward desirable implications. Around the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, while polarized news outlets made their positionality on the candidates obvious, more neutral or central news outlets revealed their preferences through subtle multimodal design choices. One of these design choices is using a quantitative visual rhetoric: persuasive multimodal moves that draw on quantification through visual, spatial, and textual manipulation—involving the choice of data representation, visual images, and illustrations, (im)balance between numeric and alphabetic texts, and general quantitative narrative. This quantitative visual rhetoric …

In The Loop: Fall 2018

In The Loop

Letter from the Dean; Laugh Out Loud; Reel Rewind; Computer Science for All; The Truth Value Project; Seen and Heard; Bravo! Bravo!; Checkmate Cybercrimes; The Trendy Designer

Think Outside: Exploring The Influence Of Nature On The Individual And Of The Individual On Society, Brielle Wells

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This video project has an overarching goal to question the influence the natural environment has on the development of individual people and society as a whole. It begins by looking into the important role played by creativity in societal and economic development. From here a brief background is given on the requirements of maintaining and producing a creative environment. The piece alludes to the possibility that a relationship with nature has a deeper meaning than just being conducive to creativity. It also shows the effects pollution has had on the work of local artists and briefly the challenges faced by …

Illusions Of "Blackness" In Contemporary Visual Culture, Michaël Dorn

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

My thesis begins with a primer of the historical concept of “black(ness)” and the roots of its racialization. Intertwined throughout my discussion in Section I, I will highlight a few of my research findings and discuss some of the installation images that I created as I studied the work of contemporary artists who use lexical and literal figurative “blackness” in their work—in particular, the oeuvre of Kerry James Marshall as featured in his retrospective exhibition Mastry. My discourse unfolds with a brief etymological review of both the English word “black” and its precedent conceptual forms in Section II. Section …

Mia Park Interview, Justin Fernandez

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Mia Park is a multidisciplinary artist acting, writing, playing music, producing events, teaching yoga, and volunteering in Chicago, IL. She shares her passion for discovery and self-inquiry with hope and optimism. Mia began professionally acting in 1997 hosting the cult favorite cable access dance show Chic-A-Go-Go. Her acting career has brought her on stage, in film, on television and on the radio. Mia currently plays the recurring character Nurse Beth Cole on NBC's Chicago Med. She has advocated for Asian American representation in acting since 2006 when she co-founded A-Squared Theatre and hosted educational theater workshops for the Chicago …

Review Of Chris Ware: Conversations, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Review Of Pioneering Cartoonists Of Color, Carly Diab

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Murmur/Murmuro, Paola M. Di Tolla

Theses and Dissertations

By using repetition or misplacing intonations and accents, etc. one can imitate the slipperiness of spoken language. However, it is the accidental slippage that I find most revealing and exciting because it allows for two conversations to exist in one. Once spoken language is transcribed as text, it is put through another filter and the risk of [accidental] slippage increases by a different measure. Fingers don’t keep up or autocorrect insists on taking matters into its own hands.

Private Rainbows, Mikey F. Estes

Theses and Dissertations

I make art that refers to how the self is mediated through structures, objects, and images — a kind of self-portraiture that circles around its subject, reflecting a state of simultaneous formation and disintegration. Over the past few years, I have used my iPhone as a tool to make images of everyday life. As the user of this device, I am defined by both my presence and absence. I am interested in the process of locating the self within the scattered yet ordered space of the screen.