Visual Studies Commons^™

Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition: Unpacking Gender Roles In Social Media Performances Of "The Good Life", Lauren Mar

Scripps Senior Theses

What do JD Vance, tradwife influencers, and the “sprinkle sprinkle” movement have in common? They all have something to do with the increasing popularity of an apparent return to traditional gender roles. This thesis is an intersectional investigation of women’s gender roles in relation to class and race as they appear in different performances of “the good life” on social media. Through a series of personal essays, this thesis explores how these media examples represent a deeper political unhappiness with present conditions. This thesis takes the time to unpack the different sides of discourse surrounding each subject, and counters the …

The Kids Aren't Alright: "Indie Sleaze Revival" And The Commodification Of Subcultures On Social Media, Lauren Mar

Scripps Senior Theses

In 2012, the “indie sleaze” subculture is accepted to have “died” — the same year Facebook bought Instagram. Named retroactively by social media in 2021, the “indie sleaze” subculture and its “revival” online provides a rich ground for investigating how and why social media converts subculture into aesthetics. Drawing on Dick Hebdige’s 1979 theory of subculture, this project considers new understandings of the political, aesthetic, and affective relationships between digital media and subcultures. In examining the evolution of “indie sleaze” from its origins and manifestations in an escapist party scene of the aughts to its online simulations from 2021 to …

The Animated Frontier: Fluctuations Of Power Across Time And Space In Flows Of U.S. And Japanese Animated Media, Kendall Belopavlovich

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project critiques the historical and contemporary relationships between the U.S., Japan, and marginalized groups through the lens of animation. The U.S. and Japan share a complex history, from the opening of Japan during the Edo period to events like Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings, which shaped their present-day alliance. Furthermore, the U.S. and Japan are the central nodes in flows of animation, where both nation states have dominated the global market at various points in animation’s history. Today, Japan's soft power in media is significant, and the flow of power between these nations has influenced media forms and …

Creating An Ofrenda, Sara Hinojos

Open Educational Resources

You do not need to be Mexican to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). What you need however is a deep and thoughtful cultural understanding of the practice. This lesson plan teaches students what Dia de los Muertos is, the influence of colonialism (past and present), how mainstream media understands the celebration in the U.S., and how local communities honor the celebration. This approach is from a media studies perspective and a particular focus on art, specifically altar making or making an ofrenda. Writer, philosopher, tejana Gloria E. Anzaldúa details that altars are “‘the sanctuary of the …

Intro To Motion Graphics & Effects, Andrea E. Defelice

Open Educational Resources

Introduction to Motion Graphics & Effects MEDST 258 Section 1, 3 credits | Open Educational Resources (OERs) Faculty Fellowship Program 2024-2025 Online/Synchronous | Professor Andréa DeFelice

Links: Academic Commons: https://motiongraphicsfx.commons.gc.cuny.edu

OER-Calibrated COURSE DESCRIPTION: Get a project-based approach to the aesthetic and technical aspects of motion graphics and effects. This introductory course is designed to inform and inspire beginners, while utilizing OER and zero-cost materials. Students enrolled in this course are provided a free Adobe CC license and taught to use Adobe After Effects. Students are also taught how to be resourceful by searching out open license/free media online, by way …

The Romanticization Of Human-Vampire Relationships: How 'Twilight' And 'The Vampire Diaries' May Prime Young Women To Accept Dating Violence, Natalie M. Bowen

Undergraduate Research Posters

The first literary vampire can be traced back to 18th century Germany, with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem “Die Braut von Korinth,” but the stereotypical features of a vampire are traditionally accredited to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Modern vampires, such as Edward Cullen and Stefan Salvatore of the Twilight and The Vampire Diaries series respectively, have managed to win the hearts of teenage girls all across America with their sex appeal and charismatic nature. According to Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, individuals learn new behaviors by modeling and imitating the actions of those around them. This comprehensive literature review investigates the connection …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

Metalepsis And Mental Castration: Doki Doki Literature Club As The Cerebral Monstrous-Feminine, Hannah Graham

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a horror visual novel masquerading as a dating simulation game. Behind the thin veneer of pretty girls in tiny skirts and tight uniforms lurk horrors, glitches, and metaleptic events that take the player’s battle for agency beyond mere point-and-click interactions. This fight breaches containment to the level of the physical, as the player must literally wrestle for control with an in-game character who has commandeered their entire computer system. Players are led to believe that they are making the decisions that further the plot, but come to learn that in this world, there is no …

Exploring The Shadows: How Taylor Swift's Music Embodies Dark Sound As A Popular Music Artist, Kristyn E. Cole

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

To challenge the conceptual matter of “dark sound”, this major research paper centers around the popular music artist, Taylor Swift to demonstrate an overarching feminist wisdom in an alternative style of music to identify how Taylor Swift presents and embodies qualities of “dark sound”. Research done by D. Ferrett, Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes and Paul C. Jasen are used to examine her popular music, and its intersections and influence on our culture and society. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, this research paper discusses three of Swift’s songs; “willow” (evermore, 2020) for her sound, All Too Well: The Short …

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