Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons^™

Stranger’S Window, Nation’S Mirror, Kyoko Hamaguchi

Theses and Dissertations

In this text, I consider my identity as a Japanese immigrant in the United States during a global pandemic and its impact on my understanding of home as a liminal space. In particular, I discuss notions of home in relation to my work as an artist including two works that utilize the home-sharing platform Airbnb and three works that deal with the dichotomy of inside and outside.

The Grid As Organizing Principle Of Space, Information, Time, And Display, Sam Sherman

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several centuries, the grid has colonized nearly every aspect of human life. This text traces the development of the grid in technology and art, and links the grid’s proliferation to the rise of modern governance. The grid has become the primary tool by which government exerts social control via the production of spectacle. As such, artists have increasingly recognized the grid as a central problematic to confront rather than reiterate. Within this context, I consider two of my videos: Today’s News (2020) and Tiles (2020).

Membranes And Frames, Nurya Chana

Theses and Dissertations

Nurya Chana (b.1988, Bronx, NY) paints, sculpts, and performs to grapple with discontinuities between self and other, the inner and outer self, physicality and feeling. Her practice aims to expose the non-mental voices of the body, reconciling life sciences with the complexity, enormity, and potency of livingness.

The Last Prisoners Of War: How Nazi-Looted Art Is Displayed In U.S. Museums, Monica May Thompson

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

How art museums approach NLA is important today because much of the public relies on museums for their education. NLA cases are especially controversial because they are not only legal battles, but ethical ones so museums have to be extra careful approaching them. Even if the museum has won the legal battle the public may not see them as winning the ethical one therefore they might want to avoid displaying this information to the public. However, as we can see with the previous websites, it actually looks worse for museums not to be open and honest about their NLA pieces …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Volunteering:Results Of A Survey Of Maine Non-Profits, Sarah Goan

Publications

In response to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly within the nonprofit sector that relies heavily on volunteers, Volunteer Maine sought to assess how volunteer capacity had been affected and what types of support organizations needed to rebuild. To accomplish this, the organization partnered with DIP and SRC to design and administer a statewide survey of nonprofit organizations. The purpose of the study was to understand the pandemic’s impact on the volunteer base, document organizational adjustments to changing conditions, identify innovative responses, and determine how Volunteer Maine and its affiliates could best assist in community recovery efforts. The …

Humanizing Architecture: A Polymorphic Space, Nada Abbara

Theses and Dissertations

The built environments in which our communities thrive constitute an integral part of human experience and evolution. Yet, many places are detached from the way we experience them due to mass-production, which often produces standardized environments, and due to the tendency of modern architecture to delineate spaces as static objects rather than dynamic interactions. Thus, there is an emerging need to humanize architecture through an interdisciplinary approach that engages nature’s behavioral patterns. The project proposes a transformable polyhedral structure that interacts with human emotion through a three-dimensional morphing space that contracts and expands. This spatial interaction is achieved through a …

The Default: The Paradox Of Play And Productivity, Yeon Geong Hwang

Theses and Dissertations

Society takes a dim view of idleness, regarding downtime as wasted time, but what if society’s view is wrong? This thesis champions daydreaming; it advocates for quirky, playful experiences that improve quality-of-life by avoiding burnout and mitigating tedium. Borrowing language from the Theatre of the Absurd, The Default challenges society’s attitudes toward productivity, striking a new relationship between a cubicle worker and a set of seemingly-familiar but surprising objects. Reflecting on the absurdity of contemporary work-life imbalance, the objects and narratives depicted in The Default invite playful interactions, when objects that appear to be normal behave unexpectedly. The Default is …

Fatal Softness, Mariah B. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

my work is about my teeth falling out, the fatal softness in the earth, a monster tattoo on leathered skin, the bliss of not-knowing, revelation, reveling, the ship and the shipwreck, a fire that knows the naming of you, its dark flame acquiring every part of you, smelling a bad candle at tj maxx, handing it to your mom to smell too, a darkness of that which is golden, a god-shaped hole, the petals of a monstrous flower,1 and frog spawn and at the middle of each jelly pearl is a little secret i don’t have to tell you.

An Escapist Utopia, Sara Eh Denney

Theses and Dissertations

As an active pursuit of avoiding excellence, my work acts as a space for failure, play, experimentation and imperfection. This document and final installation acts as a pause along a lifelong journey of object-making, creation, and spirituality. My work, specifically my working practice, rather than any one object or moment, is an escapist utopia for myself. My work is the process, the journey, not the ending or the completion of any one thing. The repetition, distortion, and production that I engage throughout my working practice acts as a spiritual exercise of meaning—making through creation. I fall deeply in love with …

Anywhere I Stand, Hanaa Safwat

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I will trace the effects of colonialism and the nationalism, conceptions of deserts as empty spaces form a sense of place and create a subjecthood and orientation that is unable to freely move through the landscape. I relate these structures to the thesis installation titled Anywhere I Stand I Block the Flow of the Wind that was installed at theVCU Anderson Gallery on April 9 2021.

Step By Step : Walk Your Way To... : Fall 2020 The Arts Of Storytelling Student Exhibition, Yan Yan Mak

Artists-in-Residence Programme : Exhibition Catalogues

The works presented in this catalogue demonstrate the outcome of artistic and cultural interactions between Ms Yan Yan Mak and her students in the Fall semester of 2020-21. The Department of Visual Studies is very grateful for their contribution in promoting creativity and art appreciation within and beyond the Lingnan community.

Form Follows Culture, Nada Raafat Elkharashi

Theses and Dissertations

We all use everyday objects as part of our daily routines, but the way we use them varies from one culture to another. Using George Herbert Mead’s study of human conduct and Louis H. Sullivan’s credo, “Form follows function,” this thesis examines the cultural meanings and implications surrounding the fundamental act of drinking water. Using a methodology of iterative, exploratory making, a collection of glass vessels explores philosophical and physical manifestations of Islamic cultural principles derived from the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم. With the goal of restoring cultural integrity to our daily activities, the work highlights …

Lost & Found Memories: An Examination And Critique Of My Past Through Art, Alice Chi

Scripps Senior Theses

Ever since I was young I depended on triggers to retrieve my deeper memories. It is because of this quality that I think I have developed a tendency to collect and assign sentimental value to various items that I associate with certain people and moments. Over the course of my life, I have kept many objects, trinkets, and documents because of this. To catalog these memories and confront my lost relationships, I have collected these found sentimental items around my home and compiled them into a documented history of the lingering relationships throughout my life. The resulting product is a …

Combat Artist, Delvin Goode

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

The integral bond that unites the American citizen with the selfless men and women of the Armed Forces will be strengthened through my juxtaposition of uncommonly complementary crafts. “Combat Artist”, featuring high-quality ceramic mugs, unique packaging, pristine painted panels, and kindred graphics will bridge a gap that enhances relationships between these two worlds through a shared love of country and shared culture. The resultant works create fantastic windows into my military life communicating messages full of humor, patriotism, and love. I aspire to masterfully unite ceramic techniques with proven principles of design distributed across all mediums within my work, culminating …

Head Heart Hand Human, Michelle Kathryn Postma

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My art is emblematic of the practice of accepting reality. The vehicles I use to do this are a cast of characters, materials and compositional strategies that in totality, remind the viewer and myself to be in the moment.

The thesis exhibition, Heart Vomit and the Dream Army, featured mural-esque ink paintings on panels and approximately 36 - 48 inch high abstract ceramic figures covered with images. Both the 2D and 3D works feature a cast of characters. These characters originate from “Michelle Land”, an imaginary world created to house an evolving symbolic visual language. The graphic black and white …

Fracture Patterns: Communicating The Surreal Through Dance Film, Chloe C. Lesh

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis project and its associated dance film were created in a surrealistic time period initiated by the pandemic. The resulting everyday surrealism ignited my interest within dreams, nightmares, and surreality[1], and how these cerebral and psychological experiences translate to physiological responses and movement. My dance film fracture is the manifestation of these themes. The film presents surrealistic imagery in an abstracted narrative and connects to personal struggles with surreality brought on by the pandemic. The movement, as well as the rationale for the choreographic, filming, and editing choices are explained. Dance films by Neels Castillon and …

Luminous Threshold, Peggy Wen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Luminous Threshold is an interactive experience exploring the liminal transition between the viewer and ambiguous spaces. My thesis exhibition incorporates two paintings, one continuous pulsing light structure, two sound-activated light structures, and a black cube that is perceived to be inserted through the gallery wall. The paintings and forms explore liminality within a two-dimensional space, while the light pieces create an ephemeral viewer- participation experience. Liminality, defined by Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner, is one of three stages in life an individual will go through. It is considered a Rite of Passage or Threshold and is the ambiguous transitional …

Typemaking, Rebekah Sorensen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this project is an exploration of typemaking—an analysis including the development of letterforms to the various methods in printing these forms, including the rich history behind these developments—which ultimately results in the form of communication known as graphic design. Research begins with the history of print processes and evolving typographic styles, providing a comprehensive understanding of how typography has been applied as a means of communication, and the benefits to society throughout time. The information is then applied through the digital design of letterpress type, followed by the physical production of these pieces using a range of …

Reanimator/Reflection: 
Creating Mirrors Through Time 
With Ai, Sound, Video And Live-Generated Art In The Dark Age Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Eric Millikin

Theses and Dissertations

For my MFA thesis exhibition entitled Reanimator/Reflection, I used artificial intelligence to create three new works of sound and live-generated video art, each based on mirror reflections and 100-year-old racist post-pandemic horror literature by early 20th century American author H. P. Lovecraft. The themes of these writings mirror the issues of our current time. The primary works of Lovecraft that I referenced in the exhibition are “Herbert West: Reanimator,” (1922) a serialized tale about graduate school experiments which attempted to return the dead to life during a plague, and “Nyarlathotep,” (1920) a prose poem that suggests even our dreams …

Sweet Fruit, Daa Guy-Vasson

Theses and Dissertations

The writing and images in Sweet Fruit are an exploration of my creative works. In the first section, memory, making, and poetics come together to help the reader feel the nuances of my experience. In the exhibition works section, images allow an extended look at the work. Accompanying text describes the relevance of my childhood and my parent's Caribbean upbringing to my creative practice.

Shape Shifting: Bodies, Sound, And Queerness, Cordylia B. Vann

Theses and Dissertations

Writings in support of my visual and sonic thesis, Performing Ourselves. The paper examines the relationship between the labor of creating a queer body in how it moves and feels to the creation of choreography, sound, and graphic scores

Difficult Paintings, Hao (Damien) Ding

Theses and Dissertations

The sublime as a concept has a fraught and racist history. However, it remains the single most helpful idea in describing the deeply felt state of being when one comes across something ineffably powerful. From an art-making perspective, this thesis, and the accompanying exhibition of installations and paintings, proposes an alternative construction of the concept of the sublime. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a conceptual point of departure, a painter can manipulate the relationship of the viewer and paintings to create paradoxical moments of simultaneous intimacy and distance, which interact to create an alternative path towards the sublime. Through descriptions of …

Yolkkh: The Story Of My People, Amna Zelimkha Yandarbin

Theses and Dissertations

The name of my project is: Yolkkh, The Story of My People. With this project I present a series of scarves each one bearing an illustrated scene in order to tell a story – my story and the story of the Noxci people. Noxci are the people who are referred to as “Chechens” by Russians and are generally known by that title. As a Muslim, I have witnessed the way Western media tend to dehumanize my community. In order to contrast this dehumanizing process, I thought that telling the story of my family would help reverse Islamophobic tendencies and raise …

Reclamancipation: A Story Of Brilliance, Resilience, And Transilience, Nia A. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The experiences of African American women are composed of more than the maltreatment that often exclusively defines them. Oppression and celebration intermingle to define the identities of African American women, and this thesis proposes a method to understand this reality through an exchange of stories in the form of a customizable board game. The game educates those inside and outside the African American women’s community by encouraging the emancipation of self, decolonization of society, and formation of empathy. This thesis embraces intersectional feminism, womanism, and linguistic descriptivism. The research is informed by personal narratives of African American women ages 23-71 …

The Algorithmic Mashrabiya: Reimagining The Traditional Islamic Screen, Ahmed Nour

Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, a mashrabiya was an ornate wooden structure attached to the side of an Arabian building or house, with small, intricately patterned openings to provide both ventilation and privacy for the people inside. The patterns, following the geometric rules of Islamic ornament, lent a distinctive appearance to buildings in the region. A mashrabiya converted the house into a safe, private sanctuary, providing a magical scene inside, characterized by linear sun rays, filtered points of light and shadow. Over time, as building technology changed and the number of skilled craftsmen dwindled, the traditional mashrabiya has all but vanished. The aim of …

Earth Tone Sigh Spell, Martha Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

A written accompaniment to the artist’s thesis exhibition titled Earth Tone Sigh Spell, conceived during the years 2020-21 and installed at The Anderson Gallery, Richmond from May 1–15, 2021.

The following thesis explores themes of personal memory, geo-theory, myth, symbol, and historical event. The artist uses research and stream of consciousness writing methods as a way to weave these concepts together and tie them back to her own practice with installation, sculpture, and new media.

Playing At The Crossroads Of Religion And Law: Historical Milieu, Context And Curriculum Hooks In Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter presents the use of Lost & Found – a purpose-built tabletop to mobile game series – to teach medieval religious legal systems. The series aims to broaden the discourse around religious legal systems and to counter popular depiction of these systems which often promote prejudice and misnomers. A central element is the importance of contextualizing religion in period and locale. The Lost & Found series uses period accurate depictions of material culture to set the stage for play around relevant topics – specifically how the law promoted collaboration and sustainable governance practices in Fustat (Old Cairo) in twelfth-century …