Museums are culturally constructed as places dedicated to tastemaking, preservation, historical record, and curation. Yet the contemporary isn’t yet absorbed by history, so as museums incorporate contemporary art these commonly accepted functions are disrupted. Through case studies, this thesis examines the successes and failures of three New York museums (MoMA, Dia:Beacon and New Museum) as they grapple with the challenging, perhaps irresolvable, tension between the contemporary and the very idea of the museum.

Our interactions with objects build cultural codes, reflecting lifestyles, values, and identities beyond functional expectations. With open connectivity in the contemporary consumer environments, we have access to homogenized material cultures not only for daily activities but also for ceremonies and rituals to mark important events, such as birth, marriage, and death. What will happen to our cultural codes and diverse traditions when various cultural norms meet, exchange, clash, hybridize, and evolve? In this research, globalized material cultures were investigated to discover metaphoric comparisons, to formulate conceptual frameworks, and to develop informed design, which can address evolving cultural conditions appropriately, in comparison with commercialized goods. Considering we often ritualize sequential stages of life course or challenging events, but rarely divorce, I explored the socio-cultural norms of marriage and divorce in the current social construct to anticipate globally evolving divorce phenomena. My thesis focused on relatively unknown material cultures in ritualizing divorce by combining speculative design with semiotic, hybrid, idiosyncratic approaches to communicate desirable future scenarios for the emerging multi-cultural context. This research aims to explore how artifacts and rituals can help people cope with transitional events and how design practices can provide meaningful and reflective material cultures.

I use video and material fragments to investigate the collapse of virtual and physical spaces as memories, lived environments, and digital interfaces become overlaid and interchangeable. I am interested in the capacity for technology to propose alternative strategies in which to engage with the world as we continue to extend ourselves in new and enduring methods. Seemingly unremarkable fragments offer new potentials in questioning meaning, worth, and care within spaces of downtime, boredom, and play. This document accompanies my thesis exhibition a window the color of her sunburn. It provides background information on selected fragments and residues from my own life alongside philosophical and art historical research, which informs my exhibition.

My work leverages the dynamic processes the brain uses to compute visual stimuli to influence how viewers experience my work. My aim is to create a ripple effect as the brain processes the visual information I provide. My process begins with a camera. Focusing on the face, I see how much contextual information I can remove while still capturing the emotional expression of the subject. Before long, a photograph ends up next to a canvas where I will rebuild the image from the photograph using a myriad of expressionistic marks and colors to amplify the emotion. Recognizing human emotion is the first ripple I want the viewer to experience. Next, they will note secondary details about the person depicted. Last, they will notice the heightened textures, the amplified flaws, the abstraction of the mark – reminders that they are looking at nothing more than a medium applied to a two-dimensional surface.

There are many forms of humor. Irreverent, dark, and black humor have been used throughout history for social commentary. Irony, parody, sarcasm, and satire can break through preconceived notions, barriers and the tensions we experience when confronted with uncomfortable issues such as bigotry, elitism, and genetic superiority. Humor provides an opportunity for a release of tension giving way to a more receptive audience and a more effective message. My thesis is an exploration of the use of irreverent, dark, annd black humor as vehicles for effective social commentary in communication design.

This thesis summarizes Danielle Riede's current art practice by detailing her materials, processes and inspiration. It also contextualizes her "Room Paintings" within the context of art history and contemporary art-making.

What are the design possibilities for the adaptive reuse of an outdated mall into a community centered case study model of pediatric palliative care?This thesis therefore explores the following questions. What solutions are possible in the adaptive reuse of Cloverleaf Mall? As designers what is our responsibility when reusing existing spaces? How and in what ways can design build community? How can design create a place which meets the personal needs of patients with a wide variety of illnesses in various stages of progression? What does the design of a centralized prototype for pediatric palliative care look like?

New media's emerging influence on society and the design profession is profound. Currently unrealized, the intersection of graphic design history and digital media is an area worthy of further examination. For graphic designers trained in the design of fixed content for traditional media, new media's challenge—to develop open-ended systems that adapt to dynamic content, customization, and multiple authorship—can be unsettling. But the potential benefits of this exploration are many. The ability to synthesize video, sound, static imagery, and textual information to present interactive content that adapts to the contemporary history of graphic design student's multi-modal and mobile lifestyle will provide a significant advantage.

I've always considered myself a serious person who understood the meaning of labor. I am determined to labor over my ideas, and to labor seriously. The problem, and by "problem," I mean, "best thing" about this is that no one takes me seriously. Ever. They seem to like my work anyway. Apparently, I'm more funny than I am serious. But that's okay, because, secretly, I think I've always tried to be serious because I never thought I was smart enough to be funny. I often misunderstand things. Sometimes I mishear or wrongly attribute or think that facts are a metaphors or that metaphors are facts. Then I take this (mis)information back to my studio and playing Cosmic Matchmaker, yoking together seeming disparate elements to create a visual vocabulary. And then I labor over it. Very seriously.

In this project I explore visual representation, abstraction, and the interpretation of violence as transformed aesthetic forms. Through drawing and film, I develop a visual language to interpret the subject of war, to allow my audience to experience the dynamics of conflict and to reflect upon the devastating toll that war takes on humanity.