Codons are simple primitives for describing plane curves. They thus are primarily image-based descriptors. Yet they have the power to capture important information about the 3-D world, such as making part boundaries explicit. The codon description is highly redundant (useful for error-correction). This redundancy can be viewed as a constraint on the number of possible codon strings. For smooth closed strings that represent the bounding contour (silhouette) of many smooth 3D objects, the constraints are so strong that sequences containing 6 elements yield only 33 generic shapes as compared with a possible number of 15, 625 combinations.

This thesis explores the relationship between photography and painting from the mid-nineteenth-century to the early twentieth-century. Specifically, I focus on the artistic outputs of four painters, Degas, Vuillard, Bonnard and Sickert, and the different manners in which they incorporated photography within their creative practices. In particular, I concentrate on photography’s representation of and relationship with time, discussing this in relation to three concepts, that of the narrative moment, memory and motion; concepts that painters often experimented with and explored during the timeframe mentioned. Throughout the thesis I examine how the paintings of my selected artists compare and contrast with photographic imagery. By doing so I demonstrate how these artists incorporated and commented on photographic notions of time within their paintings. Three of the artists, Degas, Vuillard and Bonnard, also experimented with photography and I look at how their photographic experiments related to and/or impacted their painting practices. This thesis argues that the selected painters’ experimentation with photography did not hinder their creative vision, but rather enhanced it. Further, I comment on how these artists recognised the differences between photographic representations of life and their own visual and emotional experiences, thereby challenging photography’s connection with objective truth; an important critique considering that photography was still in its infancy.

This thesis presents two separate and complementary tools for understanding and analyzing design patterns. The first tool, the High-Level Pattern Representation (HiLPR), exposes the fundamental characteristics hidden within a design pattern's solution. This tool combines the information in parallel patterns' solutions and forces, and integrates information that is critical for pattern implementation. The second tool, the Dynamic Pattern Categorization (DPC), works between all of the patterns in an entire pattern language, and groups patterns of similar characteristics to support analysis and selection. Possible categories are presented and discussed, and further work can combine the exposure of characteristics from HiLPR into categorization by the DPC. The evaluation of these tools highlights a hidden weakness of current design pattern languages and practices. The conclusions raised by this work suggest that there are methods that will support pattern language construction. / Graduate

The focus of this study is the exploration and interpretation of women's visual and textual experiences of menopause. It is a conversational mapping of embodied space and time as they re-imagine memories and actual experiences which have informed their changing sense of self during the transitional stages of menopause. The research examines the ways in which artwork, visual diaries, journals, creative writing and poetry make visible a fresh perception of their female sense of the lived body. The project examines the contemporary cultural meanings of femininity, sexuality and identity which have informed women's understanding of their bodies and gender during the transformative years of menopause, and it explores the ways in which these forms of knowledge have influenced their artistic modes of self-representation.In the first chapter I acquaint the reader with the context of the research, and outline my understandings of the human body and social theories. I direct the exploration of texts towards a range of feminist theoretical perspectives which suggest women's biological and reproductive bodies provide spaces for re-visioning personal and social change.The next two chapters explain how I develop theoretical and methodological arts-based approaches enabling an innovative and appropriate investigation of the phenomenon in question. I explain how I have blended various textual expressive genres with interpretive research methodologies and philosophical viewpoints. In these chapters I recount the imaginative strategies and techniques used to portray the ontological, phenomenological and epistemological perspectives of the lived experience of menopause.Following this, I present seven stories. Each story portrays how artistic genres grasp particular experiences and transform them into imaginative expressive inter-textual representations. / The stories also demonstrate how this type of research is done, and how the meaning-making processes of collaborative research draw out resonances towards real and imagined, and internal and external sites of personal and political significance.Accompanying the stories is a fourth chapter entitled Menopause Perspecta X 5. In writing this section, I adopt a different narrational approach and voice as I move from the realm of storyteller to that of art curator presenting a series of visual images and the poetic writings of five women. As well as portraying different voices speaking at different levels, each presentation continues the task of opening spaces for translation between word and image.The thesis concludes with a reflective overview of the menopausal body, image and text. In the coda, Notes Towards A Work In Progress, I express my thoughts on creating alternative spatial practices, and tell another story. Through its poetic and lyrical content, I attempt to offer possibilities for restoring a sense of menopausal self, love, hope, and a meaningful relationship with the world.

In the late twentieth century, science and technology facilitated exploration beyond the Solar System and extended human knowledge through messages comprised of pictures and mathematical symbols, transmitted from radio telescopes and inscribed on material artifacts attached to spacecraft. ‘Interstellar communication’ refers to collective efforts by scientists and co-workers to detect and transmit intelligible messages between humans and supposed extraterrestrial intelligence in remote star systems. Interstellar messages are designed to communicate universal knowledge without recourse to text, human linguistic systems or anthropomorphic content because it is assumed that recipients have no prior knowledge of humankind or the planet we inhabit. In addition to tracing and examining the history of interstellar communication during the period 1957-1977, I present an overview of scientific research on ‘interplanetary communication’ with the supposed inhabitants of Mars and other planets in the Solar System during the first half of the twentieth century. I show that it was not until the late 1950s that space exploration research provided the resources for humans to engage in systematic attempts to contact extraterrestrial civilizations in other star systems. My thesis focuses on two interstellar messages incorporated on specially designed material artifacts –NASA’s Pioneer plaque and Voyager Record—dispatched from Earth on board space probes during the 1970s. I critically examine how scientists designed and mobilized interstellar messages both to convey meaning and simultaneously support rhetorical claims about the universality of science and mathematics. I analyze how situated practices, craft skills and graphical technologies associated with scientific research on interstellar messages were deployed by scientists to produce and disseminate knowledge and support the claim that science and mathematics are universal. I examine the histories of technologies linked to space exploration including radio astronomy, television, communication satellites and space probes, tracing how knowledge practices and discourse associated with these technologies are enmeshed with the history of interstellar communication. In particular, I explain how and why television and other display technologies were appropriated by researchers working on interstellar communication to create visual representations of knowledge. I argue that televisual displays and radio telescopes constitute graphical technologies or ‘inscription devices’ deployed by scientists, media producers and others to translate natural objects, agency and culture into legible forms constituted in and through inscriptions, predominantly pictures and mathematical symbols, that convey knowledge within communication networks.

The visual appearance of video game characters carries great importance in regards to how a player perceives them. This also holds true for characters that are meant to represent the player in games, their avatars. In this thesis, the topic of preferences regarding visual appearance in relation to age of player avatars is explored. Interviews were held with participants from two age demographics in order to find potential differences and analyse them. The two age demographics consisted of middle aged swedes and young adult swedes. In the interviews, the respondents were given choices between eight different characters sketches. These eight sketches consisted of two groups, one meant to appear as being in the same age group as the young adult swedes and one meant to appear as being part of the middle aged swedes age group. After having made their choices, the respondents were asked to explain the motivation behind them. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the thought process that fueled their answers, the respondents were also prompted to answer question regarding their gaming habits, and their preferences in characters in other mediums than games. Results from the interviews indicated that there were trends in the choices made by the participants that differed between the two demographics. A majority of the demographic consisting of young adult swedes chose characters that were designed to appear closer to their age. Similarly, a majority of the middle aged demographic chose characters that were designed to appear closer to their age group. In short, a majority of the participants from both demographics showed a preference towards characters that were closer to their own age group.

This diploma thesis tries to reflect and clarify the technical images produced by the polygraphic industry with specific methods of production and try find relationship between printer as an apparatus and printer house as an institucion. The technical image is understood as an elementary imaging model, which serves as a means of visual representation and communication tool. The printer can also be the essence of creative work that has the ability to clarify or determine readings and finally has the power to change the meaning and context of information.

This study explores how the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ relate to the visual representation of these individuals and groups in five Danish newspapers. This study is particularly concerned with how the visual representation constructs an ‘us’ and ‘them’ between Danish society and these individuals. This study draws on a conceptual outline of ‘racialization’ that understands the concept as a ‘lens’ that ‘race’-thinking operates through in the process of constructing group boundaries. This study will draw on Gillian Rose’s visual discourse analysis in the study of Danish newspaper images. It is argued that the ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ are represented as a racialized ‘Other’ to the Dane, in particular the Muslim identity. It is shown that a Muslim identity is a main racialized identity. Moreover, it is pointed out that the use of the term ‘refugee’ is dominant which indicates that this term is in danger of becoming a catch-all category.

The purpose of this research paper is to examine how Syrian refugees are visually represented in two of the largest newspapers in Sweden: Dagens Nyheter (Today’s news) and Svenska Dagbladet (The Swedish daily paper). Their choice of images on the Syrian refugee crisis will be analysed, to see what sort of message they send by using those specific images. The reason for this study is because previous studies have implied that the media has an important role in crafting national perceptions of refugees. Therefore, it is intriguing to analyse the images the newspapers published during the fall of 2015 to see how Syrian refugees were represented during that most active and chaotic period in Sweden and if the visual representation of Syrian refugees can influence cultures of hostility in Sweden. The study has been linked with previous studies research of visual representations of refugees (us and them, identifiable victim effect) and the severe consequences it can lead to (dehumanization, moral panic) if used improperly, and three main theories that will be the foundation to custom and analyse the images (agenda setting, framing and representation theory). These were all applied and used when operating the method (quantitative content analysis) to collect information and data and also later when analysing and discussing the results. The result of the study showed that the newspapers images did not only focus on negative aspects of events and stories surrounding Syrian refugees. Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet did not publish many negative images, but after the results, it is discovered that they are following that specific path on some aspects and that can be the start of a pattern that will be used more often in the future. While it is established that hostile and unwelcoming attitudes in the West have risen, the question remains how far its been developed in Sweden and how long it will be until the Swedish media promotes it as well. Key words: Syrian Refugee Crisis, Visual representation, Framing, Agenda setting and Stereotypes

In this project I explore visual representation, abstraction, and the interpretation of violence as transformed aesthetic forms. Through drawing and film, I develop a visual language to interpret the subject of war, to allow my audience to experience the dynamics of conflict and to reflect upon the devastating toll that war takes on humanity.