Interactive Arts Commons^™

The Blue That Blew Bloo, Daniel Ray Martinez

Art Theses and Dissertations

My work is a combination of videos, objects, and performances with a multidisciplinary practice that engages with the formal language of sculpture, photography, video/cinema, and drawing while being in dialogue with concepts and concerns about the image, the surface, and the space of representation. I am interested in the poetics and phenomenology of life; and the way one interacts in an environment; and the way digital/virtual media has shifted our experiences in life. Rethinking the way one finds boredom to get away from virtual capitalist spaces is a concern for me. I find inspiration in the wandering through spaces. I …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Remembering Virtual Worlds: Painting And Video Games, Nathaniel M. St. Amour

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Video games create the feeling of great achievement and place the player into a role that turns them into a great hero. These experiences feel significant because they require great time and emotional investment. The monumentality of these experiences, however, are at odds with the transience of the electrical virtual worlds. The medium of oil painting helps overcome the sense of transience because of oil painting’s durable permanent way of image making and stillness. Painting’s inherent nod to history also creates a dissonance between the newness of the video game medium and the antiquity of painting, a contrast exacerbated by …

Automation In Entertainment: Concept, Design, And Application, Ryan Thally

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this thesis is to explore the automation technology used in the modern entertainment industry. Upon completion of my thesis, I will deliver a working prototype of the chosen technology and present its capabilities in a choreographed show.

Open Works: Between The Programmed And The Free, Art In Italy 1962 To 1972, Lindsay A. Caplan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation historicizes and theorizes a group of Italian artists who were among the first to use computers and cybernetics to make artworks, developing the genre of Arte Programmata, or Programmed Art. It argues that the artists of Arte Programmata (Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari, and collectives Gruppo T and Gruppo N) turned to the generative, interactive, and probabilistic aspects of early computers not simply as new media for making art but as platforms for radically altering what it means to be a participant in an increasingly mediated and networked world. This is apparent in how each of their works deploys …

Open / Close: Assimilating Immersive Spaces In Visual Communication, Anika Sarin

Theses and Dissertations

I am interested in two spaces obverse to each other: open and closed. An open space develops organically based on how people inhabit it. Interacting with an open space is a dynamic, sporadic, multisensory, immersive, and subjective experience. In such spaces, we are confronted with an alternative aesthetic, one that is in conflict with the seamlessness of a closed space. A closed space is anchored on definite variables like structure, use and boundaries. While interaction between people and space is important, the space is tightly controlled and interaction is designed. Through this thesis project, I present a method that metaphorically …

"The Effort To Translate": Fan Film Culture And The Works Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Maria Alberto

Journal of Tolkien Research

In his 1940 preface “On Translating Beowulf,” J.R.R. Tolkien contends that “The effort to translate, or to improve a translation, is valuable, not so much for the version it produces, as for the understanding of the original which it awakes” (53). Though made with a specific literary tradition in mind, Tolkien’s assertion about the value of translation bears re-visitation in light of circumstances where the terminology has shifted. Specifically, Tolkien’s own work has since become the myth undergoing translation, and in popular parlance, translation itself has changed from simply describing the transference of a text between languages to now include …

Visions: Chaos In Naango, Katarina J. Klask, Hunter Gibson, Taylor Roseberry, Summer Shigetani, Mattie Coccia, Alena Siu, Caitlin Mihm, Gaston Dondero, Sophie Rudell

Honors Thesis

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxjqjJNMSFQ

Website: http://www.visionsthegame.com

Development Blog: http://visionsthegame.tumblr.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/visionsthegame/?fref=ts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/visionsthegame

Email: [email protected]

The New Reflexivity: Puzzle Films, Found Footage, And Cinematic Narration In The Digital Age, Jordan Lavender-Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“The New Reflexivity” tracks two narrative styles of contemporary Hollywood production that have yet to be studied in tandem: the puzzle film and the found footage horror film. In early August 1999, near the end of what D.N. Rodowick refers to as “the summer of digital paranoia,” two films entered the wide-release U.S. theatrical marketplace and enjoyed surprisingly massive financial success, just as news of the “death of film” circulated widely. Though each might typically be classified as belonging to the horror genre, both the unreliable “puzzle film” The Sixth Sense and the fake-documentary “found footage film” The Blair Witch …

Clairvoyant Learning: The Strangeness Of Playing Games, Jeremy Shipley

Graduate School of Art Theses

In retelling multiple stories of my research, this document serves as a quest to archive my interest in games as evolved systems of play that continue to manipulate the way we view literacy. In describing the subtly of these terms while examining the folkloric histories that contextualize the language of this media, I have doubly manipulated the form of my paper to be like a choose-your-own-adventure tale, reflecting the estrangement of time and authorship unique to the narrative space in games. Unlike the formal structures found in literature or cinema, games animate collaborative and nonlinear systems that return the craft …

An Expanded Perceptual Laboratory: Public Art And The Cinematic Techniques Of Superimposition, Montage And Apparatus/Dispositif, Dave Colangelo

School of Film Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of the moving image in public space extends the techniques of cinema— namely superimposition, montage and apparatus/dispositif—threatening either to dehistoricize and distract or to provide new narrative and associative possibilities via public art. These techniques also serve as helpful tools for analysis drawn from cinema studies that can be applied to examples of the moving image in public space. Historical examples include the multi-screen experiments of Charles and Ray Eames; and contemporary public projections such as Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, Robert Lepage’s The Image Mill, my own project entitled Workers That Live in the Mirror, …

This Is Not A Trend, Michael T. Workman

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

ABSTRACT

Workman, Michael, B.F.A., May 2015 Art

THIS IS NOT A TREND

Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Dove

This is not a trend is a multi-media art installation that examines the valuation system of contemporary art by creating an absurd situation that mimics a real commercial experience. The manner in which value is placed on art is artificial. Both the monetary and intellectual value of art is decided mostly on the reputation of the artist, their fame, and how well their work is marketed to the public. These characteristics are marketed to art consumers in order to sell them an authentic “art” …

New Challenges For The Archiving Of Digital Writing, Heiko Zimmermann

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing" Heiko Zimmermann discusses the challenges of the preservation of digital texts. In addition to the problems already at the focus of attention of digital archivists, there are elements in digital literature which need to be taken into consideration when trying to archive them. Zimmermann analyses two works of digital literature, the collaborative writing project A Million Penguins (2006-2007) and Renée Tuner's She… (2008) and shows how the ontology of these texts is bound to elements of performance, to direct social interaction of writers and readers to the uniquely subjective …

The Immersive Medium: Art, Flow, And Video Games, Christopher M. Yalen

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

In this article, the question of whether or not video games could be considered art is explored, as well as what this means for video games as cultural products. Using an interdisciplinary approach, I suggest that there are some games we can consider “art”, and that these games are not only different aesthetically speaking, but are also different from a media-effects standpoint. The article consists of three main sections, an aesthetic review, a content analysis, and a pilot study. In the aesthetic review, I employ different perspectives from aesthetic philosophy in order to come up with criteria for what an …

Story Guided Virtual Cultural Heritage Applications, Selma Rizvic

Journal of Interactive Humanities

Virtual cultural heritage applications, particularly virtual museums, nowadays include various forms of storytelling. Every object, site or artifact is better perceived and understood through the adjoining story. Interactive applications naturally request the storytelling to become interactive as well. This paper describes the concepts of interactive digital storytelling in our virtual museums and cultural heritage presentations and discusses their advantages and drawbacks recognized through user evaluation. We used digital stories not only to introduce visitors with the context and information on the objects, but also to enhance their navigation through virtual environments with purpose of learning and perceiving maximum amount of …

The Art / Crime Archive: An Anti-Boredom Space, Paul Kaplan, Brian Goeltzenleuchter, Dan Salmonson

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This paper reports on an ongoing web-based project devoted to the study of deviant art and creative crime called the Art / Crime Archive: www.artcrimearchive.org. The Art / Crime Archive (ACA) is a collaborative laboratory, teaching center, and web-based platform devoted to the study of this space. The ACA is organized by an artist, a criminologist, and a computer engineer. The working process of the ACA involves locating, archiving, and discussing visual, audio, and text artifacts that support this shadow space. The work product is a dynamic archive which can be configured for a multiplicity of contexts—art exhibitions, academic …

The Effects Of Alternate-Line Shading On Visual Search In Grid-Based Graphic Designs, Michael P. Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Objective: The goal of this research was to determine whether alternate-line shading (zebra-striping) of grid-based displays affects the strategy (i.e., “visual flow”) and efficiency of serial search. Background: Grids, matrices, and tables are commonly used to organize information. A number of design techniques and psychological principles are relevant to how viewers’ eyes can be guided through such visual works. One common technique for grids, “zebra-striping,” is intended to guide eyes through the design, or “create visual flow” by alternating shaded and unshaded rows or columns. Method: 13 participants completed a visual serial search task. The target was embedded in a …

"Duchamping In Game Making": An Analysis Of Pippin Barr's Parodic Computer Games, Devin A. Wilson

Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference

Devin Wilson analyzes some of Pippin Barr's subversive videogames, examining the methods by which they parody game design conventions.

The Culturator: Film Noir Meets Bike Culture, Daniel Dean

Art & Design Faculty Research

Part of this weekend’s nuit blanche Northern Spark festival, project Mobile Experiential Cinema invites goers to embark on a rambling, bicycle-mounted, multi-location cinematic experience that blends bike culture with locally-bred film. Created by artists Daniel Dean and Ben Moren, the project launched alongside the inaugural Northern Spark fest last year as an interactive projected film-focused group ride featuring live performance elements and urban exploration embodying all plot twists and theatrical curve balls we’ve come to expect from the mystery genre. We caught up with Mobile Experiential Cinema collaborators Dean and Moren to chat about the project’s creation, its noir influences …

Women And Video Games: Pigeonholing The Past, Allison Perry

Scripps Senior Theses

Academic work dealing with the overlap between video games and female representation is limited in both volume and proper research. Most texts agree on three supposed flaws with video games: they alienate female participants, there are no games for female players, and female players cannot relate to female characters. This thesis sheds light on these points, not only citing specific counter-examples, but also showing how many of these issues reflect on a larger societal problems.

Systems At Play: The Construction Of International Systems In Social Impact Games, Jorge Albor

Master's Theses

This thesis explores how game makers conceive of and navigate the intersection between digital systems and real world systems by asking, how can social impact game designers shape procedural rhetoric to effectively address complex real world systems with digital systems? By examining three game case studies, I reach four significant findings regarding player agency, subversive play, design approaches to scale, and game difficulty in regards to systems fluency.

Macromedia Director Audio Project Research - Written Report, Peter Dee

Articles

A written report about the Director Audio Project: Underground Sound to include the four headings of control of audio, thematic coherence, management of assets and originality of approach / design rationale. The Underground Sound Director Audio Project is about contemporary black music in an urban setting. Images of old and young captured in the environment in which they live.

Gnarled Defined, Rudy Rucker

SWITCH

The article is a reflection of the author’s conception of the term ‘gnarly’, extending the term’s meaning from its origins in California surfer slang. 'Gnarly' is often used in a colloquial context, however, the author believes that the term is able to be used in an academic field as it pertains to outcomes and results of equations. Discussions towards the application of the term 'gnarly' showcase how it can be used in a scientific, mathematical, and artistic context through seemingly random patterns. In order to be gnarly, things must lie and exist between the realm of orderly and chaotic often …

Virtual Celluoid, Switch Staffs

SWITCH

The article is an analysis of the author’s research pertaining to films relating to or containing the concept of virtual reality. The author lists several films such as Johnny Mnemnonic, Virtuosity, The Net, and Disclosure and provides a brief synopsis and review of each movie. Each film explains the concept of virtual reality through differing plots and methods such as cyberspace, progressive software, and artificial intelligence. The author also gives their own insight into and ratings of the films, explaining what they think is the most relatable in terms of overall storyline as well as how realisticly the movie portrays …