Visual Studies Commons^™

La Parole Comme Outil De Résistance Contre Les Tabous Oppressifs Des Femmes Marocaines : Une Étude Comparative De Paroles D’Honneur Et Hshouma, Roseline Adeleke

Students' Supported Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interface: Technology & Portraiture, Mullins Sydney

Graduate Thesis Exhibition Catalogue Gallery, 2023

In Interface, five Kentucky-area artists explore a new language of representation with the aid of digital tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automatic Facial Recognition Software (AFR). Some artists use algorithms to alter celebrity faces beyond recognition, others feed data sets of existing art to AI models in an attempt to generate portraits of no one in particular. Others still create tools for understanding the very act of facial recognition or obfuscation. All have one thing in common: they wish to stretch the limits of and critique the genre of portraiture, as well as to cause viewers to question …

Mascs: Masculinity Reimagined, Josh Porter

Graduate Thesis Exhibition Catalogue Gallery, 2023

MASCS: Masculinity Reimagined explores how performances of contemporary masculinities can counteract traditional binary understandings of gender. Justin Korver, John Paul Morabito, Betsy Odom, Moises Salazar, and Darryl DeAngelo Terrell expose, question, and subvert the ways that we culturally define masculinity by focusing on gender as performance. These artists not only critique cisgender, heteronormative binary understandings of masculinity, but also embrace the performative nature of gender and celebrate non-normative, alternative, and queer masculinities. By encompassing a range of gender and sexual identifications, these artists share their own personal experiences, interpretations, performances, rejections, and embodiments of masculinity. Breaking down the barrier created …

Countercode: Bodies Un-Becoming, Aaron Reynolds

Graduate Thesis Exhibition Catalogue Gallery, 2022

In COUNTERCODE: BODIES UN-BECOMING, my intent is not to present a cohesive map or identify a single, primary mode of resistance. Rather, the five artists I have selected —Shana Moulton, Cooper Gibson, Amy Yeager, Jazmine Morris, and Clara Wouters—explore the socio-cultural implications of identity expression and persona play, particularly as it relates to the encoding of subjectivity in contemporary forms of digital media and pop culture. Their works glitch codes, find slippages, and create opacities in the fabric of capitalist realism, a term used by theorist Mark Fisher to describe the widespread acceptance of capitalism as the only viable economic …

Tangled Roots: Exploring Appalachian Feminisms, Magenta Palo

Graduate Thesis Exhibition Catalogue Gallery, 2022

Women have long been overlooked as key figures in the cultural history of Appalachia. The exhibition Tangled Roots: Exploring Appalachian Feminisms seeks to examine the ways in which women artists across the region have kept traditions alive while redefining creative practices that were once seen strictly as “women’s work.” In particular, the exhibition aims to explore how women have reimagined “craft” through skillful attention to materials, manual dexterity, and application of critical and conceptual rigor. The concept of craft is defined in this context to include all hand-made work that requires developed skills, whether they belong to traditional craft-based practices …

Les Représentations Féminins Dans Le Cinéma Maghrébin: L'Expérience Des Femmes Et Le Rêve Féministe Dans Les Silences Du Palais Et Viva Laldjérie, Danielle Mills

Theses and Dissertations--Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures

It is evident that in the realm of gender studies concerning the Maghreb, many scholars have studied literary texts from prominent female Maghrebi writers such as Assia Djebar and Fatima Mernissi. However, certain forms of expression have been neglected, such as film. The purpose of this work is to analyze and evaluate how cinema has portrayed the situation of women in the postcolonial Maghreb. I will be examining two examples of Maghrebi cinema which include the Tunisian film Les silences du palais by Moufida Tlatli and the Algerian film Viva Laldjérie by Nadir Moknèche. Through the examination of these two …

Simultaneous Intersectionality In The Comics Of Catel And Sabrina Jones: Understanding Women’S Life Stories, Jeorg Ellen Hornsby

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

The project examines how the theories of simultaneity and intersectionality are useful in analyzing the lived experiences of the authors and their subjects. Specifically, this dissertation analyzes how French comic artist Catel and American comics artist Sabrina Jones use the medium of comics to recount their autobiographical stories within and alongside their biographical stories of Benoîte Groult and Margaret Sanger, respectively.

Encuentro Con La Precariedad: La Reaparición Del Gitano En El Cine Documental Español De La Crisis De 2008, María Julia De León Hernández

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In 2008, Spain’s financial crisis had a great impact on the primary sector on which the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ was founded: housing.Land speculation, the increase in housing construction, and easy loans had become one of the hallmarks of twenty-first-century Spanish identity. The crisis del ladrillo (“brick crisis”) plunged the national economy into chaos and condemned many Spanish citizens to job insecurity, loss of earning power, threat of eviction, and put them at high risk of social marginalization. This dissertation studies the unusual proliferation of documentary films during the years surrounding this economic downturn about the ghettoization of the Spanish Gypsy …

In Black And White: Richmond’S Monument Avenue Recontextualized Through The Photographic Archive, Charlsa Anne Hensley

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

The release of the Monument Avenue Commission Report in July, 2018 was the culmination of over one year of research and collaboration with community members of Richmond, Virginia on how the city should approach the contentious history of Monument Avenue’s five Confederate centerpieces. What the monuments have symbolized within the predominately rich, white neighborhood and outside of its confines has been a matter of debate ever since they were unveiled, but the recent publicity accorded to Confederate monuments has led to considerations by historians, city leaders, and the public regarding recontextualization of Confederate monuments.

Recontextualization of the monuments should not …

A Fast And Robust Extrinsic Calibration For Rgb-D Camera Networks, Po-Chang Su, Ju Shen, Wanxin Xu, Sen-Ching S. Cheung, Ying Luo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

From object tracking to 3D reconstruction, RGB-Depth (RGB-D) camera networks play an increasingly important role in many vision and graphics applications. Practical applications often use sparsely-placed cameras to maximize visibility, while using as few cameras as possible to minimize cost. In general, it is challenging to calibrate sparse camera networks due to the lack of shared scene features across different camera views. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm that can accurately and rapidly calibrate the geometric relationships across an arbitrary number of RGB-D cameras on a network. Our work has a number of novel features. First, to cope …

The Cinematic College Professor: Conceptions And Representations, John C. Fitch Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Depictions of college professors in American films are common, and while a number of studies have investigated various aspects of college life in motion pictures, few have focused exclusively on the cinematic professoriate. In addition to being an indelible part of history, cinematic depictions of college professors are part of the national discourse on the role and function of the faculty and university. An investigation of how college professors have been represented in American films, and how these representations are read and created by real-life college professors and filmmakers may provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between popular culture …

A Case For Empathy: Immigration In Spanish Contemporary Media, Music, Film, And Novels, Constantin C. Icleanu

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation analyzes the representations of immigrants from North Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in Spain. As engaged scholarship, it seeks to better the portrayal of immigrants in the mass media through the study of literature, film, and music about immigration spanning from the year 2000 to 2016. Because misconceptions continue to propagate in the media, this dissertation works to counteract anti-immigrant, xenophobic representations as well as balance out overly positive and orientalized portrayal of immigrants with a call to recognize immigrants as human beings who deserve the same respect, dignity, and rights as any other citizen.

Chapter 1 …

Father Of All Destruction: The Role Of The White Father In Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Cinema, Felicia Cosey

Theses and Dissertations--English

Since September 11, 2001 a substantial number of English-language, post-apocalyptic films have been released. This renewed interest in the genre has prompted scholars to examine the circumstances within western society that make post-apocalyptic films appealing to audiences. The popularity of these films derives from a narrative structure that reinforces conservative notions of good and bad and moral absolutism. The post-9/11, post-apocalyptic film typically features a white male hero who, in one way or another, reestablishes the pre-apocalyptic social order through proclamations of mandatory and prohibitive laws that must be adhered to by the survivors. The hero of post-apocalyptic film does …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Tapestry Of Space: Domestic Architecture And Underground Communities In Margaret Morton’S Photography Of A Forgotten New York, Irina Nersessova

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This article addresses the impact urban space has on individuals through the use of Situationist International theory and psychogeography. Representations of homelessness in New York in Margaret Morton's photography are used to demonstrate the interconnectedness among space, people, and social issues. Social issues manifest themselves in urban decay, and the inhabitants react to this phenomenon emotionally and artistically. Some inhabitants demonstrate their relationship with space by responding with material production of housing and art, which they accomplish by building without exploiting the environment the way the manufacturing of commodities often does.

Edward Steichen And Hollywood Glamour, Alisa Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

As a word, glamour is hard to define, but is instantly recognizable. Its association with Hollywood movie stars fully emerged in the 1930s in the close-up celebrity portraits by photographers like George Hurrell. The aesthetic properties in these images that help create glamour are characterized by the Modernist style, known for sharp focus, high contrast, seductive poses, and the close-up (tight framing). My essay will explore the origins of the visual aesthetics of glamour, arguing that their roots can be found in the still life photographs of the 1910s, produced by fine art photographers such as Edward Steichen. This essay …

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 …