I am inspired by the mundane activities engaged in, in daily life. Every morning, I check the temperature of outside. At that time I think about the day ahead. Do I need an umbrella? What color am I enamored of today? This is a small but important part of my day. In this moment of my thought paths can be very intuitively chosen. When I water the plants or pour milk into a coffee, I get a similar feeling, something that might be categorized as a sensation of "time apart."I came to The United States to begin to gain an understanding of conceptual art. I could not make it myself and it always fascinated me. I had believed that conceptual art always concerned itself with larger global or political issues, was restrained, and unemotional. I have since change my mind. My new work is about sharing how beautiful the energy is when people join in laughter, how sad people appear to always drive so fast, how interesting it is that pigeons always stay in a specific place. I am interested in not just objects, but their sounds, their history, their physical properties, their potential for change, and the life surrounding them. That which "surrounds" the making is as important as that which is made... so to check the temperature of outside is (in the end) as integral as any aspect.

Everyday objects inspire and inform what I do. The personal histories and associations we may have with ordinary things are of great personal interest to me. Often times, these items reflect the social class, education, and background of the owners. I am drawn to these objects and the possibility of elevating them in a way that transcends their implied meanings (their worth, importance, and status). The transformation of the mundane is a method of working that allows associations to remain intact while bringing new meaning and perspective to the object. My method of working becomes an alchemic process aimed at turning the ordinary into "art" which is second only to turning used cooking oil into fuel to run your car, and maybe third to turning lead into gold.

Energy efficiency within the housing sector is progressing. In Vallastaden which is a newly developed city district in Linköping, Sweden, constructors together with the municipality have made attempts to create a sustainable built environment. One of the goals was to establish energy efficient residential buildings in Vallastaden. The overall aim of the study was to investigate the development of two energy plus buildings in Vallastaden and explore the potentials for the energy concept in these buildings to reduce the energy use. The perceptions of the occupants were included in the study since their views and practices play an important part for the buildings’ energy performance. Qualitative interviews were conducted with informants from two housing companies and three households. The findings show that the motives for the housing companies were try out new things and progress within the housing sector. The housing companies were however uncertain if their buildings would become energy efficient in practice since it depended on how the occupants would interact with the technology and the energy concept. There is a risk that the energy concept and the technology may not reach its full potential in reducing energy since the occupants either had no reflection about their role in the energy concept or were uncertain about the technology. The communication between the housing companies and the occupants needs to be strengthened for occupants to realize their influence on the energy use in these buildings.

My feet are my transportation while living in the college town of Provo, Utah. When walking, I am drawn to designs found at construction sites and office workplaces, methods of labor that are executed sequentially. These designs lead me to think about laborious jobs that I have had and time performing mundane, repetitive tasks. Walking, photographing, gathering, and transporting used material to a workspace are the preliminary actions for my art practice. Creation emerges by relating material from varying environments through their inherent patterns, sizes, and shapes. I organize elements of the everyday in a new harmonious context with each other. At the core of my art practice, I present an altered way of looking at commonplace materials.

This thesis explores the experience of participating in a ‘hidden’ gender separatist forum for women and nonbinary persons on Facebook. It does so through a case study of a group called Växtgäris, which constitutes one link in a chain of gender separatist forums established on Swedish Facebook in recent years, whose names all end with -gäris. The aim of the research was to investigate what motivates people to participate in such groups, how members understand the separatist framework with regards to their experience of the forum, and how such online practices might relate to notions of ‘safe space’ and ‘mundane citizenship’. The study combines two (digital) ethnographic methods for collecting data: participant observations of the group’s discussion thread and in-depth interviews with eight members. In analysing the empirical material, the Roestone Collective’s re-conceptualisation of ‘safe space’ was combined with Bakardijeva’s theorisation of ‘mundane citizenship’ (and the related notion of ‘subactivism’) to address different segments of the data.Results show that participants in Växtgäris hold a variety of motivations for participating in the group, such as exchanging knowledge, connecting with other people interested in plants and to escape oppressive behaviour. Interviewees further described a variety of attitudes towards the group’s separatist element, ranging from very positive to more questioning standpoints. The study concludes that Växtgäris might provide a ‘safe space’ for sharing information, expressing feminist views, and ‘geeky’ expressions of love for plants. Finally, inconspicuous individual actions, such as referring to wider societal and political discourses and planting certain linguistic codes, might be viewed as expressions of ‘mundane citizenship’ and ‘subactivism’. The thesis adds to research investigating contemporary feminist expression, community formation and identity construction in online environments and further reveals how marginalised identities in Sweden might deal with oppression in today’s increasingly digital society.

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Imagine a grocery store that physically helps you to make healthy decisions for you. Your Twinkies, Hoho's, and other processed foods are all available and within sight, but you've got to work for them. In the wake of challenges that Americans face every day, this thesis project is putting a magnifying glass to (hi)stories and the human experience, and promoting change for American suburban and urban grocery stores to be health-fitness machines that we need them to be in order to help those of us on a quest to stay fit and healthy. With the information age pretty much exploding- as we are able to do a search for just about anything on Google, lack of information is not necessarily the problem. While gimmicky short term dieting fads come and go, an architectural model solution can set the foundation and structure to sustain progress. Let's look to the origins of architecture, labyrinths are built of walls, but if we are not careful, we can let them lead us to dead ends. Let's look to the origins of the marketplace, where fresh foods are taken directly from the source. For many of us, the modern American grocery store is the origin of our energy, where we will return again and again. It is our food source. It might be one root of our society's increasing levels of unhealthy weight gain, but also the source of opportunity to challenge the current design of the boxed store. / Master of Architecture

The disparate concepts of Pop Art and abstract painting heavily influence the scope of my work. Finding a link between these two concepts has been the focal point of my studio practices. The apex of my process is the focus on commercial imagery as abstract form. The merging of these two concepts presents a complex composition of balance, color and information. This thesis explores the various concepts as well as influences that have propelled the evolution of my work. It chronicles the steps I have taken in my quest to articulate my conceptual ideas. By describing the works and defining their characteristics, this analysis gives further insight to my perception as well as process.

272f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-30T18:49:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Renato Izidoro.pdf: 1035047 bytes, checksum: 997e19cd8f268cdfce9eaab9b8878b34 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-06-06T18:58:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Renato Izidoro.pdf: 1035047 bytes, checksum: 997e19cd8f268cdfce9eaab9b8878b34 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-06-06T18:58:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Renato Izidoro.pdf: 1035047 bytes, checksum: 997e19cd8f268cdfce9eaab9b8878b34 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Trata da educação escolar indígena acerca da configuração de sua realidade contemporânea. Sugerimos como hipótese central que a educação escolar indígena contemporânea apresenta como sendo uma de suas facetas mais relevantes e possivelmente hegemônicas em relação a outros direcionamentos nesse campo, a constituição e desenvolvimento profícuo de uma realidade científica confluente com o privilégio e a ênfase que nossa sociedade nacional e globalizada investe sobre a produção de ciência, cultura, política e economia na forma de textos e literaturas fundamentalmente codificadas a partir da escrita, designando a modernidade ocidental como sendo grafocêntrica alfabética em detrimento de outros modos de informação, comunicação, pensamento e práticas próprias de outras formas de sociedade como o caso das etnias indígenas. Defendemos que a prerrogativa empreendida em prol do desenvolvimento textual ou literário grafocentrado no sistema alfabético de comunicação governamental e acadêmico provoca um distanciamento do pensamento e da ação cientifica que se anunciam como comprometidos com as realidades mundanas, objetiva, material – em oposição ao ideal – realista das escolas indígenas cada vez mais presentes e participantes da vida comunitária das inúmeras e diversas etnias habitantes do território político e econômico brasileiro. O privilégio sobre as produções textuais tem como guia hodierno quatro conceitos legislativos e também científicos fundamentais para a configuração teórica e prática da educação escolar indígena: interculturalidade, bilinguismo, diferenciada e específica. Em sendo o centro motriz das experiências e análises acadêmicas e políticas sobre a educação escolar indígena, tais conceitos surgem e são assim reforçados como proposições teóricas e políticas para o desenvolvimento de intervenções educacionais no seio das aldeias indígenas tomando como ambiente privilegiado a escola. Entretanto, os incontáveis fracassos, os diversos efeitos colaterais teóricos e metodológicos provocados pelas aplicações das proposições legislativas; o agravamento de situações específicas junto a um imenso conjunto de mal-entendidos ao lado do acirramento de contradições filosóficas, ideológicas, políticas, econômicas, científicas, críticas e experimentais fizeram com que passássemos a desconfiar – e investigar as – das possibilidades objetivas de realização dos referidos conceitos fundamentais fora dos campos de produções imaginárias – mentais – e textuais concebidas aqui como virtuais, assim como impossíveis de realização dentro das dinâmicas mundanas das comunidades indígenas, suas escolas e seus sujeitos. Em suma, os excelentes e esclarecedores desdobramentos das produções textuais e literárias sobre educação escolar indígena, assim como por esse meio a produção e aperfeiçoamento de instrumentos teórico-metodológicos e técnicotecnológicos cada vez mais complexos e arrojados, não vêm correspondendo com as aparências superestruturais e com as bases infra-estruturais da vida indígena na Modernidade. Assim, a dúvida que passou a nos acometer toma a forma de perguntas como: não seriam os quatro conceitos fundamentais da educação escolar indígena atual aporias e ideologias cujas tentativas de efetivação não seriam esquadrinhadas pelo que entendemos por práticas da alquimia? Nesse sentido, a partir de pensadores como Bachelard, Peirce e Marx/Gramsci sugerimos como práxis o estabelecimento de experimentações cada vez mais radicais e controladas dos mencionados quatro conceitos fundamentais em contextos particulares de educação escolar indígena não em prol da afirmação dos mesmos, mas sim em favor de um ponto de vista científico que tem como garantia de um conhecimento aproximado do real a dúvida e a desconfiança sobre as proposições teóricas geralmente tidas como imutáveis e necessárias. / Salvador

Like Alike explores notions of pleasure and beauty through an examination of mundane activity. Pleasure is simple, uncomplicated niceness. Pleasure is forgettable and related to the norm. Beauty is complicated and hardly predicted. Finding beauty in the banal provides an escape from mundane life. The banal, then becomes unforgettable. The nondescript, everyday experience becomes important and gains meaning. Like Alike's electronic format is adapted from the original format of an artist book.