Master of Fine Arts Thesis

Permanent URI for this collection

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 143
  • Item
    Under the Skin
    (Alfred University, 2023) Wang, Vivian
    My work exists to capture, give form to and emanate feelings experienced. I rely on the body who retains their vivid memory. Every feeling I pursue must find its material form. That material form sets its own requirements in terms of the appropriate mediums to use. I do not subscribe to any particular medium for my art. I often use media technologies that are familiar to me together with other mediums because they help me achieve the forms I pursue. I work with four dimensions, space and time, as they are sensed by the body. My sensorial interest often results in immersive or interactive installations where I try to involve the viewer’s body as a sensorium. I choose materials that engage as many senses as possible. I have a penchant for textiles because they involve touch. I use carbonized wood and essential oils to stimulate the sense of smell. Video projection helps me gen erate the ghostly effects of fleeting memories or the persistence of traumatic obsessions. Robotic kinesis helps me recreate memories associated with movements. Books allow me to engage the viewers with greater intimacy. I do not tell stories. I try to place the viewer in situations where the experiences will generate feelings, they will recognize through the bodily memories revived. The human body that senses and remembers serves as our com mon denominator. The viewers provide the stories to themselves.
  • Item
    Fantasy Download
    (Alfred University, 2023) Turner, Sarah; Souther, Eric; Deutsch, Andrew; Scheer, Joseph
    FANTASY DOWNLOAD is a container, a spell, a broadcast, and a celebration. What can we envision in a world that is reorganizing itself after such devastation? How can we manifest it, hold onto it, build upon it? glitch_bitch, a cam girl priestess, can guide you towards your own fantasy reality. Enter her world, and unlock new visions of ecstasy, pleasure, and spiritual enlightenment. For a small fee, you can pass through a new threshold into a dreamscape of your own desires. Let go of your shame, fear, guilt, and mundanity and embrace what is veiled behind the screen. Big Daddy Universe is calling. Meet him halfway.
  • Item
    Atemporal Miscellany
    (Alfred University, 2023) Kripper, Kevin
    I was introduced to personal computers, game consoles, and the Internet at a very early age. I belong to one of the first generations in Argentina with such technology available in those first years of life. By the age of eight, there was already a desktop computer, a Sega Genesis, and a dial-up connection at home. Even younger, my parents enrolled me in Futurekids, an after school computer camp to learn about, and produce with, emerging new technologies. Back then, computer courses were not offered at school, so it was there, where I first experimented with creating digital drawings, animations, recording, editing digital audio and video, and more. This probably sparked my interest in all processes involving different technologies, and sent me into an eclectic journey that eventually led me into computer-assisted art and craftsmanship, and creative software development. In other words, for the past ten years, I have been going back and forth (and trying to merge all together) fine arts, creative programming, product design, advertising and education. That is why I ended up calling myself a “media researcher” rather than an artist, as I approach the different mediums I work with from a broad perspective that not only includes the arts, but also toolmaking and teaching. Part of my work emerges from my interest in media itself. Using self developed tools, found material from art and technology history, and speculative futures/pasts, I engage with topics that explore notions of appropriation, authorship, techno-phobias, glitch (in it’s pure form), new media art conservation, and media archeology. These pieces are generally presented as interactive installations, sculptures and mixed reality experiences. This path I took made me explore a wide range of technologies from the present and the past, and experiment combining them into hybrid systems as a way to change the future. Sometimes, these explorations take the shape of a conceptual art piece, and other times, as tools to assist myself (and others) in the creative process and art practice. The mutual symbiotic relationship I established with technology to create art, while departing from it to comment on, challenge and develop technology, albeit beautiful, made my body of work very complex since it explore a wide variety of topics and aesthetics, even making it seems to be done by different artists. So, for clarity, I tend to split my artistic practice in two: My other body of work relates to Vsynth, a self developed digital lab of modular video synthesis, image processing and video-tool design inspired by the video culture of the late 60’s and 70’s where artists, engineers and programmers worked together co-creating new technologies for the art but also for liberating the spirit and expand consciousness. I was deeply inspired by the visual fantasies Eric Siegel had in mind when he wondered...
  • Item
    Body Like a Thorn
    (Alfred University, 2023-05) Walton, Victoria; Hanes, Stephanie; Hopp, Johnathan; McConnell, Walter; Montgomery, Lindsay; Sikora, Linda; Willard, Adero
    Body Like A Thorn encompasses how it feels to be actively in resistance. Through prioritizing narratives of Black queer|trans and disabled persons, I illustrate a push and pull between the constrictive systems from dominant expectations of being to the organic, where there is room and belonging for nonconformity and variety. This tension is felt in the various installations, wall-hanging textile collages, the nets pulling coiled ceramic vessels, and life-size figurative works. I meld my disability activism and theory into tangible forms. What is natural cannot be contained and cannot be held back. Through the work, I am able to assert that the Black nonconforming person is seen as a thorn to conventional society. Through the subversion of norms, the thorn is activated in a new way, to re-establish agency against normative assimilation, and to accept the beauty of their differences as part of the natural world.
  • Item
    Mana Dir
    (Alfred University, 2023-05) Shrestha, Shushank; Hanes, Stephanie; Hopp, Johnathan; McConnell, Walter; Montgomery, Lindsay; Sikora, Linda; Willard, Adero
    ‘Mandir’ is made of the Sanskrit word‘s ‘mana’ meaning ‘inner self’ and ‘dir’ meaning ‘a place.’ This paper is a personal reflection of my journey of transformation and self discovery, centered on the exploration of what it means to be human in the present day. I draw around the concept of animism, which is the belief that every inanimate object has a spirit or a soul, and argue that this idea can help foster a deep appreciation and respect for the world around us, including the divine energies that are present in it. To illustrate this concept, I look into cartoons and Disney animated movies as a source of inspiration and fantasy. These works of art are not only entertaining but also convey emotions and ideas that may be difficult to express through other means. They offer a way to escape from the stresses of everyday life and enter a magical world where anything is possible. As people grow up, they tend to forget the freedom and positivity of childhood. By invoking the spirit of animism and the inspiration of cartoons, I created an exhibition that will remind viewers of the joy and wonder of childhood. The hope is that by appreciating the divine energies in the world around us and fostering a compassionate and empathetic worldview, we can create a better world for ourselves and others.