Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons^™

You Are What You Wear: A Vital Materialism Of Textiles, Walter J. Greenleaf Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intermedial artworks are deemed effective when they draw from the roots of the most basic, universal elements of materiality, concept, sensation, and/or experience, melding disparate elements into an inextricable novelty. As hybrid artifacts, they take up an unusual degree of substance in one dimension or another, and can at times be difficult to categorize, describe, or document. Nonetheless, the potential for intermedial expressions to resonate with their viewership is strengthened by the depths to which the artist ventures, and through such a process the most far-reaching and complexly interconnected issues of our time can be made approachable on the personal …

Examining Our Relationship With Death: A Participatory Art Project, Lia A. Davido

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Death is a fact of life, yet researchers such as Caitlin Doughty, Todd Harra, Ernest Becker, and others, have found that people deem death a taboo topic of conversation. Doughty herself started a social movement, death positivity, to encourage this taboo to be broken, and to normalize talking about death. However these researchers published their findings in the early to mid 2010’s, before a major pandemic made death a more common occurrence for people. Inspired by previous researchers' experiences, this project asks the question: How do people feel about death now, and can socially engaged art create a space where …

Exploring The Relationship Between Designing And Composing With An Analog Synthesizer, Felix Morrissey

Honors College

For my electrical engineering capstone, I designed and built a handheld analog synthesizer. This analog synthesizer is a musical instrument which uses electrical analog components to generate sounds with properties based on the user’s input. My goal when creating this device was to maximize its utility while remaining within the scope of the capstone project. After the synthesizer was built, I wrote and recorded several pieces of music which each utilized the synthesizer prominently. The aim of this process was to be able to explore the relationship between an instrument’s design and the quality of the music produced utilizing it. …

Climate Action At The University Of Maine: A Documentary Short Film, Santiago Tijerina

Honors College

Fossil fuel divestment is central to the discourse surrounding climate change, nevertheless, it is a movement driven by student activists and it is a sign of institutional change at a global scale. Climate Action at the University of Maine, written and directed by Santiago Tijerina and created in collaboration with the University of Maine and the Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR), is a documentary short film driven by the research objective of understanding the rise of student activism at the University of Maine and the recent decision of the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuels.

The subject matter …

Inspiration: The Cogs Of Our World, Casey Libuda

Honors College

This creative thesis consists of a 5-minute animation created with digital drawings, in-between animation, traditional, and procedural animation to analyze and visualize the significance of inspiration. Inspiration drives people to discover and create, and strong feelings of hope can cause it. The psychology of inspiration is the foundation for this short film; the final result intends to inspire other people with its visual storytelling and sound design. Additionally, the animation utilizes Muse mythology and animal symbology to universalize and symbolize the connection between an artist and their source of inspiration.

Technology & Tradition: Shaping Indigenous Collections For The Future, Gretchen Faulkner, Harold Jacobs, Alex Cole, Jonathan Roy, Reed Hayden, Anna Martin, Duane Shimmel

Technical Publications

The Hudson Museum received a UMAI seed grant to support
a collaboration with the Advanced Structures and Composites
Center and Intermedia Programs to replicate a culturally -
sensitive object in our collection. This is a technical publication to describe the process of replicating a Tlingit Frog Clan Helmet (HM5040) requested for repatriation by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (CCTHITA).

Where Do I Belong In The United States Public School System?, Christiana R. Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I seek to inquire about the world as it relates to my identity as a first generation descent of the Penobscot tribe living in the United States by utilizing four methodologies in my research: life histories/autobiographies, narrative inquiry, a/r/tography and practice-based and practice-led. Through coupling my artistic practice with those four methodologies I am able to creatively show the information I have unearthed in hopes that others will benefit from a fresh and augmented understanding of what it historically and culturally means to be a part of a community that makes up a very small percentage of the United States …

Pinus Longaeva: Exploring The Intersections Of Art And Science Through Ancient Bristlecone Pine Trees, Delaney Burns

Honors College

This creative thesis develops a series of 30” by 20” woodblock prints that explore the intersections of art and science through ancient bristlecone pine trees. These trees can live for over 5,000 years, making them extremely important to dendrochronology, the study of dating and analyzing tree rings. The growth patterns of these tree rings are used to study climate change over long periods of time. This thesis focuses on these trees due to their importance to climate change and personal significance to the author. By studying the history of ecological art movements, these prints are placed in the category of …

Conversations With The Oregon Trail And The Silent Generation, Jose A. Camacho Quiroz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to explain the reason behind my art practise and process as it stands in August 2020, its context and relation to my life and experience as an outsider in the American culture. This process culminates in the documentation of experiences through the use and preparation of displays of personal artifacts as physical evidence and mechanisms of my transformation to my american persona through a continuing acculturation process and drift from the american generational archetype.

It is important to outline my current work state diverges from my past work since it no longer serves a …

Pursuing Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language Revitalization Through Song, Sophia Crockett-Current

Honors College

Passamaquoddy-Maliseet is an Algonquin dialect spoken by the Passamaquoddy and Maliseet Indigenous Peoples in Maine and Canada. With an estimated 500 speakers, most of whom are over 60, it is highly endangered. There have been attempts to preserve Passamaquoddy-Maliseet that focused on direct translation through use of recorded interviews with Passamaquoddy People, namely the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language portal pmportal.org and Jesse Walter Fewkes' cylinder recordings of Passamaquoddy people in the 1890s Passamaquoddy People. However, this method is ineffective for revitalization; it did not help to establish new speakers, and due to Passamaquoddy-Maliseet’s more contextbased language structure, direct translation often destroys the …

College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences_Covid-19 Course Content, Kristin Vekasi, Frederic Rondeau, Marcella Sorg, Derek Michaud, Ayesha Miller, Kirsten Jacobson, Lillian Herakova, Mark Brewer

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

List of COVID-19 related course content in the University of Maine's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences during the 2020 Spring Semester. Includes descriptions from:

• Kristin Vekasi, Associate Professor, Political Science for POS 349: Politics of Media and Censorship;
• Frederic Rondeau, Associate Professor, Modern Languages and Classics for Introduction to French Classics Novels of the XX-XXI century;
• Marcella Sorg (Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, Climate Change Institute, and Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center for ANT 260: Forensic Anthropology;
• Derek Michaud, Lecturer, Philosophy; Coordinator of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies for PHI 105: Introduction to Religious Studies and PHI 100: Contemporary …

Transdisciplinary Creative Ecologies In Contemporary Art Within Emergent Processes, Siglinde Langholz Villarreal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is composing in the moving with affective speeds and rhythms, instead of unfolding direct and in linear ways. It is important to come across different planes of composition in movement. There are so many planes of voices spinning around in relation. Research-creation seems as forms of relations and an invitation to appreciate the collectivity at the heart of thinking. The many entering-into relation within a differential thought in the making of its own.

Emergent properties in non-human interactions, such as those presented in Steven Shaviro ́s Against Self-Organization (2009) and Brain Massumi, are symptomatic of how individualities relate …

Strange Fruit: Black Female Body Politics In Contemporary American Culture, Eleanor Kipping

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was an organized effort by and for Black American populations to receive equal treatment by law. Its legacy has much reason to be celebrated: not only for its accomplishments and successes in unifying the Black community but also in bringing issues of segregation, violence, and racial discrimination to the forefront of the public’s attention. The decade was a pivotal point in contemporary race relations, and served as an apex in attempts to bridge America’s past and what America is striving to become. Today however, the social and political climate …

Acts Of Contrition: An Exploration Of Catholic Guilt And Sensory Pleasure In Kinetic Sculpture, Wade Warman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis outlines the formulation of a research-based practice in kinetic sculpture. The primary goal is to investigate how historical and contemporary kinetic sculpture might provide a means for exploring the notion of guilt as seen through the paradigm of the Catholic Church by way of sensory pleasure using Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth as a framework. The methodological model upon which this research is based is a hybrid model that combines elements of experimental engineering methodologies (i.e. experimentation, data collection, data analysis, etc.) as well as historical research. The primary outcome is Acts of Contrition, a series of five kinetic sculptures …

Rediscovering The Interpersonal: Models Of Networked Communication In New Media Performance, Alicia Champlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the themes of human perception and participation within the contemporary paradigm and relates the hallmarks of the major paradigm shift which occurred in the mid-20th century from a structural view of the world to a systems view. In this context, the author’s creative practice is described, outlining a methodology for working with the communication networks and interpersonal feedback loops that help to define our relationships to each other and to media since that paradigm shift. This research is framed within a larger field of inquiry into the impact of contemporary New Media Art as we experience it. …

Liminal Surfaces, Georgina E. Grenier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The poet Ben Okri wrote: “Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.” (Stibbe)

In the early 21st Century we are facing numerous environmental problems that are being caused by human activity. This era is termed the Anthropocene , a time when accumulated pollutants are causing detrimental ecological change. Ocean creatures are threatened by increasing seawater temperature, acidifying pH levels and melting ice. On land we are experiencing droughts, alteration of biomes, extinctions and an atmosphere that contains less oxygen per breath than …

We Are Cells Living In The World While The World Lives In Us, Tara Law

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What has been called the Anthropocene epoch is the first period of time in which human activities and technological advances have measurably contributed to climate changes. It is common to live in the shadow of industrial architecture. The landscapes we live in and the changes to our air, soil, and water quality are interconnected. Our bodies are made up of cells moving through the world, but the world also moves through us. I’m interested in how our environment changes us and what we can do to change our environment.

An exploration of book forms and by extension the many forms …

The Sacred Art Of Labyrinth Design: Optimization Of A Liminal Aesthetic, Yadina Z. Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper provides an overview of both practical and esoteric elements that inform the labyrinth design process and touches on the physiological and psychological effects of meditative walking. In addition to new installations, some other outcomes that have resulted from this research include an interactive online map of over 200 labyrinths in New England and two simple formulas for accurately calculating the path length of both 3- and 7-circuit Classical labyrinths.

Labyrinths, in their true, non-maze forms, have existed for thousands of years in numerous places around the world and there are similarities in the designs and uses of these …

Interaction And The Art Of User-Centered Digital Musical Instrument Design, John Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the formulation of a research-based practice in multimedia art, technology and digital musical instrument design. The primary goal of my research was to investigate the principles and methodologies involved in the structural design of new interactive digital musical instruments aimed at performance by members of the general public, and to identify ways that the design process could be optimized to increase user adoption of these new instruments. The research was performed over three years and moved between studies at the University of Maine, internships in New York, and specialized research at the Input Devices and Music Interaction …

Littlefield Gallery Visiting Artist Series - Andreas Von Huene: Figurative Sculpture, The University Of Maine

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

Andreas Von Huene will give a lecture on interpretive figural sculpture and the next day he will give figurative sculpture demonstrations in the sculpture studios.

User Experience Design For Presence-Aware Spaces And Technologies, Samuel Foster

Honors College

User experience design is a diverse field of study that is constantly changing as unique technologies and modes of interaction are developed. Metaphors are a critical aspect of UX design, serving to acclimate users to new technologies by comparing them to existing objects and ideas. As newer technologies become increasingly distant from real-world objects, developers are quick to look to existing technology for metaphors. This results in a lack of experience-unique metaphors that would create a more immersive experience. This thesis focused on identifying potential real-world metaphors through the use of emerging technologies in an interactive art installation. Based on …

Advertising's Red Light, Heather Small

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper discusses the theory and motivation behind The Advertising's Red Light, my thesis project. Section 1 describes my personal methods for producing artwork that creates cultural commentary. The history of the usage of sex in advertising is described and explains how advertising today has become pornographied. Section 2 discusses the conception of Advertising's Red Light as an artwork. The piece was developed as a method of creating cultural commentary about the world of advertising today and its implementation of pornography. My aim is to bring to the viewer's attention just how close today's advertising is to genuine pornography …