Fine Arts Commons^™

The Immersive Media Library @ Vcu, Michael Rosenthal-Mix

Theses and Dissertations

Answering the call issued by John Underkoffler in 2010 about the future of UI, I have imagined the Immersive Media Library (IML) as an annex of the main VCU library, offering a concentration of visually immersive spaces to compliment the space the university is already building in the renovated Cabell Library. The design is new in that the emphasis is placed on the collaboration between librarians and visitors in creating new work. Focusing on the interpersonal might be unexpected from program with such an emphasis on new technology - but I see it as vital part of the new computing …

Postcession, Evan D. Pomerantz

Theses and Dissertations

This is a series of daily writings. Each day consists of a new topic and is closed at the end of the day. The ideas presented are philosophical, humorous, rambling, lamentations, incantations, doubt-ridden, aesthetic pep talks which combine into an affective representation of my studio practice’s becoming. There will be little congruency, some stories, and a lot of parallels because that is who I am.

Cute As A Button, Marta R. Finkelstein

Theses and Dissertations

Cute As A Button explores powerlessness, vulnerability, illness and addiction all wrapped up in tender buttons and a cute, cuddly creature. Using animation, sculpture, sound and an intimate space, I surround the viewer in a saccharine nightmare, one that references the dark underbelly of the cute and the sweet. The visual and aural elements are representative of the psychological and emotional states of powerlessness, which are overcome by the act of making and exploring a medium over which I can have complete control.

Regarding The Porosity Of Borders, Lee M. Piechocki

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the surface of my paintings through Jean Baudrillard’s notion of seduction and the cool mechanism of the airbrush. I further investigate my work through the metaphor of the black mirror also known as a Claude Mirror and the connections between my work, Claude Lorrain’s landscape painting and divination through the use of reflective surfaces known as catopotromancy. Considering the notion of assemblage as outlined by Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour’s Action Network Theory I attempt to navigate the part/whole relationships found in painting, and in society.

Avatar, Cyborg, Icevorg: Simulacra’S Scion, Guido E. Alvarez

Theses and Dissertations

I propose a theoretical framework that describes how avatars incorporate media as an inherent part of their nature and find a hosting body in cyborgs to navigate and spawn in media. I propose the birth of a new scion that combines avatar, medium and cyborg into a conceptual being that I call “ICEVORG.”

The ICEVORG expands beyond representation into the actual physical world by means of media transgression—more specifically, by the use of the Strange Loop also known as Metalepsis ICEVORG find an effective soil to thrive and interrogate our ideas of reality by means of iteration, expansion, fragmentation and …

Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production, Jennifer E. Figg

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes of representation …

Reviving Project:A Chinese-American Culture Exchange Project, Yushan Cassie Sun

UROP Posters

Through art exhibitions in Beijing, China and Richmond, Virginia, Reviving project 01 aims to help promote/ revive a craft technique in Qinghai, China that is disappearing due to the urbanized surroundings.

American artist were invited to collaborate with people from Qinghai to make new pieces incorporating original crafted pieces.

Into The Fray, Frances Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

My sculpture and prints are about dismemberment and the destruction caused by war. To address the high cost of war, I make works that present the threat of injury, amputation, and prosthetics. I use Classical Greek art history references to address contemporary political, military, and social issues. I include images such as Amazonian women, horses, and doves. These images are coupled with references to the damage caused by conflict. While my work concerns destruction, paradoxically, my process involves additive construction. I take a mixed media approach to both my sculptures and my prints, and use a wide range of materials …

Double Zero, Anthony Earl Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis follows the trajectory of my artistic practice over the past two years, which has led to the installation of my thesis exhibition titled, Double Zero. I hope to position the work among its art and cultural terms by exploring how I have expanded my research concerning Situationist and Marxist theory as well as developed a broader photographic studio practice driven by material experimentation, play, and an investigation into how we live and interact with commodities through media.

Reconstructing A Science Fiction Autobiography, Jason R. Rood

Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of essays revolving around concepts pertinent to my current visual arts practice, centering on a deconstruction of personal narrative mythologies. What is generated is a web of connection that spans Narrative Modes, Science Fiction, the use of Lines and Drawing, the Digital and Space and Time. Through this interweaving of topics, I am beginning the process of rebuilding the structure of a personal story for the future.

The Object Inbetween, Lucy L. Derickson

Theses and Dissertations

My mission is to bring attention to the unusual, undefined, and fluid connections we have to objects through various avenues of experience. Things, objects, and devices have shaped our culture, environment, and personal philosophies. We live, grow, learn, and mourn with objects. We worship, sympathize, and relate to objects. But what I am most interested in is a human tendency to retreat to objects, allowing them to mediate experiences of friendship and intimacy between people.

During my graduate studies, I have been evaluating my personal and professional connections with others in order to understand how technology such as smart phones …

Limelight & Indigestion, Joshua D. Thorud

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis chronicles the progression toward and creation of my thesis show, Limelight & Indigestion, as well as the cultural, technological and artistic influences and discussions that underpin the works therein. The show is an exploration of celebrity, mass media, and the nature of the desire for fame. I hope to situate my work through an investigation of topics such as Hollywood and the use of green screens and associated technology, our physical and ideological connection to cinema, the absurd in cinema history, and the complex nature of media digestion.

Fallen/Lifted, Hillary Waters Fayle

Theses and Dissertations

I use found botanical material such as leaves, seedpods, and branches to explore human connection to the physical world. By combining these organic objects with the rich traditions of needlecraft, I bind nature and the human touch. Both tender and ruthless, this intricate stitch work communicates the idea that our relationship with the natural world is both tenuously fragile and infinitely complex.

The way I think about and make art mirrors the way I think about my life and how I walk through the world. What I do is about elevating details. It is about noticing cycles and connections. It …

G.A.M.E.: A Hypermedia Edition Of James Mcneill Whistler’S The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies, Amy Colombo

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, G.A.M.E., refashions James McNeill Whistler’s book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, into a hypermediated facsimile text and archive. By remediating the text, the socio-historical context of the Victorian time period in which Whistler lived is reestablished, making his book more accessible to twenty-first century audiences. The era studied in this dissertation includes the expansion of the idea of celebrity, the power of the press, and the concept of art for art’s sake from 1863 through 1892. In order to showcase these concepts, archival materials, such as personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and published pamphlets, from this period were …

A Perception Of Change, A Change Of Perception, Christopher D. White

Theses and Dissertations

Change is a constant reminder that permanence is the ultimate illusion. It is through the creation of hyper-realistic, ceramic sculpture that I explore the relationship between nature, humans, and the phenomenon of impermanence. I seek to expose the beauty that often results from decay while, at the same time, making my viewer question their own perception of the world around them. The juxtaposition of natural and man-made features in combination with the skewing of scale, proportion, and material, creates an altered perspective – forcing the viewer to look closer. By combining both human and natural elements within my work I …

Distance Moving Through Me: Working In Exile, Anne Beth Albagli

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and accompanying exhibit, Untitled [Distance Moving Through Me: Giselle and Marco] explores contemporary issues of displacement and our relationship to the site of home. Through the trope of a pilgrimage in the desert, both virtual and in person, inspired by the eviction and imprisonment of my paternal family from Egypt in 1956, Distance Moving Through Me: Working in Exile asks how we can use our virtual experience and changing perspectives of the landscape to our advantage for a more empathic world.

Lullaby, Amber M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

I have been investigating the way in which my mind has altered my memories, especially from childhood. The more a moment is recalled, the less precise it becomes. The most inaccurate memories from childhood are the ones I have fixated on. Bedrooms are spaces where dreaming, sleeping and reverie take place leading to even more fragmenting. The intimate space of a bedroom allows me to represent the personal distorted recollections. The bedroom furniture is missing parts, shifted in height and placement or combined together. By making doubles of furniture, a direct comparison can be made from the real piece to …

(Untitled), Christine Navin

Theses and Dissertations

For millennia humanity’s preoccupation with time and its own mortality has proven to be elemental in what makes a civilization tick. This concern has been a focal point of philosophy, science, and religion. The measuring system of time asserts itself daily through the Danse Macabre, daily motions and memento mori — the things at every corner of civilization.

Four Seasons, Morgan Pearse

Theses and Dissertations

FOUR SEASONS By Morgan Pearse, MFA. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Art in Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2014. Major Director: Matt King, Assistant professor, Sculpture + Extended Media. Fantasy functions in a mental space. Cyberspace is a fantasy world. Cyberspace is a mental space mediated by the individual, but also through/into itself. What does an internal thought mean when it is directed towards strangers via online avatar? The Internet exists. Your body exists. There is something in between. There is no singular …

Painting As In A Journey, Kristin Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

PAINTING AS IN A JOURNEY The experiences, processes, and artistic influences are described in this paper supporting the student’s MFA painting exhibit. A variety of influences from Max Beckmann to Alice Neel, as well as the oil medium itself, helped build the collective knowledge that was used in the development of this student’s work.

Standoff, Omri Zin

Theses and Dissertations

This Paper is about the intertwining and swiveling narratives that made up the conceptual building blocks of my work process during the production of the piece: Standoff. This is not a description of the physical tasks that were undertaken in the production process, nor is it a recipe for extracting the ingredients that form the intricate relationships within the sculpture, but rather it is a collection of stories that are told through a zigzagged structure in an attempt to mirror the distorted hierarchies between fantasy and fact, history and imagination, truth and speculation.

Psychic Fax On Vibrate, Received On Phantom Limbo, Jake Borndal

Theses and Dissertations

I offer a cloud of observations about language and art. I will prioritize my questions about how language operates in art, the way it functions within my own studio practice, and locate aesthetic interstices throughout. There will be insights gleaned from the various orderers of order (Lacan, Saussure) and orderers of disorder (Derrida, Agamben), walks in terra-incognita, and even some poetry on my part. I will take this chance to orient myself among different structures and deconstructions that have piledup around language, aesthetics and art.

Potential Energy And The Three Odalisques, Yamins Roxanne

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper is to examine some ways in which BEHAVIOR, POTENTIAL ENERGY, and EMPATHY are critical components in my thinking and work. The impetus for my work is an investigation of how these three components can be manifested in visually expressive and powerful states. My masters thesis, The Three Odalisques, is an attempt at making a space and world which privileges these components and the potential for art to express these ideas. This paper is divided into two parts. The first section is a formal analysis of the pieces in my work from my MFA thesis show. …

Insert Title, R. Abram Deslauriers

Theses and Dissertations

It is a gestural sensibility forever suspended in the material as it cools. With each movement to and fro, I become fully immersed and given over to the activity of glassworking, where the simplest impressions whisper of fantastic melodies. I remain open to it: conducting a collision: a symphony of riffs, vamps and arpeggios. Constructing the chorus in disjunctive phases as if it forms out of its own directive. The polyphonic rhythm of decisions converge into a new composition, now completely obscured from the intro—existing in reference only to itself and you

Threshold, Marisa Finos

Theses and Dissertations

Are the threshold experiences encountered between waking and sleeping similar to the liminal space between life and death? The sights, sounds, and bodily sensations experienced in the unconscious void blur the lines between the unknown and our conscious existence. Using the figure, I portray how the body might exist in these transitional moments. Through my investigations into sleep paralysis, dream states, and notions of an afterlife and the soul, I explore how we perceive the self in these altered states of consciousness.

Erratic Boulders, Julie Malen

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring how the material environment affects human knowledge of the world is an ongoing investigation in my studio. With this tactile exploration I am also looking to discover how histories and cultures overlap constantly and in close proximity within my daily experience. By collaging natural fragments and cultural debris in my installations, I seek to exaggerate this overlap and create the dizzying feeling of moving through many places at once. Cultural and historical overlapping also occurs in the phenomena of erratic boulders, which refers to the depositing of boulders, rocks, sediments and other materials that receding glaciers leave behind. This …

Artificial Dissemination, Brian Fleetwood

Theses and Dissertations

This writing is an experiment in combining the two most important frameworks through which I understand the world, the storytelling traditions of my people, the Mvskoke(Creek), and the rational tradition that began with European Enlightenment era thinking. By weaving allegorical narrative (much of it personal) into theoretical speculation, I draw connections between recollection, truth, and the act of making. This examination of the gaps and connections between seemingly disparate worldviews, runs in parallel to the purpose of my work, wherein I construct fictive symbiotic and parasitic relationships between jewelry and wearer. This work takes advantage of the wearer as environment, …

Inhale. Exhale., Jared Cru Smith

Theses and Dissertations

I did not become a farmer or railroader like generations of my family before me–but I continue to rely on my hands and physical labor. The use of my hands as tools to construct through woodworking and metal fabrication techniques becomes a musing action. Using wood and metal as materials, I develop structures in an exploratory way to frame the endless process of making. When I lose myself in this progression of forms, I allow myself to breathe.

Unification, Agency, Systemization, Intuition: My Art Making Process And Ideas, Zachary Duer

Theses and Dissertations

This essay is an attempt to describe my ideas about my work, my process, and my philosophy of art by examining five of the major pieces I created during the pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. I will discuss the pieces in chronological order, first providing a description of the works’ salient characteristics, then delving into both my specific thoughts about the work as well as the background ideas that were pertinent to me during my process of creation.

Queeranimal Imaginary: An Intra-Active Investigation Of Ecology, Performance, And Sound, Caryn Brissey

Theses and Dissertations

Through interrelated experiments in writing, video, sound, and movement, this research investigates the intersections of intimacy, ecology, and performance. Integrating an autoethnographic approach to gender and sexuality with creative practice and theoretical inquiry, this layered investigation offers implications that are both deeply personal and widely accessible. I am using my own experiences growing up as a queer child to generative corporeal and experience-based material, while also incorporating the ideas of current queer and gender theorists to frame my own research within the larger context of feminist studies. This research culminated into an evening length performance at Dogtown Dance Theatre on …