Art and Design Commons^™

Shimmer Methodology: May 2026 Cultural Studies Association Of Australasia, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This webinar presents an overview of the contemporary state of creative-practice research and autotheory before introducing Shimmer, an emerging methodological framework developed through creative practice, postgraduate supervision, and reflective inquiry. The presentation argues that while creative-practice research has successfully established creative work as a legitimate form of knowledge production, and autotheory has legitimised lived experience as theoretical material, both traditions leave relatively under-theorised the embodied moment through which insight first emerges.

The significance of the work lies in its contribution to ongoing debates around embodiment, affect, intuition, and knowledge production within creative-practice research. Shimmer proposes a language for understanding …

The 12-Week Silence: A Scrollytelling Investigation Into Early Pregnancy Loss And The Case For Continuous Progesterone Monitoring, Audrey Gold

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Opens with the scale of the problem (up to 1M miscarriages annually, all in the most data-poor window of pregnancy), describes the methodology (2 original surveys, 4 clinical interviews, peer-reviewed literature), walks through what the piece does visually (the distribution curve, the blind-spot timeline, the 5-phase progesterone chart, the intervention pathway), and closes with the central argument — that the silence is a gap in technology, not an inevitability.

Shimmer: Introducing And Workshopping A New Methodology For Practice-Led Research, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This presentation examines a new methodological approach by introducing shimmer as an embodied epistemological state that frequently appears within creative-practice research but is rarely named, scaffolded, or assessed. Emerging at the intersection of feminist philosophy, phenomenology, affect theory, reflective practice, and practice-led research, shimmer describes the moment when insight coheres somatically before it can be articulated conceptually. Rather than positioning intuition as unrigorous or accidental, shimmer reframes embodied emergence as a legitimate site of knowledge production. The paper situates shimmer in relation to existing frameworks such as flow, reflective practice, and action research, identifying a persistent gap in the literature …

Stargen - A Procedurally Generated Galaxy For Automated World Building, Christopher B. Del Gesso

Game Design

StarGen supports mixed-scale generation workflows, including galaxy-wide star distributions, quadrant and sector density visualization, subsector star fields via lazy sector generation, and full star system generation (stars, orbits, planets, moons, and belts) from selected stars or standalone seeded system generation. The tool also supports procedural jump route generation and visualization through a jump-lane pipeline, enabling early exploration of navigable spatial structures for game design.

StarGen is a mixed-initiative authoring tool rather than an autonomous content replacement system. Designers control seeds, galaxy presets, galaxy type (spiral, elliptical, irregular), and structural and density parameters (e.g., arm count, pitch, bulge settings, ellipticity, irregularity, …

Overflowing: A Visual Memoir, Margaret Gonzalez

Honors Projects

My collection, Overflowing: A Visual Memoir, is a series of mixed-media collages bound into a book, depicting formative experiences that have shaped who I am during my time at Grand Valley State University. They are an autobiographical exploration of self-discovery, expression, gratitude, and turbulence. I fell in love with the art of collage after creating a piece inspired by Hanna Höch for my History of Photography class. Since then, I have continued making collages. I haven’t gotten to take many art classes at Grand Valley, but creating has always been a constant in my life. So, I wanted to culminate …

Jumpstart Version0.1, Peter Brauninger

Game Design

Game Prototype for Learning the development of a full game

Pearanormal Reporter, Zakayla Bailey

Game Design

Pearanormal Reporter is a mystery/horror game with a fun twist. Play as a paranormal reporter, Peary the Pear, to figure out what happened at Fruitington Manor. Explore the manor to find clues about the suspect, location and cursed item used. Get all information correct to win the game. Just be careful of the evil Orange Entity that roams the manor. Game created for GAM 56800. Built in Unity.

Penguin Run, Lillian Mantz

Game Design

Penguin Run is a flappy bird inspired platformer. The goal is to collect coins and avoid the ice spikes.

Dungeon Escape, Andrew Begemann

Game Design

This game was developed during a GAM 56800 course taken in the first half of the 2025 school year. The game prototype features a player that moves though a procedurally generating dungeon collecting potions and fending off enemies until finding the key to the portal that lets them leave the dungeon. The whole game development process was followed, from game design document creation to compiling an installer/uploading to itch.io, as an in-depth study. Free assets were used from the unity assets store and chatGPT was used occasionally to supplement coding/scripting needs. The player character was modeled specifically for unity animation …

Unchained, Shawn Roberts Jr

Game Design

No abstract provided.

Aliens Over Earth, Stephen D. Ragsdale

Game Design

Welcome to Aliens Over Earth! In this classic style platformer game, you play as an alien invading Earth for resources necessary to save her planet! You get to fly around in an alien saucer and search for the mysterious blueprint book, while defending against guided missile launchers, and collecting satellite dishes that have the materials the alien requires. But don’t be too careless in your pursuit of saving your planet because there are still Earth’s defenses and they are very capable and will not hesitate to take you down. Although if your ship gets overwhelmed and destroyed by the encroaching …

Artwork From Animation (Ani216 Animation Studio), Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

A series of pen and ink and photograph collages inspired by my teaching and the scene I created as part of the ANI216 Animation Studio group project. These were made as a response to the invitation to exhibit 3 artworks in a group exhibition. They were all subsequently sold.

Automatonophobia, Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

These artworks were created as a direct result of my teaching the ANI216 Animation Studio. In the process of devising ways to incorporate photographic imagery into an animation, I developed a multi-plane system where I could create layers in Adobe Photoshop and combine them with original cartoon characters in After Effects and then animate them.

These artworks for an exhibition at the Garden Gallery (Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney) are imaginary stills inspired by the actual animation. All three were sold.

Pint-Sized Advisories, Bowman Eggleston, Autumn Carey

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Pint-Sized Advisories is a game inspired by Nintendo's WarioWare series made for the ODU Serious Games Jam of Spring 2025, where it won 2nd place out of 11 entries overall, winning first in the "Fun Factor" category, while tying for first in "Rhetoric" and "Theme". The game covers themes of environmental friendliness on an individual level: within the story, an organization is making "micro-PSAs" to hold the attention spans of teenagers. The player is required to complete each PSA (some task) before the viewer swipes away. These PSAs start short and only get shorter as the game progresses, requiring the …

Nebo: Volume 1, Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

Nebo Literary Journal is a dynamic collection of contemporary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction that highlights emerging voices in literature. Curated by Arkansas Tech University, this issue features a diverse range of storytelling, lyrical expression, and thought-provoking essays that explore themes of identity, human connection, and the power of narrative. With contributions from talented writers across genres, Nebo serves as a creative space for literary exploration and artistic expression. Whether through evocative poetry or compelling short stories, this issue invites readers to immerse themselves in the richness of modern literature.

Dungeon Plater, Nala Scott

Game Design

No abstract provided.

Owl Game, Finn Brown

Game Design

This is a basic game about flying through some trees in a valley, and flying through hoops.

Grapple Game - Game Development, Alexander Blume

Game Design

A first-person time trial based around a grappling mechanic!

Movement system: https://github.com/DaveGameDevelopment

Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/TqERFundlwk

Slime King, Branden Green

Game Design

This is a short video game about a smile king who was removed from his thrown, The game entails you, playing the fallen king, completing levels to reach your thrown. The game is in it's early stages and as such many features aren't yet present. Completion of the game occurs when you reach the throne at the top of the second level.

The Dark Cloud : A Creative Exploration Of Anxiety Through 3d Animation, James Applegate

Postgraduate

Fear and anxiety are mundane and innately human experiences, and ones that everyone struggles with on occasion. However, approximately a third to a quarter of all adults will suffer from clinical anxiety disorders at some point in their lives. Of these, many will go undiagnosed, and of those that do, only a fraction receive proper treatment.

Go Go Ro Bo, Jordan Goodwin

Game Design

Go Go Ro Bo is a proof of concept for a runner-like game. In the game, players move Ro Bo up and down past various obstacles throughout the mall and collect gummy rats.

Drawings In Group Exhibition 2024, Adrian Bruch

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Artwork created as a response to participate in a group exhibition to raise funds for supporting artists.

Pen and ink cartoons indicative of my style as "Ade Spen" one of my nom de plumes.

These three illustrations were all sold and all proceeds went to charity.

Flower Study, Haven Hinds

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This project is a study into extinct flowers, their histories, environments, biology, colors, and assigned personalities then manifested in 3D models and a digital book. The goal was to select six flowers with interesting histories and or cultural connections. Since the flowers can, for the most part, not be seen or kept they were created in Blender as accurately as possible. To give people a means of connection with the flowers, each was assigned a personality based on different factors. These factors could be the colors they possess, where geographically they thrived, parts of their history, and biological factors. To …

Candy Costume Royal, Nala Scott

Game Design

A board game where player compete to be the best dressed on the board. Players race to make the best outfit and reach the end of the board first.

Treasure Quest, Dani Rosenberger

Game Design

A competitive board game where players are pit against each other to find a lost treasure on a mysterious island. Who will be the first to claim great riches?

Seasons Of Change, Ray Vergara

Game Design

Seasons of Change is a Unity-based video game with a spooky, cartoonish aesthetic, inspired by the fall season. Developed within the constraints of Lindenwood University's Game Development course, the project was built upon through structured weekly modules, focusing on game mechanics, level design, interactivity, programming, and audio integration. The game's developmental journey was enriched by extensive research, experimentation, and constructive feedback, resulting in a cohesive final product. Key challenges included adapting Unity's Starter Asset Package, troubleshooting ProBuilder limitations, and debugging interactive elements like audio and UI for various platforms. Despite time constraints and technical hurdles, the iterative development process facilitated …

Mushy's Escape, Maddie Knemeyer Lynch

Game Design

Mushy's Escape is a puzzle based 3D Platformer. This game is a showcase for a game development concept piece.

Spective, Andrew C. Smith

Game Design

Video Game, Andrew Smith, Puzzle Action game. Made for Fall 2023 Game Prototype class. In this game, the player must rotate the camera in order to obtain a new perspective and gain more visual information about the layout of the stage in order to avoid enemies, collect objects, and navigate and platform properly, in order to reach the end.

Left And Right, Finn Brown

Game Design

Left and Right is a choose-your-own-adventure style game developed using Twine as part of a 1 week prototype. This game has the player navigating a town that has been overrun by a mysterious black mush. The player must venture into finding out where this mysterious substance came from and if there is anyway to get rid of it.

Dice, Roger Alms

Game Design

This is a dice game where the player predicts whether the next roll of dice will have a higher or lower total than the current total.