Art and optics are inseparable. Though seemingly opposite disciplines, the combination of art and optics has significantly impacted both culture and science as they are now known. As history has run its course, in the sciences, arts, and their fruitful combinations, optical aberrations have proved to be a problematic hindrance to progress. In an effort to eradicate aberrations the simple beauty of these aberrational forms has been labeled as undesirable and discarded. Here, rather than approach aberrations as erroneous, these beautiful forms are elevated to be the photographic subject in a new body of work, On the Bright Side. Though many recording methods could be utilized, this work was composed on classic, medium-format, photographic film using white-light, Michelson interferometry. The resulting images are both a representation of the true light rays that interacted on the distorted mirror surfaces (data) and the artist’s compositional eye for what parts of the interferogram are chosen and displayed. A detailed description of the captivating interdisciplinary procedure is documented and presented alongside the final artwork, CCD digital reference images, and deformable mirror contour maps. This alluring marriage between the arts and sciences opens up a heretofore minimally explored aspect of the inextricable art-optics connection. It additionally provides a fascinating new conversation on the importance of light and optics in photographic composition.

Class of 2010 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: The purpose of Project SHAPE was to provide an interdisciplinary workshop for future practitioners from the Colleges of Pharmacy, Medicine and Public Health on health literacy to improve the communication between the patients and their providers. METHODS: Study participants were recruited via email from the Colleges of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Public Health at The University of Arizona. Participants attended a workshop that included a one-hour presentation by Dr. Barry Weiss followed by the development of educational materials on various health topics. A retrospective analysis of the health professional students’ knowledge of health literacy was performed. Materials were provided to El Rio Community Health Center, Colleges of Pharmacy, Medicine and Public Health to distribute to their patients in the Tucson community. RESULTS: Students’ overall knowledge on health literacy and communication with patients improved by 88% after the presentation. A total of nine different low literacy educational materials were developed by the students who attended the workshop. Copies of the educational materials were given to participating students from the other colleges to use in their patient outreach programs. The materials were also distributed to patients at a variety of brown bags, community health fairs, screenings, and El Rio Community Health Center. CONCLUSIONS: Project SHAPE has already affected many future healthcare practitioners through the interdisciplinary workshop. The educational materials will continue to be provided to patients in the Tucson community.

A Mediated Intimacy; Art, Technology and Exchange in the Digital Age examines the role of intimacy in the technologically extended work of art. The text posits that there are three strategies that the technologically extended work of art uses to create mediated intimacy. These strategies are technological completion, where the viewer/participant completes the work; technological exchange, where the viewer/participant enters into an exchange with the work; and technological displacement, where the viewer is displaced from their time and place and occupies a new co-constructed space. The strategies are analyzed through the theories of subjectivities of the self, and Foucault’s approach to inter-subjective exchanges is employed to understand how they function. The strategies are further demonstrated through analysis of works by Gary Hill, Janet Cardiff and Martine Neddam. A concrete example of the three strategies is presented in an original mobile media based project, Cite, Site, Sight: Richmond.

In this thesis project, my intention was to integrate diverse high school courses with poignant subject matter to increase the amount of learning students can achieve. This unit plan explored a Prince George High School (Virginia) multi-class cooperative effort involving biodiesel production. The project involved creating a biodiesel refinery built by Production Systems classes according to plans purchased from the Internet. The research for converting used kitchen oil into biodiesel and the titration of the fuel was conducted by Chemistry classes. Graphics Imaging Technology students created a logo, a poster, and designed brochures that described the processes and benefits of this product. Marketing classes conducted consumer surveys and devised a product distribution plan.Graphic Imaging Technology, a Career and Technical Education course, has long been linked to art education. For example, graphic design students incorporate art in many phases of their design projects. Specifically, during their preliminary creative thinking, students sketch thumbnails of possible design solutions and regularly use their drawn or painted illustrations in their printed pieces. Additionally, film photography, which is commonly viewed as a fine art, has been used by graphic design students for several years. This art form has been replaced by digital photography in many design studios and school classrooms, but the principles of balance and composition remain the same.Other teaching strategies such as interdisciplinary study have also been introduced into graphic design and art class curricula. The rise in cross-curricular studies is indicative of the importance of varying the classroom instruction to offer the most diverse learning environment to students. Math and English are most often combined with unrelated classes in multi-discipline education, but regrettably, science classes typically are not. Since few fields of endeavor do not incorporate other disciplines, a multi-discipline class collaboration and unit plan which included high school Production Systems, Chemistry, Graphic Imaging Technology, and Marketing classes was developed.This project sought to establish a working relationship among various high school classes while providing a mutual learning environment. Additionally, disciplines that do not ordinarily interact with each other had the chance to take part in an renewable energy project that inspired new ideas and developed an increased consciousness of the environment.Finally, as students were involved in all facets of this biodiesel project, they experienced a working environment similar to the "real world". Establishing school-to-work programs that facilitate a smooth transition from high school to the work force is one of the main goals of the Prince George High School Career and Technical Education department. Students communicated their thoughts, worked together, and helped one another the same way as if they were employed at a business.

As new media become more ubiquitous, our emotional experiences in digital space are increasing exponentially as well. While there is much talk of “affective” computing and “affective” new media art, a disconnect exists between networked emotions and the popular media that they inhabit. This research presents a theoretical framework for assessing “digital emotions”—a term that describes the feedback process between digital technologies and the body with respect to short, networked inscriptions of emotion and the (re)experience of those inscriptions within the body and through digital space. Digital emotions display five basic characteristics that can be applied to a variety of media environments: (1) They describe a process of feedback that link short, emotive inscriptions in digital environments to users and their (re)experiences of those inscriptions; (2) This feedback process includes, but is not limited to, the inscriber, the medium, and the receiver and the emotive experience fuels the initial connectivity and any further connectivity; (3) The emotional value varies depending on the media, the community of users, and the aesthetic experience of the digital emotion; (4) Digital emotions influence our emotional repertoire by normalizing our paradigm scenarios; and (5) They are highly malleable based on changes in technologies and their ability to both expand and contract emotional experiences in real time. The core characteristics of digital emotions are applied to three broad and overlapping categories: technology, community, and aesthetic experience. Each of these aspects of digital emotions work together, yet they exist along the massive spectrum of our online, emotional experiences—from our casual click of the “like” button to digital community artworks. Applied to digital spaces along this spectrum, digital emotions illuminate the feedback process that occurs between the media, the network, and the environment. The framework ultimately suggests that the process of digital emotions explicates emotions experiences that could only occur in digital space and are therefore unique to digital culture.

The technology of the codex book and the habit of reading appear to be under attack currently for a variety of reasons explored in the Introduction of this Dissertation. One natural response to attack is a resulting effort to adapt in a bid to survive. Noël Carroll, leading American philosopher in the contemporary philosophy of art, touches on this concept in his discussion of the evolution of a new medium in his article, “Medium Specificity Arguments and Self-Consciously Invented Arts: Film, Video, and Photography,” from his Cambridge University Press 1996 text, Theorizing the Moving Image. Carroll proposes that any new medium undergoes phases of development (and I include new technology under that umbrella)). After examining Carroll’s theory this Dissertation attempts to apply it to the Children’s Picturebook Field, exploring the hypothesis that the published children’s narrative does evolve, has already evolved historically in response to other mediums/technologies, and is currently “e-volving” in response to emerging “e-media.” This discussion examines ways new media (particularly emerging e-media) affect the published children’s narrative form, content, and function (with primary focus on the picturebook form), and includes some examination of the response of the child reader to those changes. Chapter One explores the formation of the question, its value, and reviews available literature. Chapter Two compares the effects of an older sub-genre, the paper-engineered picturebook, with those of emerging e-picturebooks. Chapter Three compares the Twentieth Century Artist’s Book to picturebooks created by select past and current picturebook creators. Chapter Four first considers the shifting cultural mindset of Western Culture from a linear, word-based outlook to the non-linear, more visual approach fostered by the World Wide Web and supporting “screen” technologies; then identifies and examines current changes in form, content and function of the designed picturebooks that are developing “on the page” within the constraints of the codex book format. The Dissertation concludes with a review of Leonard Shlain’s 1998 text, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, using it as a departure point for final observations regarding unique strengths of the children’s picturebook as a learning tool for young children.

A Muslim should be encouraged to comprehend the benefit and value behind every aspect of Islamic practice and wisdom, and not just practice their religion because they were told to do so. The products proposed in this thesis aim to achieve this by inviting and encouraging a Muslim to practice The Five Pillars of Islam while comprehending their value through the use of modern means such as Arduino technology, 3D printing and visual computing programing. I am provoked by the fact that the circle of Gulf-region Muslims I’m surrounded by, and have been exposed to since childhood, belong to one of two stereotypes: those against or afraid of change who force adherence to religious chapter and verse, or those straying further and further away from our religion’s rituals and traditions. Can the practice of religion, and the values that it teaches us, be made more accessible and engaging by incorporating the very technology that is often accused of distracting us from its practice?

My mixed media paintings explore the concept of home. I showcase topics regarding what a home is and how it connects to one’s identity. My desire to find home, emotionally and literally, has always preoccupied my mind. I have never been able to set deep roots, and that is a very unsettling feeling. My obsession with homes focuses on abandoned houses. These dwellings that people once took so much pride in are now left to rot and decay. The dilapidated state makes me see them as symbolic lost souls. I find similarities between houses and the human experience; houses have a history in the same way that people do. My process begins by taking photographs of these homes and creating image transfers that I apply to old wooden planks. The wooden planks are salvaged from the home because they have a physical connection to the space. I layer my transfers onto the planks with paint, objects, dirt, and wallpaper from the homes. I seal the paintings with encaustic wax or resin to preserve the objects, as a tribute to the things that once held value. By using multiple media and objects, I create textured surfaces that help tell a story about the house. By telling a story, I want to create a second life for these places.

My work addresses notions of the American landscape through image, memory, and experience. Using found images, video, and a variety of materials to make objects I investigate the intersection of external representations of landscape in American culture and internalized desires of landscapes.

My artwork is about the impact of the digital revolution on every aspect of life, such as relationships, war, and self image. I explore this in the creation of sculptures that represent abstracted globes or video game worlds, digital animations concerning the virtual and simulated, and prints as allegories for embodied post-human experience. The visual themes of my work are bitmapped patterns, early computer graphics, and twenty-sided dice.