Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1983. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-61).

<p> Information visualization offers a unique method to assist users in understanding large quantities of data, such as that which is found in social media. The recent surge in the use of social media platforms, the abundance of data generated, and the implications about what this data means has made it increasingly necessary to provide feedback to these users about what they and others are presenting online. Thus, it is critical for these individuals to access this information and gain some level of visual understanding regarding their own identities or that of a particular group. This dissertation is organized in the format of a three-paper dissertation. Chapter 1 is the introduction for the subsequent three chapters and provides background on information visualization and identity presentation in social media, while exploring theoretical approaches to visual perception and design. Chapter 2 demonstrates a variety of past and current multidimensional information visualization techniques that are relevant to social media data, as related to online identity presentation. The overview includes data portraits, motion-based visualization, music visualization, and textual structures. Chapter 3 introduces <i>CarrinaCongress</i>, an information visualization dashboard that affords users with the ability to compare two members of Congress in order to better understanding the elected officials&rsquo; tweets and external information. Chapter 4 presents <i> HadithViz</i>, a motion-based information visualization dashboard that borrows from video game interfaces and focuses on event-based tweets, as defined by hashtags related to sexism in the video gaming industry. Finally, Chapter 5 is the conclusion to this dissertation and will summarize the three individual studies, discuss limitations and implications, and provide recommendations that future work consist of simple, accessible visualizations that are based on existing visual languages and can be interpreted by a wide-ranging audience. </p>

<p> In this dissertation, I seek to define strategies designers might use to enhance the effectiveness of their game&rsquo;s message. To do so, I adopt a rhetorical approach to impact that recognizes identification between the designer&rsquo;s view of the world and that of the player as critical to achieving impact. Based on a review of relevant literature drawn from the fields of rhetoric, interactive narrative, and game studies; interviews with prominent game designers Tracy Fullerton and Jesse Schell; case studies of <i> Undertale, That Dragon, Cancer</i>, and <i>Papo &amp; Yo</i>; and a design project creating a game to increase empathy for people with ADHD, I endeavor to present a framework for impact design that delineates major concerns relevant to the act of identification. This framework recognizes abstraction based on clearly presenting the designer&rsquo;s message and agency based on encouraging the player to engage with that message as the cornerstones of promoting impact through identification. From their intersection, I extrapolate three related design concerns: authenticity, affectivity, and ambiguity. Authenticity captures the degree to which the game rings true to both the developer&rsquo;s own beliefs as well as those of the player; affectivity describes the player&rsquo;s emotional connection to the game; and ambiguity invites players to seek their own meaning by completing the game through their act of play. Throughout my work, I expand upon these three concerns to identify how they can serve as useful heuristics for impact design, suggesting concrete strategies at the level of a game&rsquo;s mechanics, aesthetics, and narrative. I believe in the potential of games to improve people&rsquo;s lives and make the world a better place, and I see my research as contributing to that greater effort. </p><p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2007. / Adviser: Timothy Jachna. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is a practice-based inquiry into contemporary Reportage Drawing in the UK. The role of the practice in present day, its various forms and purposes and how digital media has influenced both the working process and reception of such work, is discussed through comparisons of visual work and theoretical engagement from practitioners. Verbal and visual contributions from current artists about their methods, means and motivations are included to present a clear picture of the varied forms of documentary drawing. This research is structured around questions and issues raised about the process of Reportage Drawing from original reportage drawings made observing everyday life in Kisumu, western Kenya. It begins with a brief historical overview of Reportage Drawing and develops with chapters visually engaging with the drawings from Kisumu and other artist's contirbutions. The main body of drawings is designed to be viewed as a visual display as specific groups of drawings create a dialogue about the various issues raised. At the heart of this research is the investigation into observational drawing, the presence of the reportage artist as a documenter of the every day and the question of the importance of this specific field of art. Attention is paid to the practical aspects of making work as this often influences artists' choice in engaging in this form of drawing while reasons behind the commissioning of reportage artists are also elaborated on. This all contributes to the objectives of this thesis, which is to create the start of a database of contemporary reportage artists, present a clear picture of the nature of reportage drawing in' present day, including its limitations, and reflect on my own work in the light of others' while championing this practice.

Formed of: Zynthetik Theater ; Kryztal Operation. Plaztik Process and Manipulation : Agents Guide ; Outside the Zynthetik Theater and Kryztal Operation.

This PhD introduces new ways to configure the archive as a source of knowledge. This is because it is based in an art practice whose field of interest is institutional critique which determines that knowledge is both contingent and uncertain as different social and political factors come into play. The project pursues a line of inquiry which absorbs the artist, where the artist is seen to affect and be affected by the materials of an existing archive. The inquiry produces new connections and layers of meaning in relation to the archive whilst exposing and recording the precise methods and motivations of the artist whose project is to re-imagine what an archive might be. This PhD project is triggered by a small act of transgression, where the artist manifests early intent by purloining a slide transparency from the archives of The Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington DC. This action determines the future trajectory of the project: a project which has its origins in the political and social upheavals in Washington during 1968; specifically in relation to Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, the civil disturbances which followed King's assassination and the subsequent construction of the MLK Memorial Library which opened in 1972. The method of the inquiry is based upon the condition that the materials of the archive be extricated from institutional constraint and are re-deployed within an artistic practice, a practice which is situated in the present and is directly influenced by the effects and characteristics of the everyday. Consequently, archival materials are explored through a process of displacement and distraction, where a close examination of the oblique, mundane, arbitrary, overlooked and peripheral is brought into play. A future archive is imagined which expands upon previous models proposed by a number of artists emerging during the late 1960s such as Marcel Broodthaers, Mel Bochner, Robert Barry, Robert Smithson, Douglas Huebler and Allan Ruppersberg. The relevance of these artists' practices in relation to the field of knowledge that this project contributes to, is demonstrated in the manner in which specific histories are reassembled through a layering of past and present, fact and fiction, artist and subject. Equally significant is the way in which each artist employs documentation as a primary method and outcome within their practices. The project takes the form of an exhibition and several interconnected texts. The primary text 'Oriented Strand Board' (Section 2) employs a diary-like, first person narrative which unfolds over a single day. This text should be read first. Two accompanying satellite texts: 'Classified' (Section 3) - an expanded transcription from The Washington Post Classified; and 'Resurrection City' (Section 4) - a diary account by the late architect John Wiebenson - are meant to be considered during or after reading 'Oriented Strand Board'. In this way, official documents of the time are set next to a single day exposing the researcher's methods of placing disparate materials together to signal a resistance to certain or accretive knowledge. The 'OSB Manifesto' (Section 5) takes all the raw data from this Abstract (Section 1); i.e. the text itself, and reconfigures each word and punctuation mark in order to produce an alternative field of communication. A further text 'Viva Voce' (Section 6) accompanies the material described above. This additional text is a transcription from an audio recording of the Viva which took place om 25 January 2012 at Kingston University. The production and inclusion of this text serves to support and expand upon the transcribed material existing throughout the research. This PhD makes an original contribution to knowledge in the area of research into specific archives as it foregrounds the role of the artist researcher as protagonist within the research itself. The movements and preoccupations of the researcher embed themselves within an enquiry that conflates the historical with the imagination, where the bond between the author and research is exposed as one directly affected by the unfolding events of the present.

In my PhD thesis I raise the claim that a main ingredient to successful design collaboration in architecture and engineering is to make sense out of the information that is provided by designers and consultants as early and comprehensively as possible. The design of buildings has become a task with such a level of complexity that a social effort is required to coordinate and integrate the various worldviews of disciplines involved. In my research I first analyse obstacles to sense-making across collaborating disciplines by investigating the worldviews and priorities of the main parties involved in the design of buildings. I then propose novel ways for exchanging knowledge and generating common understanding between design professionals during early design and I introduce the process of optioneering as one possible method to assist architectural and engineering work practice. In order to address the above issues, I have embedded myself in the engineering firm Arup in their Sydney and Melbourne offices. There, I have examined methods for communicating and integrating aspects of building performance between designers and design consultants over a period of three years. As part of my research at Arup, I have gained an understanding about the everyday requirements of design professionals for sense-making in collaborative practice.

This PhD by publication critically reviews the background, context, and reception of work published from 1978-2008. The work surveyed, comprises popular music biography, texts on art school influenced bohemia and counterculture, and on celebrity and fan culture. The social and cultural context of the work is mapped and methodological and stylistic issues addressed. The origins of the punk aesthetic through the Sex Pistols is charted. The turn in celebrity studies towards a "fan culture" based approach is demonstrated by the publication of 'Starlust' in 1985. Subsequent work on "fan culture" is discussed. Issues relating to researching and theorising popular culture and cultural and design history are debated. Extracts from the publications cited are provided.

This thesis explores the relationship between sound, word and image as mediated by technology. It is situated within the discipline of ‘performance art’ or ‘live art’ – both terms that I have come to challenge in my work because they fail to encompass the contemporary developments within this expanding field. My research pays particular attention to the technological conditions that affect contemporary performative practice. It investigates these conditions with special regard to the interrelated themes of improvisation, composition and exhibition, proposing constellations between performer, instrument, text and stage. This written component of my practice-based Ph.D follows the exhibition Melech at the Stanley Picker Gallery in January 2014, which brought together the key elements of my research over the course of four years. These manifested themselves as a triple-­‐screen video projection, a 45-­‐minute live performance, a photographic installation and the vinyl LP Melech. The following text focuses on the central working method of my practice, which I call the ‘sonic image’. I define the sonic image as an effect created when sound and gesture are added to words. My key area of investigation is the ‘instant feedback’ that occurs when the voice mediates text using technology. As a vocal performer working within a visual art context, my concern is with the sound of the spoken/sung word during a performance. During the course of my research I have developed the term ‘OpeRaArt’ to describe work that results from the performance of lyrical text. OpeRaart resonates with the Italian word opus (meaning ‘work’), ‘the opera’ being the performance constructed around the libretto (the opera’s text). In order to demonstrate the dynamic interaction of visual, sonic and semantic elements that govern the performance of language, I chose to make the spelling of the word OpeRaArt changeable – by shifting the capital letters. This reflects one of my major research findings: that visual, sonic and semantic elements have shifting statuses in the vocal delivery of words during a performance. Sometimes the visual element shapes/overrides the sonic, and at other times the sonic shapes/overrides the visual. The semantic element, rather than preceding sonic and visual elements as the ‘guarantor’ of the work’s content, is seen as developing from them. By making links between random fragments of language and signs, my research has enabled me to see how meaning can be generated without assuming that the sonic and the visual elements are directly answerable to a semantic one. Rather, the content surfaces through a constant migration between all three elements. 1920s and 1950s avant-­‐garde devices have strong links to methods and principles developed in my work. Although I consider these methods within their various historical contexts, I am primarily interested in their relation to the three axes of performance that dominate my method: improvisation, composition and exhibition. This triangulated way of thinking about performance guides the structure of my thinking, the thesis being concerned with how the core of an effective artwork will always involve oscillation between these three axes.