Art and Design Commons^™

Indefinability2013c.E., Clayton T. Ehman

CGU MFA Theses

I am a multidisciplinary artist; because I am committed to art that engages a broad array of subjects and ideas. This is reflected in my works which consist of diverse mediums and processes including graphic design, digital imagery, printmaking, painting, sculpting, poetry, song composition, clothing, website design, drawing, video, lighting, installation art, abstract art, Op art, conceptual art, political art, black light art, maximalist art, and various combinations of these.

Oval Office., Joshua F. Houser

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Oval Office is the most iconic room in the White House and one of the most recognizable interiors in the United States. I have recreated the Oval Office as a three-dimensional, interactive environment for the purpose of studying 3D modeling, texturing, and environment creation. My recreation of the Oval Office contains more than 30 unique models which use over 100 high-quality texture maps. My goal was to study the creation of both organic and hard surface models as well as learning which workflows were best suited to each object within a scene. I also wanted to study how different …

Analysis And Construction Of Engaging Facial Forms And Expressions: Interdisciplinary Approaches From Art, Anatomy, Engineering, Cultural Studies, And Psychology, Leejin Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The topic of this dissertation is the anatomical, psychological, and cultural examination of a human face in order to effectively construct an anatomy-driven 3D virtual face customization and action model. In order to gain a broad perspective of all aspects of a face, theories and methodology from the fields of art, engineering, anatomy, psychology, and cultural studies have been analyzed and implemented. The computer generated facial customization and action model were designed based on the collected data. Using this customization system, culturally-specific attractive face in Korean popular culture, “kot-mi-nam (flower-like beautiful guy),” was modeled and analyzed as a case study. …

Participation In The Digital Public: New Media Art As Online Community, Vaughn Garland

Theses and Dissertations

Participation in The Digital Public: New Media Art as Online Community examines community online art projects— works of art produced and orchestrated by artists who employ the interconnected and participatory nature of the Internet. Garland contends, in part through a reevaluation of a statement made by artist Nam June Paik concerning a radio performance by John Cage, that community online art projects exist as the newest example of new media art because of a utilization and implementation of established and functioning technology. Through the application of Internet technology, contemporary artists, along with their collaborators and spectators, have the potential to …

Second Lines, Story Circles, And Freedom Songs: A Call And Response, Ann-Meredith Wootton

Capstone Collection

Community Is Survival

In New Orleans, all the grandmothers tell the story about the live oaks. Our roots don't grow deep into the swamp, but they grow wide – weaving, growing, and binding together with all of the surrounding trees, so that when the hurricane winds come, we will not fall. Together we can stand up against the strongest Gulf force winds (and the many faces of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline) – pushing, pulling, and leaning on one another when we need – and survive to see another day.

Live oaks also carry the story tradition of being a …

Broken News: Market Segmentation And Selective Exposure In Online News, Deidra Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Research has revealed that more Americans than ever are turning to the World Wide Web as their primary source for news and information instead of legacy media outlets such as printed newspapers and magazines and broadcast news. As more and more people rely on the Internet as a primary source for news, it is important to analyze the characteristics and content of online news to expose and correct problems associated with the practices that inform its production and presentation. There are several longstanding practices in the American journalistic tradition that have been adapted to the online news environment. The practices …

Following The Turn: Mapping As Material Art Practice, Kyla Christine Brown

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Following the Turn: Mapping As Material Art Practice investigates my artistic practice and MFA research based in London, Ontario. This dossier of research elements includes: an extended artist’s statement, a documentation of artistic practice and development, and a selection of in-process and published exhibition reviews of contemporary artists’ work; in Chapters 1, 2, and 3 respectively. This written document is in part intended to work as a specific accompaniment to my thesis exhibition. In the body of the thesis I propose that a project-based and embodied material art practice can perform mapping of negotiated experiences of the city. Dealing with …

Projection Based Design: A Collection Of Acquired Knowledge, Max Brown

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

The application of new technology in a classic medium, such as theatre, can be a strong force in creating a unique experience for both the audience and the designer. At first, introducing new media techniques may seem like a novelty and easily dismissed as a gimmick. The fact is the modern audience is more familiar with information displayed in video format and will find projected video elements implemented into the scenic design as another way to access the story the performers on stage are trying to convey. It is our duty as designers to utilize every tool at our disposal …

Ritual Process, Kevin A. Baer

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented sculptures that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as drawings or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. I focus on themes of temporal change and death because they remain central to our metaphysical and physical existence. I see a diminished reverence for the power of death in our culture, and through my work I aim to pay homage …

Imagining The Unknown, Angelina Kidd

MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Theses

It is true that there is no scientific proof of life after life or of the human soul. However, I believe there is a soul and that it is energy manifested as light. Our lifetime is a mere pulse when measured against the evolution of earth. We are connected to the cosmos through the very calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood, which originated from stars that died billions of years ago. My belief is that the earthly body is separate from the soul and that our light energy returns to the cosmos. Energy will not cease …

The Jump Magazine, Victoria Troxler

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Jump is an online life stage magazine for women, focused on the transition from college life to the real world. The magazine’s target audience is women ages 19 and 25 who have recently graduated from college or will soon graduate. These women are interested in a luxury lifestyle and current trends, but also value budgeting and their careers. They are also newcomers to real world. The Jump answers the questions about home décor, cooking, fashion, beauty, and budgeting in a simple way that is tailored to their stage in life.

Each department of The Jump – musings, home, eat, …

Naga: Combining 2d And 3d Animation., Min-Zhi Chin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Naga is an animated short about a lively dragon that roams about the lands embracing it’s surroundings dearly. It discovered a barren land while out exploring and was saddened by the sight. After pondering for a while, it then realized it could revive the land with it’s ability to summon rain using it's dragon ball. The short blends traditional animation and computer animation, where the look is similar to 2D animation but the character and a few environment elements are done in 3D. Software utilized to complete the short were Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Adobe After Effects, …

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

Jewelry Inspired By Stem Cells, Nina Matsumoto

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The representation of living organisms has a long history in jewelry. Since jewelry is intended to be worn on the body, it has the faculty to materialize what typically remains unseen below our skin. Creating this body of work aims to entice public curiosity and educate them in current stem cell research, as it is a promising avenue of medicine that could cure many diseases, rather than treat their symptoms.

The jewelry I made is a glimpse into the body revealing microscopic stem cells, which are essential to our existence. Current research has shown the potential for immense advancement in …

The Art Of Perl: How A Scripting Language (Inter)Activated The World Wide Web, Norberto Gomez Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

In 1987, computer programmer and linguist Larry Wall authored the general-purpose, high-level, interpreted, dynamic Unix scripting language, Perl. Borrowing features from C and awk, Perl was originally intended as a scripting language for text-processing. However, with the rising popularity of the Internet and the advent of Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web (Web), in the 1990s, Perl soon became the glue-language for the Internet, due in large part to its relationship to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Perl was the go-to language for on the fly program writing and coding, gaining accolades from the likes …

A Machine’S Idea Of Sight: The Technico-Sensory Divide In The Human Use Of Imaging Devices, Adam Dean

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the human and technical limitations of looking and seeing. It proposes a model for design that expands technical sight toward harmony with our human notion. It proposes a model for design that expands technical sight toward harmony with our human notion. This study is guided by the phenomenological experience of being expressed primarily by Heidegger as well as neuro-physiological research on the mind and body relationship by Ramachandran, Sacks Nicolelis and Damasio. It examines, in two paths, the technical developments that seek to alter or enhance our ways of looking and seeing. The first path is an …

Setting The Nutritional Agenda: An Analysis Of Nutrition Blog Sourcing, Shana Meganck

Theses and Dissertations

This research study analyzed the sources of nutrition blog information as measured by frequency and type of sources used by nutrition bloggers. Since the use of online resources for finding health information has become more prevalent, it is important to further research the topic for the purpose of better understanding how our nutrition agenda is set by nutrition bloggers. Focusing on 20 nutrition blogs, the study content analyzed 3,156 blog posts during a one-year period from September 1, 2011 to August 31, 2012, yielding 5,263 sources. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with the writers of all 20 blogs in July …

The Beautiful Corpse: Violence Against Women In Fashion Photography, Susan C. Bryant

Scripps Senior Theses

My senior thesis deals with contemporary depictions of sexualized violence against women in fashion photography. Images of bloodied, bruised, and dead-looking models have proliferated in fashion magazine editorials and advertisements since the 1970s and I want to explore why sexualized violence is seen as sexy and compelling advertising, in light of the fact that domestic violence is the greatest cause of injury to women in America. I produced my own fashion photographs in locations of actual female homicides in Los Angeles County, particularly those nearest to Claremont, with the use of The Los Angeles Times online homicide database, which pinpoints …

Hidden Scars: The Art Of Ptsd, Gabriel Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the use of mixed media, I explore imagery that reveals the trauma of returning combat veterans, of which I am one, as we try to reintegrate into a society that does not understand the war that still lingers within us. In my work, I depict emotional disturbances that are related to my personal encounters with war. My working process starts by referencing mainstream media imagery, which I juxtapose against harsh images inspired by veterans' drug and alcohol use, trauma and death. My black-and-white pixelated paintings feature the fragmented memories of a hostile combat environment, and although "Out of My …

Auras, Adele Ball

Scripps Senior Theses

Auras is a series of illustrations of Carlos Fuentes’s novella, Aura, a horror love story about memory, obsession, desire, corporeality and immortality. Defying narrative conventions, the story is told through second person. You are the protagonist, Felipe Montero, and are employed by a 109-year old widow to edit her husband's memoirs. Inside the pitchblack house, you fall in love with her beautiful and bizarre green-eyed niece, Aura. The gradual discovery of the true relationship between the young woman and her aunt propel the story to its extraordinary conclusion.

The story seems to take place within the confines of the …

[Threshold]: Understanding Noise Through Play, Cecil Decker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the theoretical underpinnings of my culminating project, the video game [threshold]. It describes the subject of the game--noise --and the method of its discussion--play. The goal of this game is to encourage players to re-contextualize noise, away from interference and error, as the source code of the universe. This new viewpoint forces us to focus on all of the data we filter out. By assessing this data, we can gain a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Narrowing The Margin: The Role Of The Black Superhero, Julian S. Strayhorn Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comic books can be understood as a visualization of popular culture in the U.S. For a long time these tales were formed by a white power fantasy, circulating in mainstream culture as over-exaggerated narrations. To give an example of white power fantasy, Dwayne McDuffie, a prolific writer in popular entertainment states:

“…if I write, as I have many times, a story where Daredevil, who doesn’t have powers, gets the drop on Thor, who has unbelievable powers, people go Oh, that was so cool! Daredevil was so clever! If I have Black Panther do the same thing that’s impossible! It’s like, …