As a Cape Verdean American, I investigate the idea of what it means to be of the African Diaspora in America. I also consider the experiences of past generations of American black bodies and how their history has molded my world. This series of work began with Mask Drawing 1, an ink drawing inspired by my own interpretation of an African mask. Subjected to colorism, the discrimination of a person based on their skin color, my skin was not enough validation for other people to view me as black. On numerous occasions I have had to clarify my identity, nationality and how these things qualify me as black. I was not perceived as black because I did not fit the stereotype society influenced us to believe, that black people all look, walk and talk a certain way. I did not fit because my skin was not dark enough, my hair wasn't the same texture, and my last name was Santos. This led me to question how I present myself versus how other individuals may perceive me. I wanted to create new artifacts that highlighted my experience of blackness in America. Through the abstraction of these artifacts I explore black identities and how they have change society for black people.

My objective, in undertaking this three year MFA degree has been to create and produce metaphorical paintings which communicate my deepest feelings about my personal experiences of life, death, and nature using various types of landscapes as subject matter. My goal has been to explore many processes of painting, using a range of color palettes to suggest and inspire emotional responses from viewers that are similar to my own. Ultimately my intention has been to share feelings of empathy between myself and a viewer through the art I've produced. This thesis body of work chronicles my three year journey.

My journey from Hollywood Film production to a Fine Arts practice has been shaped by theory from Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Psychology, Film, and Art, leading me to a new visual vocabulary at the intersection of motion picture, the still image, and three-dimensional form. I create large mixed media collages by projecting video onto photographs and sculptural forms, breaking the boundaries of the conventional film frame and exceeding the dynamic range of typical visual experience. My work explores emotional connections and fissures within family, and hidden meanings of haunting memories and familiar places. I am searching for an elusive type of perceptual experience characterized by an instantaneous shift in perspective—an "aha" moment of epiphany when suddenly I have the overpowering feeling that I am both seeing and aware that I am seeing.

A house is a place of safety. A home is a place of belonging. Though different a house always desires to become a home, but it can only be so through a connection to self. It is a home that is an extension of one's identity. Through the mirror, which is the home, and through an understanding of schema theory a person's being can be understood through one's ideas, place, self, family, rituals, memories, and feelings. Each of these factors act as a layer of brick building a strong foundation or a crackling fireplace adorned with family portraits making the rooms feel cozy for the image of the home as well as self. Exploring the melancholic drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations the relationship of self and place become more evident thus separating what is a house from a home. It becomes clear that the definition of home does not come from its physical boundaries but from the thoughts and interactions that reside within its walls. A joyous person creates a joyous home and a melancholic home creates an artist that is inclined to create melancholic art in search of what they don't have. It is along this emotional journey the artist can truly understand what this sense of belonging means. Through his art the worn wallpaper and the cracked plaster of this darker world hold in the emotions of the artist showcasing the authenticity of self and opening a door for others in a similar search.

This writing accompanies the outcomes of my studio practice over the last three years, focusing on two bodies of work of paintings and drawings. In it I describe and analyze multiple influences tied to the progression and change in my studio practice. I began the process of my work with images and subjects from my home state of Florida, frequently juxtaposing the wildlife and humans, now I see this pattern as a byproduct of a studio practice functioning as a introspective reflection of what I experience, the things that I understand and the things that I don't. I deconstruct elements of figures and landscape, removing most information but what is necessary to retain symbolic context, and allow physical windows into the past formal states of the work, exposing the audience to different periods of time and hinting at information now hidden under the finished image.

In this thesis body of work, I focus on the implied human presence through the lack of actual human figures. I believe there is more to say in a landscape with the absence of the figure, allowing the dialogue to be read and interpreted by a larger audience. I am particularly satisfied with White Knuckles, shown in figure 3, because I collide reason with imagination, thus contradicting the context and interpretation of the subject matter. In White Knuckles, I deal with formal elements such as composition, atmosphere, lightness and darkness as well as nuances of color. I have also considered the emotive impact the painting could reflect to the viewer, specifically feelings of tension and unease. The placement of the viewer outside the picture plane was carefully considered to suggest the audience is a participant in the suggested narrative. I often strive to create an ambiguous moment, reflecting feelings of uncertainty and apprehension. Like White Knuckles, my body of work employs unexpected narratives to reveal some of the uncomfortable truths of our human experience. I am interested in exploring the relationship between the mundane and the abnormal in the paintings, a feeling that could be described as a "suburban nightmare."

This thesis is an examination of my imperative need to understand dinosaurs and their role in science and art, acting as prehistoric symbols for science and imagination. Like our understanding of dinosaurs, my body of work is evolving simultaneously with the technology of our time. Through the synthesis of artistic language with science and technology, I create dynamic experiences allowing a viewer to witness an extinct living being in its entirety, an otherwise lost experience. By utilizing digital modeling, animation techniques, and interactive video games, my work speaks to the power and diversity of digital media's role in visualizing artifacts in our society and culture.

The absurd perpetual struggle, although entirely without hope of resolution, is the key to life's meaning, or perhaps, meaninglessness. The artist must work to live and live to work and find their place in an absurd world. Find joy in the questioning act of art making, make no attempt to escape the meaninglessness through pacifism, and face the chaos with awareness. I employ self-portraiture as a means to dig deeply into my experience and response to living. Self-portraiture morphs along with my experiences and keeps a record of my thought patterns. My body of work is the harvest of my seeds of reflection. Tying together past influences, existential questioning, and a Sisyphean philosophy to a life of art making, I unravel the inner outcomes of my studio practice. It is in retrospect, through distance, that these connections are fully realized.

Reflecting upon humanity's obligatory use of technology and its place in our collective evolution has become my endeavor. These reflections happen in a studio and through a process that influences the fine art objects produced. In turn the objects both celebrate and warn us of the dynamic and immanent enhanced human. I balance the use of modern machining processes with dark humor to comment and raise questions about the coexistence of man and machine in an increasingly absurd environment.

This interdisciplinary dissertation explores perceptions of control in modded and unmodded versions of Bethesda's sandbox video game Skyrim. Sandbox games are known for greater choice options that suggest greater perceptions of control for gamers. Sandbox games also generally encourage the use of user-generated creations called modifications (mods) that users can download to personalize their games. While we need philosophy to understand and define control as a concept, we also need psychology to understand how users perceive control in media studies. At present, qualitative academic research that measures gamer perceptions of control is non-existent as is research on how users articulate their experiences with mods. Interviews were conducted with twenty-seven individuals who identified as gamers to analyze these perceptions of control in a game like Skyrim. The first chapter is introductory and outlines key terms for the dissertation as well as the play study's methodology. The second chapter examines philosophical and psychological perceptions of control that correspond with negative freedom (freedom from) and positive freedom (freedom to). While no game can promise radical free will because they have been programmed in advance, the information here may be used to demonstrate how perceptions of control might influence game design. The third chapter continues this exploration of perceived control through genre analysis, revealing the relationship between greater perceptions of control and mod support in sandbox video games. The fourth chapter presents the first two findings from the play study that demonstrate how mods influence player perceptions of control. The fifth chapter reveals how gamers of the play study discuss their perceptions of control video games in their own words with an emphasis on positive and negative freedom and generic conventions. The final chapter provides challenges for game design and scholarly qualitative analysis for future research based on findings in the play study.