Space, in the post-World War context, was the new frontier of ‘global’ dominion. Space Race of the 1950s was a competition to signal technological capability and military strength. The objective of War of the Moon is to unpack the motivation for Moon race in 1950s. What did countries have to gain politically, economically, socially and technologically by conquering space and landing on the moon. At what cost? Who financed it, and where did the labor, land, and raw materials sourced come from. And how it was used to accomplish said landing. Space security is a massive aspect of all current space programs, but this is not a new feature, in fact, its beginnings are in the Cold War era. The second objective of this thesis and exhibition is to understand through rhetoric analysis the language of “defense” as an ‘offensive’ strategy. The artwork uses computer technologies to interrogate media and archives mimicking the state’s methods to suppress information. The work examines through archives the erasure of minority groups from cultural depositories or archives, thereby writing them out of history as the meta themes of exploration of space, and deliberate and chronicled. It is important that this work is not viewed as reactionary, but engaged in a direct dialogue: these pieces exist within the public sphere, in exhibition and projection spaces vetted by governmental, private and non-profit agencies. What is required of the work is to be subversive — to be flexible, to remain able to move freely anywhere and everywhere, and to cross barriers when necessary.

As a graphic designer and as a creative in general, my interest has always been in the conceptualization and execution of brand identities. I am most comfortable as a designer when I am working in the realm of art direction, and most of my design heroes and inspirations are legendary art directors and designers like Paula Scher, Paul Rand, and Michael Bierut. Logo and wordmark design in particular are among my favorite aspects of design, and finding ways to creatively apply these foundational aspects of a brand to each stage of the user experience is exciting to me. The stages of the user experience which I designed and art directed for my honors thesis included a logo symbol, a wordmark, a set of packaging designs, a storefront, a landing page, and an engaging ad campaign. Designing a brand identity across digital and physical mediums while maintaining a high level of cohesion and story is a rigorous process, and my progress was far from linear. The most important thing I learned was to trust the process; wherever it took me. I am excited to bring what I’ve come to realize during the execution of this project to the industry and to help brands, big and small, design for the digital age across every level of their user experience.

Music and architecture share a sacred bond across cultures. Their histories intertwine and together, they shape ritualistic, religious, and popular practices. As one of the few remaining avenues of universal transcendental experiences that have been so integral to humans, music’s ability to create ecstatic spaces is ever more necessary for the modern human. This thesis uses spatial, artificial intelligence, visual, and aural tools—while engaging in a dialogue between rationalist architecture and shamanic conceptions of spaces—to create an ecstatic space that seeks to reimagine the union of music and architecture. It reveals new ways in which this union can be experienced synonymously and utilizes novel approaches to design such a space.

Proceeding from a framing of theater as collaborative storytelling, I argue for defining role-playing games as a kind of performance and for their value in structuring experiential and participatory theater. Building on the impulse at the heart of experiential and immersive theater to place the audience within the world of the performance and center their experience, I explore what it means for theater artists to cede control over how audiences make meaning of their work in favor of letting narrative emerge from the participation of the audience during the performance event. I propose a framework called pervasive performance that merges theatrical frames and methods with pervasive gaming, which expands the magic circle of play and blurs the distinction between the game and everyday life. This union of ideas puts audience members in contact with one another and allows them to be playful and co-author the overall performance experience. Further, the blurring of the performance and everyday life transforms audience members’ relationship to the real world and gives them space to imagine and experiment with other worlds and ways of being in them. I devised an alternate reality game (ARG) at UMass Amherst in May 2023, and in my thesis I analyze this project and the process of creating it as a case study in pervasive performance.

Esta tese de doutorado apresenta um estudo e formulações teóricas sobre o conceito de espect-autoria e defende os conceitos de Poética da Autoria Aberta, Poética da Autoração e Poéticas em Coletividade como praxis artística de apropriação dos dispositivos de produção das representações sociais, no contexto da autoria dos espectadores nas artes participativas e interativas. Numa transferência interdisciplinar de conceitos a exemplo do conceito espect-autor de Gellouz (2007), o estudo propõe as noções de autorabilidade, obra autorável, agenciamento autoral do espectador e trinômio produção/recepção/produção bem como os conceitos formulados de função-espect-autor, espect-autor em coletividade, particip-autor, inter-autor e trans-autor, que privilegiam a noção de autoria em suas notações, configurando uma taxonomia mais apropriada para compor um vocabulário que permita designar e compreender a noção de espect-autoria, ou seja, a produção autoral dos espectadores, enquanto forma, repertório e significados, nas obras cuja abertura poética propõe desafios autorais aos seus espectadores. A principal referência artística e fonte desta pesquisa é a série Autorretrato Coletivo (1987-), um conjunto de obras participativas e interativas que eu proponho como repositório dialógico e polifônico da identidade coletiva, tendo como princípio a apropriação dos espectadores enquanto autores de suas identidades no corpus da obra. Em suma, a função-autor exercida pelos espectadores, mais precisamente a sua função-espect-autor, em processos de criação/co-criação ou recriação (por recombinação e/ou repertoriação) no contexto das artes participativas e interativas, tem profundas implicações para nossa compreensão da evolução da arte como um fenômeno coletivo. / This thesis presents a study and theoretical formulations about the concept of spect-authorship on participatory and interactive artworks and defends the concepts of Poetics of the Open Authorship, Authoring Poetics and Multi-Poetics in Collectivity as artistic praxis of apropriation of the production devices of the social representations in the context of the spectators authorship in the participatory and interactive arts. Through an interdisciplinary transfer of concepts as Gellouz concept of spect-author (2007) , this study proposes the notions of authorability, authoriable artwork, authorial agency of the spectator, trinomial production/reception/production as well the concepts of function-espect-author, spect-author in collectivity, particip-author, inter-author and trans-author, which privilege the notion of authorship, setting a taxonomy more appropriate to compose a vocabulary that describes and increases the understanding of the concept of spect-authorship, the authorial production of the spectators as form, repertory and meanings, in the artworks whose poetic openness proposes authorial challenges to their spectators. The main artistic reference and source of this research is the series Collective Self-Portrait (1987-), a set of participatory and interactive artworks that I propose as a dialogic and polyphonic repository of the collective identity, based on the principle of appropriation of the spectators as authors of their own identities in the corpus of the artwork. Summing up, the author-function experienced by the spectators, more precisely their spect-author-function, in creation/co-creation or recreation process in the context of participatory and interactive arts, holds profound implications for our understanding of art evolution as a collective phenomenon.

The rise of digital technology has transformed nearly every part of our daily lives, including the way we learn and memorize. Such transformations raise interesting questions for one of the most long-standing and demanding memorization tasks in the world: the memorization of the Islamic holy book, The Qur’an. For Muslims, The Qur’an is a timeless, sacred text, cradling within its covers many profound images, stories, and parables. Despite rigorous research in the fields of game design and memorization techniques, very little work has been done in combining these two areas of research to create a game-based memorization experience of The Quran. This thesis synthesizes game design elements with existing memorization techniques to foster a more engaging, enriching, and inspiring Qur’an memorization experience.

We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.

Though we may not perceive it, we are surrounded by material-in-flux. Inert materials degrade and the events that comprise our natural and social environments causally thread into a duration that unifies us in our incomprehension. Sounds reveal ever-present vibrations of the landscape: expressions of the flexuous ground on which we stand.

Esta tese de doutorado apresenta um estudo e formulações teóricas sobre o conceito de espect-autoria e defende os conceitos de Poética da Autoria Aberta, Poética da Autoração e Poéticas em Coletividade como praxis artística de apropriação dos dispositivos de produção das representações sociais, no contexto da autoria dos espectadores nas artes participativas e interativas. Numa transferência interdisciplinar de conceitos a exemplo do conceito espect-autor de Gellouz (2007), o estudo propõe as noções de autorabilidade, obra autorável, agenciamento autoral do espectador e trinômio produção/recepção/produção bem como os conceitos formulados de função-espect-autor, espect-autor em coletividade, particip-autor, inter-autor e trans-autor, que privilegiam a noção de autoria em suas notações, configurando uma taxonomia mais apropriada para compor um vocabulário que permita designar e compreender a noção de espect-autoria, ou seja, a produção autoral dos espectadores, enquanto forma, repertório e significados, nas obras cuja abertura poética propõe desafios autorais aos seus espectadores. A principal referência artística e fonte desta pesquisa é a série Autorretrato Coletivo (1987-), um conjunto de obras participativas e interativas que eu proponho como repositório dialógico e polifônico da identidade coletiva, tendo como princípio a apropriação dos espectadores enquanto autores de suas identidades no corpus da obra. Em suma, a função-autor exercida pelos espectadores, mais precisamente a sua função-espect-autor, em processos de criação/co-criação ou recriação (por recombinação e/ou repertoriação) no contexto das artes participativas e interativas, tem profundas implicações para nossa compreensão da evolução da arte como um fenômeno coletivo. / This thesis presents a study and theoretical formulations about the concept of spect-authorship on participatory and interactive artworks and defends the concepts of Poetics of the Open Authorship, Authoring Poetics and Multi-Poetics in Collectivity as artistic praxis of apropriation of the production devices of the social representations in the context of the spectators authorship in the participatory and interactive arts. Through an interdisciplinary transfer of concepts as Gellouz concept of spect-author (2007) , this study proposes the notions of authorability, authoriable artwork, authorial agency of the spectator, trinomial production/reception/production as well the concepts of function-espect-author, spect-author in collectivity, particip-author, inter-author and trans-author, which privilege the notion of authorship, setting a taxonomy more appropriate to compose a vocabulary that describes and increases the understanding of the concept of spect-authorship, the authorial production of the spectators as form, repertory and meanings, in the artworks whose poetic openness proposes authorial challenges to their spectators. The main artistic reference and source of this research is the series Collective Self-Portrait (1987-), a set of participatory and interactive artworks that I propose as a dialogic and polyphonic repository of the collective identity, based on the principle of appropriation of the spectators as authors of their own identities in the corpus of the artwork. Summing up, the author-function experienced by the spectators, more precisely their spect-author-function, in creation/co-creation or recreation process in the context of participatory and interactive arts, holds profound implications for our understanding of art evolution as a collective phenomenon.

Navigating the Interim attempts to build a framework for the ways in which visual art, media studies, and forms of social practice might intermingle within a career in the arts, as well as within a thorough art education curriculum. From broad theoretical analysis to the specificity of technical exercises and prompts, this paper serves as a roadmap for the ways in which production, teaching, and organizing might begin to merge into a single holistic practice. The author’s projects provide an anchor from which to analyze the various conceptual trajectories of art that have stemmed from modernism throughout the 20th century, as well as to challenge the anti-aesthetic phenomenon that has emerged out of this evolution, which has influenced paradigms within art education and leads to an analysis of the author’s own creative impulses, such as media activism, noise-based and appropriative tactics, and concerns about Debordian Spectacle. These self-analyses and reflections are situated within various binary oppositions: object-action, opacity-transparency, deconstruction-enstrangement, replacement-extension, and static-progressive.