Visual Studies Commons^™

Attack On Titan Anime Memes: Possible Meanings And Interpretations By Young Adults., Yee-Lin Teo, Sze Seau Lee, Xin Jie Lim

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Memes have unpredictable and diverse interpretations because of their tendencies to be parodies, remixes, or mashups. This study aims to examine the possible meanings which memes may express and the interpretations of memes by young adults within the affinity space of Attack on Titan anime memes. The two-phase methodology involves analysing the memes using Shifman’s analytical dimensions of content, form, and stance, before conducting in-depth interviews with ten young adults who represent insiders and outsiders of the affinity space. The findings discuss how Attack on Titan memes normalise sexualisation, violence, and struggles such as suicidal intentions in young adults. The …

Marvelous Bodies: Italy's New Migrant Cinema, Vetri Nathan

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Historically a source of emigrants to Northern Europe and the New World, Italy has rapidly become a preferred destination for immigrants from the global South. Life in the land of la dolce vita has not seemed so sweet recently, as Italy struggles with the cultural challenges caused by this surge in immigration. Marvelous Bodies by Vetri Nathan explores thirteen key full-length Italian films released between 1990 and 2010 that treat this remarkable moment of cultural role reversal through a plurality of styles. In it, Nathan argues that Italy sees itself as the quintessential internal Other of Western Europe, and that …

Conversations With Neighbors, Tatiana Pinheiro

Capstones

Conversations with Neighbors is a series of conversations that aim to explore the depths of our neighborhoods here in NYC. It’s a place where history, culture and location unite to connect with the people and experiences we often miss in plain sight.

Architectural Narrative: Exploring The Convergence Between Architecture And Film In Narrative Construction, Cynthia A. Carbajal

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This study explores the relationship between architecture and film, focusing on how both disciplines function as storytelling mediums through spatial and visual techniques. This research analyzes how both fields help shape experiences and the built environment. The methodology employed in this research consisted of analyzing selected films and specific architectural projects to assess the compositional techniques used within these works. The findings reveal a similarity in how architecture and film use cinematic and spatial design techniques to evoke an emotional response and heighten a narrative's depth, thereby enhancing the user’s experience. This study suggests a deeper understanding of this interlinking …

Shifting Perspectives With Procedural Modeling Techniques And Vertex Animated Textures For Real-Time Interactive Morphing, Stephanie Schulze

All Theses

As humans experience reality, they intake external stimuli using sensory receptors to process information, forming a perception. Perceptions are subjective and shape each individual’s reality. Naturally then, by changing one’s perceptions, their experience of reality is altered, for better or worse. To emphasize the idea that perception is malleable and encourage a mindset of questioning alternative ways to look at a situation, an interactive experience in Unreal Engine is developed where a dull cityscape morphs and transforms into a surreal oversized nature scene. Procedural modeling techniques are used to create a variety of morphing assets, while Vertex Animated Textures are …

Ways Of Decoloniality By The Painted Lady: Avatar: The Last Airbender’S Katara Demonstrates How To Revive A Community In Ecological Distress Brought By The Colonial Expansion Of The Fire Nation, Jose Santos P. Ardivilla

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In the third episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Book 3: The Book Of Fire, the “Gaang” consisting of Avatar Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Katara chanced upon a fishing village on stilts,ravaged by the pollution of its waterways. The pollution comes from the industrial activity of the Colonial Masters’ Fire Nation which greatly affected the village. This animation is from Nickelodeon, a channel geared for children’s entertainment, thus implicates humorous asides in what purports to be a serious epicurean reclaiming of a lost balance through indigenous visual culture, solidarity, media studies, and ecocriticism. Katara disguises herself as …

Visuality Of Race In Popular Culture: Teaching Racial Histories And Iconography In Media, Joni Boyd Acuff, Amelia M. Kraehe

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The repetition of racist imagery from historical to contemporary popular culture is indicative of a lack of visual culture education among artists, designers, and other creative cultural producers working today. This paper addresses the dearth of resources for teaching visual codes and conventions of racial iconography that are recycled in popular media and contribute to the fabrication of racial differences, maintenance of racial hierarchies, and normalization of white supremacist ideology. Inspired by Critical Race Theory in art and visual culture education, the essay proposes teaching tactics and sites/sights that can support students in developing visual understandings of race in popular …

Breaking The Rules: Playing Criminally In Video Games, James Tregonning

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Video games have long courted controversy for their frequent valorisation of criminality. However, in this article, I consider heroic criminals in video games from a different perspective. I focus on two games – Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please (2013) and Osmotic Studio’s Orwell (2016) – that position the player as a low-level government operative in a fictional authoritarian regime. Players are expected to process information for their governments, although they are also given opportunities to undermine or subvert the regime. Thus, the trope of heroic criminal is used to comment on the function and role of the state. It becomes …

Hyping The Hyperreal: Postmodern Visual Dynamics In Amy Heckerling’S Clueless, Andrew Urie

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

An iconic staple of 1990s Hollywood cinema, director-screenwriter Amy Heckerling’s Clueless (1995) is a cult classic. This article examines the film’s postmodern visual dynamics, which parody hyperreal media culture and its connection to feminine teen consumerism amidst the image-saturated society of mid-’90s era Los Angeles.

Architectural And Curatorial Extensions Of Extraction At The Royal Ontario Museum, Camille-Mary Sharp

Visual Arts Publications

No abstract provided.

Pathos, Fall 2024, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Adriana Stanzione

Entwined Derelict, Alex Teeple

Harrisburg University Other Works

"Entwined Derelict" was my first delve into the Twine interactive fiction engine, and the second game that I consider "feature complete". While a significant focus was put on learning the engine as a whole, particular effort for me was put into a sidebar "journal" of sorts, that took narrative flags from the game and recorded the events in a way that allows players to read back what they have experienced in-game at their leisure. While I greatly enjoyed making the game, and I do consider it a complete experience with some unique pieces within, it is a short adventure without …

Aging, Empathy, And Cinematic Metamorphosis: Through The Lens Of Agnès Varda, Nam Lee

Film and Media Arts Faculty Articles and Research

This video essay examines Agnès Varda’s intricate portrayal of aging, resonating with Simone de Beauvoir’s call to break the silence on this subject. Composed exclusively of Varda’s film clips, it highlights her enduring engagement with aging and invites viewers to see it as a space of freedom and creative expression.

Myth And Monument In Old Town Albuquerque: Southwest Pietà And The War Of Presiding Histories, Eric Castillo

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

Luis Jiménez’s Southwest Pietà (1984) intended to combat cultural amnesia that obscured Native Americans’ and Mexicans’ contributions to the state. Jiménez’s Pietà sought to counter the iconography that shaped New Mexico’s colonialist heritage. But Old Town Albuquerque shrouds Native American and Mexican contributions to the region. Albuquerque’s public art has often been deployed as a wedge to write and rewrite narratives about land inhabitants, but the city’s public art tells a powerful story about race and place in New Mexico. This essay explores the socio-historical battle of land memorialization in Old Town Albuquerque and provides a geo-racial perspective about the …

Secondary Ecology, Tertiary World: Middle-Earth’S Ecology As Played By Aotearoa, Rory Queripel

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien's self-declared love of nature (Letters: 165) is well-known and forms a thread that runs through all his work, to the point that Brian Rosebury (2003) posits that 'Middle-earth, rather than any of the characters, is the hero of The Lord of the Rings'. John Garth (2020) points out various links between the nature of The Shire and other Middle-earth locations and England, taken, as Tolkien wrote, from 'such life as I know' (Letters: 181). However, visual adaptations of Tolkien's work by Peter Jackson and Amazon have used locations in Aotearoa (New Zealand), to play the 'character' of Middle-earth on …

"The Power Of Trash": A Review Of Pulp Empire By Paul S. Hirsch, Vincent Haddad

Criticism

Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism by Paul S. Hirsch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. 337. $30.00 cloth.

Do Androids Dream Of Bad Tv?: Un/Originality In Neil Burger’S Voyagers, Tom Ue, Callum M. Mcnutt

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Critics did not take kindly to Neil Burger’s Voyager (2021). On Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored a dismal 25%, and the consensus is that it’s a trip best not taken: “It has a game cast and a premise ripe with potential, but Voyagers drifts in familiar orbit rather than fully exploring its intriguing themes.” This article seeks neither to reclaim the film as an unjustly neglected cinematic masterpiece nor to assert its importance in the canon of dystopian works. Rather, it treats Voyagers as a test case for exploring our own critical investment in the genre. Our aims are …

Global Portraits From A Changing Climate: The Influence Of Environmental Storytelling On The Climate Narrative, Alexandra Welch

Capstone Collection

Environmental Storytelling can influence the climate narrative and serve as a catalyst to structurally alter how individuals think about the environment. The medium of the “Eco-film” allows viewers to create intimate connections with the natural world, and in turn alter how individuals engage and perceive issues like climate change. To combat climate denialism this project showcases different hopeful stories in a deliverable video collection, called “Global Portraits from a Changing Climate”. Two of these videos will be filmed in Germany, featuring the Waldrapp Team Research and Conservation project. One of the videos from Waldrapp Team will touch on the social …

Poco Film Festival Talks: The Impact Of Ai: A Humanist Perspective, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

As regards the onset of AI technology use and influence in the film and screen industries, we need to be able to take account of the agency and the engagement of our creative minds and whether or not they are being invited in to realistic, tangible jobs and careers, or alternatively what the impacts of changing technological paradigms might have on their futures. In what ways does AI impact the screen industry?

This generation of young people, film and screen production students, want to have an in-person, socialised peer experience - they want to be together. They want to have …

Illuminating Women’S Interwar Australian Ghosts Stories In A Tabletop Roleplaying Game - Methods, Processes And Aesthetics, Matthew Sparksman

Postgraduate

Australian voices are underrepresented in international media, particularly in the medium of Tabletop roleplaying games. Women’s voices and access to publishing media were rapidly retaken by men after the Great War, including the mediums of Ghost Stories, Film, and other media (Handasyde, 2017, p.18; Ohri, 2018, p.386). This can also be illustrated in the shift in archetypes of ghostly tales to be dominated by that of the “suffering and sacrificed male exiled to death far from home” (Kelly cited in Carleton, 2015, p.21; Kelly, 2007, 18). It is therefore important that we seek to find and value such artefacts that …

We're Swarming Again! Swarming, Collectivity, And Trope: The Case Of Extinction Rebellion, Tyler J. Behymer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the rhetoric of the eco-movement Extinction Rebellion, focusing on the use of swarming and nature tropes to mobilize collective action and revivify contemporary notions of collectivity. Drawing on rhetoric of social movement scholarship, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis, this essay theorizes swarming as a tropological economy that expands the conditions of propriety in the context of collectivity. Through an analysis of Extinction Rebellion’s discourse, this study demonstrates how the naturalization of swarming tropes works in various ways to rewild conventional political discourse, galvanize disruptive collective assembly, and challenge green neoliberalism.

Advisor: Casey Ryan Kelly

Revelation Perth International Film Festival Academic Conference 2024, James Thompson

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

Drawing delegates from around the country The Revelation Perth International Film Festival's Academic Conference is a truly interactive two days of intense discussion and debate on all things cinema

Revelation is Australia's only international film festival to host and encourage academic discussion alongside its screening program and we look forward to taking its discoveries to audiences around the country and world. It represents an important platform in film discussion and analysis in this country.

Taking place on Tuesday July 2nd and Weds July 3rd 2024, the Revelation Academic Conference draws local, national and international academics to discuss and analyse issues …

Exploring Gen Z’S Identity Formation And Its Influence On Consumption Of Pop Culture And Entertainment Merchandise, Melisa Annette Spilinek

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Fandoms have grown in size and influence, becoming a complex and dynamic cultural phenomenon that richly impacts the consumption of media and consumer behavior. The capitalistic United States with its diverse and media-savvy population, is a prime destination to study fan studies, particularly among young adults who are a crucial component of fandom influence.

The internet has grown to be a major component of the fan experience, an integral part of fandom culture. Online communities provide avenues for Generation Z to connect with others who share similar struggles, challenges, and interests, highlighting the importance of digital platofrms on the evolution …

The Future In Focus

DePaul Magazine

Film and TV students at DePaul University's School of Cinematic Arts put special effects into action in a cutting-edge virtual production program.

America, Dreaming., Sarah Meftah

Masters Theses

There is a version

of America

that exists

only in dreams,

a kind of folklore,

shrouded in images,

technicolor interiors,

wrapped in plastic,

ghosts of recent past

to haunt and guide;

a constant reminder.

Wishful thinking

a constructed imaginary,

one I can hold in my hand.

Popular culture and spectacle, America and the domestic ideal, capitalism and the collective unconscious of a national identity. As an artist, I am interested in the myriad images that manifest for a viewer when they think of the spectacle of American pop culture, its domestic archetypes, and the material worship it revolves around. My …

Landing: Body, Site, Material, Renata Berta

Masters Theses

I believe that in order to build on the land, I must establish a profound relationship with it. As an outsider to New England territories, I actively seek this connection through immersive activities such as swimming, surfing, climbing, and extensive walks, immersing myself in the land to better understand it and synchronize with its rhythms. In my artistic and architectural practice, I explore dissolving traditional boundaries, emphasizing the vital return to the land to create a more responsive and embodied architecture that symbiotically engages with the landscape

Within this ongoing project, “Landing: Body, Site, Material,” I conceptualize my body not …

Winter Solstice, Jingwen Cao

Masters Theses

For a long time, I have been thinking about what contemporary photography is, what its position is, and what the relationship is between artists and audiences. At the same time, I was developing my concepts and photographic directions and trying to make my work and my perspective on photography relevant. Winter Solstice includes a series of essays that locate my thinking and my work. Its title references the longest night of the year.

The position of photography has changed significantly over the past few decades. The way people read photos is also changing. Perhaps because of reverence for art and …

Moving Studio, Emilia Miekisz

Masters Theses

This collection of essays chronicles my journey through the MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), exploring the concept of a “moving studio” and its influence on my creative process. From the fluidity of morning routines to the comfort found in Sunday pancake traditions, the essays delve into the intersections of personal experiences, artistic inspiration, and technological innovation. Through reflections on animation projects like “Wakey Wakey” and “Mr. Fragile,” I examine the transformative power of storytelling and the emotional connections fostered through my work. The essays also explore the evolution of perspectives, from initial resistance to embracing …

Consciousness And The Reality Of Monsters In Horror Movies: Dehumanization And What Monsters In Horror Films Say About Us, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay responds to Carroll’s The Nature of Horror from the perspective of transdisciplinary phenomenological film theory, largely developed by Edgar Morin in the 1950s. It argues that Carrolls’s reduction of the phenomenological value of horror films to an unreal category minimizes and even dismisses the inherent value of horror films. Morin, Allan Combs, and others offer more integral and transdisciplinary methods for art interpretation and functionality. They help us understand how monsters in horror films can stand as mirrors and reflections of the monstrous in ourselves and society. Thus, the transformational function and value of film is revealed and …

Embodied Visions: Interactive Installations That Reimagine Bodily Presence In Digital Imaging Apparatuses As Shadows, Yunzi Shi

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Contextualized within a history of technological development, the evolution of imaging devices and technologies is accompanied by the abstraction of spatial relationships between the body of the observer, the apparatus, and physical reality, which leads to disembodying experiences for the observing subject. Compared with devices and interactive experiences, critical reflection on the epistemological impact of digital imaging devices has less priority in computational imaging and human-computer interaction research. Taking an artistic approach, this thesis describes Embodied Visions, an exhibition featuring three interactive installations exploring the technical infrastructure for imaging and reflecting on the (dis)embodied experiences in the digital age. …