identifier: Peterson, Natasha  (2015) Searching for No End in Sight . . . : The Horizon in Vernacular Photography.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Horizon, Landscape, Infiniteness, Longing, Sublime, Framing device, Amateur Photographers, Archive, Parastoo Anoushahpour

abstract: Searching for No End In Sight… is an exhibition that begins with a line – the horizon. As a fundamental feature of the landscape, the horizon conjures up feelings of infiniteness, longing, and even the sublime. In family snapshots, it marks a division between earth and sky, and provides a backdrop for scenes of leisure and informal congregation. This exhibition examines the horizon as a metaphorical subject and a framing device used by anonymous amateur photographers. By comparing found photographs with numerous others from the Archive of Modern Conflict Toronto, as well as the artwork of Parastoo Anoushahpour, the horizon is reconsidered as a subject with spatial and affective resonances.


identifier: Saunders, Erin  (2015) Revisiting the Retrospective: Authorship and Authority in The Michael Snow Project.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

type: Thesis NonPeerReviewed

subject: Retrospective, Curator, The Michael Snow Project, Biographical

abstract: This thesis examines the defining qualities of the retrospective curatorial model using The Michael Snow Project, hosted in 1994 by the Art Gallery of Ontario and The Power Plant, as a case study. A source of modern conceptions of authority, the retrospective employs particular canonization criteria by directing curatorial argument to biographical origins. The occasion of the retrospective therefore imposes a set of interpretive limitations on artworks whose themes problematize authorship, channel elements of chaos or accident, or question historical viewing. A critique of three catalogue essays for the Project demonstrates how—despite curatorial awareness of the retrospective model and various attempts to transcend its structures—these canonization criteria shape interpretation. Both the Project’s critical consciousness of this model and the varied nature of Snow’s corpus present an opportunity to consider the enduring influence of retrospective framing on curatorial discourse, and its continued effects on contemporary deployments of a popular model.


identifier: Simmons, Heather  (2015) Dell’s Third Horizon: The Innovation Imperative.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Consumer, Industries, Economics, Dell's Growth Rate, Wall Street, Companies, Risk-Taking

abstract: To the disrupters go the spoils.  Those who disrupt industries can change consumer behavior, alter economics, and transform lives.  What caused the once-disruptive Dell’s growth rate and stock price to decline in the mid-2000s, and how might Dell thrive again? What are the lessons for other companies?  This study analyzes how innovative cultures are created, lost, and reborn in large companies through the lens of a long-term case study, namely my 13 years at Dell.  The research fuses Innovation and Foresight frameworks, principally Curry & Hodgson’s Three Horizons framework and Hill’s Willing and Able framework, and shows that Dell lost its innovation edge when a cultural shift and the pressures of Wall Street crushed risk-taking.  It posits that large companies should adopt an “intelligent gambler’s” approach to innovation – namely investing in other companies in order to effectively leverage their significant capital to take intelligent risks in a fast-changing world.


identifier: Snider, Jennifer  (2015) Art Administration as Performative Practice / Organizing Art as Institutional Critique.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Art Administration, Artist-Run, Critique, Diagnostic Organizing, Andrea Fraser, Kunstverein Toronto, Kari Cwynar, Kara Hamilton, Performative

abstract: A propositional rethinking of art administration within the artist-run institution, this thesis contributes new conceptualizations of operations of the artist-run centre in Canada. The suggestion is that art administration practiced therein is a specialized embodied expression of the institution as apparatus. Proposing that the Canadian artist- run context is a form of and forum for institutional critique, this analysis argues that the art administrator is a unique practice of mediation in art called “diagnostic organizing;” a negotiative role gesturing toward performative relationships to protocol. Recontextualizing art administration as embodying the interface between art and policy, this study also names “performing the context” as an experimental and critical approach to arts facilitation. The work of artist Andrea Fraser is investigated for her writing and practices of institutional critique, as is the arts presentation project Kunstverein Toronto where Co-Director’s Kari Cwynar and Kara Hamilton’s performative language and gestures communicate their facilitative practices.


identifier: Sun, Xiangyu (Anna)  (2015) Responsive Environments Digital Out-of-Home Advertising: A Deeper Level of Interaction through Environments Data Analytics.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Advertising, Digital Media, Digital Out-Of-Home, SunDOOH Consulting, Toronto

abstract: The advertising industry is undergoing a revolution thanks to the development of digital media. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is part of this revolution. It refers to digital media used for marketing purposes in public and outdoor locations. The industry is growing by about 40% per year and is expected to reach US $7 billion annually. This thesis project aims to create a deeper level of interaction with DOOH audiences through environmental data analytics. The project allows the advertising team to create a display wherein the billboard content changes automatically and synchronically with changes in the display’s environment. Since digital out-of-home (DOOH) offers a market of absolute growth, I am also investigating how to introduce and launch this interactive solution to the DOOH advertising Industry. This plan is for the start-up of SunDOOH Consulting in Toronto, Canada and serves major U.S. market.


identifier: Taalab, Sherif  (2015) Mis/Represent: Women & Visible Minority Representation in Videogames.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Identity Formation, Gaming Representation, Gender, Visible Minority, Game Characters, AAA vs. Indie

abstract: This work examines stereotypes and representations attributed to visible minorities in AAA videogames. Looking through modes of identity creation, along with the demographic composition and history associated with game character creation, I seek to illustrate the ways in which visible minorities and women are represented and the challenges they face. Mis/Represent aims to empower women and visible minorities, bringing forth representation issues through a gaming platform and Social media campaign. Users choose from signifiers that relate to their personal identity. Once completed, they are given an artist’s rendition of a famous gaming character, redrawn to resemble a visible minority or a positive female representation, illustrating the potential for more progressive character creation. The project concludes by asking the participant to create their own rendition of a character that they feel best represents them. That character would then be shared on social media to distribute the efforts of awareness further.


identifier: Toliadis, Ilias  (2015) Travelling Talismans: An Exhibition of Drawing, painting and sculpture.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Talismans, Contemporary Art, Autobiographical, Migrant, Mobility, Memory, Cultural Identity, Nomadic, Sculpture, Collage

abstract: “Travelling Talismans” is an interdisciplinary thesis project that explores the meaning of talismanic objects in contemporary art and their integration in my studio practice. Drawing on my own autobiographical experiences as a migrant artist, this research explores the intersections between mobility, memory and cultural identity. The main objective of this thesis is to introduce new methodologies for actualizing and materializing the hidden meaning of talismanic objects and their potential for evoking conversations and reflections about questions of cultural identity for the travelling—or nomadic— contemporary artist. To this end, I draw on four distinct media in my studio practice: namely, wooden sculpture, collage-based paintings, text-based wall interventions and drawings. I hope to uncover some poetic values through an interdisciplinary investigation of talismanic objects.


identifier: Trommer, Michael  (2015) Situating Cinematic Space within an Acoustemological Framework: Transmissions from the Technological Sublime, An Audio-Visual Exhibition.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Acoustemology, Sound Studies, Expanded Cinema, Animation, Field Recording

abstract:
My thesis project explores how cinematic space can be articulated within an acoustemological framework. Resituating cinema within a sonic – rather than a visual – ontology affords a capacity for privileging sensory and sensual forms of mediation that have been for the most part subsumed by the dominance of the image. Transmissions from the Technological Sublime is an audio-visual work comprising seven audio channels (comprising six regular speakers arranged in a hexagonal array and one subwoofer) as well as a durational, large-scale, 3D animated video projection employing an extra-wide aspect ratio of 16:3.
This project draws upon an expanded notion of sound as a medium that is not only vibratory but also anamnetic, encompassing the immaterial as well as the tactile and manifesting itself as topological, temporal and subjective. It also approaches the idea of space as a site that embraces the cognitive and cultural, and that can thus be similarly apprehended as both imaginary and substantive. Building upon a broadened approach to field-recording as a central research methodology and deploying the affective and tactile capacities of sound to bring a fictional, animated environment to life, the project seeks to engender an awareness of space that is vibratory, textural and evolving, rather than merely perspectival or fixed.


identifier: Wallen, Genevieve  (2015) There Is Always More than What We Perceive.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Black, Queer, Artist, Toronto, Identity, Race, Sexuality, Gender, Space, Michele Pearson Clarke, Abdi Osman, Natalie Wood, Monolingual, Heteronomative Ideologies, Representation

abstract: There Is Always More than What We Perceive explored the ways in which contemporary black queer artists in Toronto engage issues of identity, race, sexuality, gender, and space. The selected artists—Michèle Pearson Clarke, Abdi Osman, and Natalie Wood— challenged the monolingual voice of black studies set by patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies. Their representations of black queer diasporic subjects present identities that exist in the interstices between normalized social categories. This exhibition project contributed to the decentralization of monolithic blackness and LGBTQ identity by asking: “Whose blackness? Whose queerness?” These queries were twofold; first they acknowledged the need to recognize the plurality of the black experience across geographical locations, and secondly, they cautioned viewers against black or queer universalism. The exhibition There Is Always More than What We Perceive rendered visible multiple intersections of personhood in order to enrich and expand discussions about blackness in Canada.


identifier: Whist, Miranda  (2015) Engaging Ethnography: creative fieldwork in the everyday.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Everyday, Video Installation, Artist-Ethnographer, Transient Spaces, Research, Representation, Ethnography

abstract: Through inviting the tacit and the intuitive to be components of my anthropological research, Engaging Ethnography’s objective is to communicate, through corporeal and visually explorative means, the affective and aesthetic nature of the everyday. By projecting small-scale videos onto objects and spaces, my intent as artist-ethnographer is to highlight the embodied and expressive qualities of the liminal and transient spaces that characterize the everyday and our movement though it. Using creative production as a form of research, Engaging Ethnography uses anthropology and media art in order to create a hybrid form of engagement, that of ‘creative fieldwork.’ This interdisciplinary model is an attempt to bring the visual into the ethnographic in order to bridge the gap between research and representation while also expanding the range of materials and methods used to engage in ethnography.


identifier: Willis, John  (2015) AccessMakers: A Platform for Inclusive Innovation.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Collabroative User Networks, Accessibility, Disabilities, AccessMakers, Online Community, Low Vision, UX Design

abstract: This paper focuses on the feasibility of deploying collaborative user networks to address accessibility challenges faced by people with disabilities. It describes the creation of AccessMakers, a multi-‐stakeholder design process and online community that supports organizations to identify opportunities for innovation by engaging stakeholders who face access barriers. The author, a designer with low-‐vision, describes his practice-‐based research journey from the development of a theoretical model of access barriers as a type of breakdown in service systems, to his effort to re-‐frame accessibility as a user-‐, or customer-‐, experience (UX/CX). The paper includes a review of emerging collaborative practices including open innovation, user innovation, and co-‐production/co-‐ creation in public services to demonstrate the feasibility of moving beyond regulatory and legalistic approaches to accessibility. Finally, the author   describes how he prototyped a storytelling technique to capture access barrier experiences for collaborative networks, and used it as the kernel of the AccessMakers  platform.


identifier: Wright, Laura  (2015) Twinstallation: An interactive video installation.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Algorithmic Structure, Embodiment, False Memory, Identity, Interactive Storytelling, Installation, Kinect, Non-Linear Narrative, Twins, Uncanny

abstract: Twinstallation is a series of loosely knit discussions about how being a twin has affected my life and my twin sister Meredith’s life. The user’s physical movements dictate the flow of the videos through an algorithmic structure, thus creating an opportunity for an embodied experience of the story. I draw on Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” to engage with the affective dimensions of twinning. I include Lev Manovich’s framework for viewing interactive media to understand the psychological connections users make when viewing new media work. I suggest that, by combining interactivity in non-linear storytelling and the act of participating in an installation, the user’s experience may be enhanced and they may experience a greater sense of agency.


identifier: Yang, Han  (2015) FATED: An Interactive Film with Controllable Point-‐of-‐View Camera.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Storytelling, Future Cinema, Videogames, Gameplay Experience, Interactive Camera, Point-Of-View Camera, Narrative Structure, Virtual Presence, First-Person Shooter Game, 3D Animation, 360-Degree Filmmaking

abstract: The crossover between videogames and film inspires this thesis. It is an attempt to integrate narrative and engagement in digital filmmaking thereby enabling active audience participation in the storytelling process. By analyzing early point-‐of-‐view camera experiments and contemporary implementation of these techniques in first-‐ person shooter games this thesis presents the different values of point-‐of-‐view perspective in both games and films. In addition, the thesis explores the impact of film on games via the use of cut scenes, narrative structure and cinematic language in order to uncover some fundamental principles of gameplay experience. Integration of an interactive point-‐of-‐view camera technique with traditional cinematography in a linear narrative underpins the filmmaking experimentation of this thesis. By producing a participatory film, the thesis tests this mix of filmmaking techniques and audience engagement, with a result suggesting that the viewing experience was improved.


identifier: Zou, Hong  (2015) Making Stock Market Charts Accessible through Provision of Textual Information in a Common Interface.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Stock Market Charts, Screen Reader, Non-Visual, Multi-Modal, Inclusive Design, Usability, Accessibility, Visual Impairment, Financial Literacy

abstract: While sophisticated interactive charts provide a host of advantages to the majority of stock market investors, they also create a significant barrier to individuals with visual impairments. This paper describes exploration and usability testing of three proposed alternative accessibility solutions aimed at improving the accessibility and usability of stock market charts for visually impaired screen reader users. The findings revealed that although a dropdown menu solution was favoured over an auditory and text input solution, users prefer having as many options as possible; they would rather choose appropriate solutions according to their personal preferences and the task they wish to accomplish. In conclusion, a one-size-fits-all model is not ideal in meeting diverse users’ needs within the widest context possible. Providing options while enabling users to personalize the interface  through flexible configurations is indeed the ultimate goal of a design.


identifier: Zourntos, Takis  (2015) auto-lysis: art, engineering and circulating referents.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: First-Person Perspective, Engineering, Contemporary Art, Mimetic-Motion Cybernetic Machines, Workplinths, Installation

abstract: I present an investigation into the merging of art practice and engineering. The study is conducted from a ﬁrst-person perspective, in which I attempt to reconcile my engineering and research background with contemporary art. Through the use of an ongoing methodological dialogue, a comprehensive engagement between art practice and engineering results, producing a balanced (non-hierarchical) exchange of ideas. The works of the thesis exhibition blur the distinction between the aesthetic and the technical as well as the natural and the artiﬁcial, featuring mimetic-motion cybernetic machines, concept sketches, mathematical derivations, and an array of “workplinths.” Sited in an industrial complex, the installation is itself a gesture of intervention, bringing the domains of art and engineering into close proximity.


identifier: Khan, Areen  (2015) Hatter: Empowering Buskers through a Social App.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Buskers, Public Art, Micro Payments, Digital Currency, Urban Spaces, Cashless Society, Mobile Payment Trends, Virtual Community, Social App, Beacons

abstract: The gradual decline of cash and proliferation of digital  payments  have  created  a radical shift, promising new levels of convenience for consumers today. This may adversely impact the earning potential of artists and performers from the busking community. Since the busking community primarily relies on hard cash/spare change from their patrons, I will argue, the predictions of a cashless society can pose great challenges for the busking community. This thesis investigates how mobile technology might address this phenomenon to augment methods of making monetary and non-monetary contributions to buskers. Research through ethnographic methods and literature review, as well as usability testing, the gathered insights and results projected a foreseeable need for buskers and patrons to realize an exchange via a mobile application called ‘Hatter.’ Hatter enables patrons to continue to contribute to buskers, who in turn  are empowered to  receive social and financial capital, even in a cashless society.


identifier: Strong, Samuel  (2015) The Comic's Heartbeat: Framing Affective Structures in Comics History.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: History of Comics, Narrative, Template, Bernard Krigstein, Art Spiegelman, David Mazzucchelli, Paul Karasik, Joshua Cotter, Semiotics

abstract: This thesis proposed a structure-centered method for composing a critical history of comics. It examined the development building and breaking template--a rigid grid of panels depicting a narrative arc, which then leads to a panel depicting the arc's climax that breaks with that established structure--through four moments in the history of English-language comics. Rather than attempting a comprehensive overview of the building and breaking template, the thesis was a proof of concept for the application of recent advances in structure-oriented comics theory and in theories of affect--the pre-cognitive experience of emotion-- to specific comic structures. Examining the work of Bernard Krigstein, Art Spiegelman, David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik, and Joshua Cotter, the thesis placed these artists within a context of conditionality, dependent both upon the material circumstances of comics production and upon the unique semiotic and affective experiences of the comic's readers.


identifier: Stavro-Beauchamp, Laura  (2015) Create & Grow Strong: Using Creative Exploration, Expression & Celebration to Foster Resilience in Youth.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: resilience, reflective practice, workshop, psychotherapeutic intervention, poverty, social work, education, psychology and interaction design.

abstract: This research explored the idea that a creative project undertaken in a group setting could help youth to cultivate the traits that contribute to increased resilience elsewhere in life. This thesis was revised based on findings derived from praxis, reflective practice and grounded theory research. Create & Grow Strong, a six-week workshop program and showcase celebration, was developed with art and play therapy in mind, but without the goal of direct psychotherapeutic intervention. There was strong evidence that this was successful in fostering feelings of pride, confidence and hopefulness and in creating an environment of trust that allowed for group discussion about issues prevalent in the local community. The study was based in Toronto’s Regent Park - an area associated with crime and poverty that was undergoing a government-initiated revitalization. This thesis considers the inspiration for the research, the existing work both by theorists and practitioners working in the fields of social work, education, psychology and interaction design. Also the author’s own design process, both technologically and, as the author built the workshops, the results and the insights gained from a grounded theory approach. Finally, potential future iterations of the work are discussed.


identifier: Chudnovtseva, Anna  (2014) Assessing the Experiment: Communication via Prototype.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: transformation, digital realm, materials nature and man-made objects, perspective, and rapid prototyping.

abstract:
The thesis project Assessing the Experiment records and reveals the complexity of transformation from two dimensional work into the work created within the digital realm. My goal is to create an environment in which these disciplines collide and commingle. The work is concerned with both the formal quality of the materials and the theoretical discourse surrounding complex structures found in nature and manmade objects. Through the study of space, light, perspective, shadows and rapid prototyping, I expand the work in three dimensional realms and develop a coherent conversation between geometry and form.
The new field that this thesis explores is complex and intermingled within a variety of disciplines and frameworks: painting, sculpture and installation, working within the digital environment and production of prototypes. It is fertile territory for further exploration and refinement. The work’s current resolution, informed by a simplification of material and process, anticipates subtleties in development that can only occur when things are stripped down to their essence.


identifier: Kandylis, Demosthenes  (2014) The Red Carpet Experience A video based spatial augmented reality platform.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: public space, experiences, installations, commercial use, marketing and advertising.

abstract:
This research investigates screen based public space experiences that require little to no verbal or written instructions. The purpose of the research was rooted in observations and experiences developing screen based interactive and reactive public space installations for commercial use in the fields of marketing and advertising. The research initiated with an experimental prototype called “Walk The Red Carpet”, which evolved through
experimentation into a platform for video based spatial augmented reality (SAR) experiences. Using the research approach of reflective practice, the first prototype was followed by a review of applicable concepts in the field of
human computer interaction (HCI) and related social and cognitive psychology. The findings of this research, which are summarized and the conclusion of this work, is that video based SAR that effectively embodies the user’s form in the experience requires little or no written or verbal instructions in order for users to engage.


identifier: Lockyer, Jonathan  (2014) Charting the Development of Indigenous Curatorial Practice.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: genealogy, Indigenous art in Canada, political activists, Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67, professionalized practice, collection and exhibition practices.

abstract: This thesis establishes a critical genealogy of the history of curating Indigenous art in Canada from an Ontario-centric perspective. Since the pivotal intervention by Indigenous artists, curators, and political activists in the staging of the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, the curation of Indigenous art in Canada has moved from a practice of necessity, largely unrecognized by mainstream arts institutions, to a professionalized practice that exists both within and on the margins of public galleries. The shifting parameters of the collection and exhibition practices of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada are inherently linked to a constant negotiation on the part of Indigenous curators. These numerous engagements manifested in the establishment of a number of Indigenous arts advocacy groups, artist-run centres, and the adoption of alternative modes of curating and exhibiting Indigenous artwork. This time period is characterized by fractious and often-contradictory views held by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, curators, and public arts institutions on how the terms of inclusion should be shaped.


identifier: Doherty, Shauna  (2014) SYS.TE/M FAIL.U+RE: Revelations of the Interface.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: video, digital objects, contemporary, mobilization of technological, and digital culture.

abstract: SYS.TE/M FAIL.U+RE: Revelations of the Interface is an exhibition of glitch video works that deconstruct the digital objects that have become fully integrated into the contemporary technological landscape. In this curated show through the mobilization of technological error artists, Nick Briz (Chicago), Jennifer Chan (New York), Adrienne Crossman (Toronto) and Ezra Hanson-White (Seattle) individually respond to the premise that to examine the effects of the technology that surrounds we must first render it visible. The featured works reflect on the conditions of contemporary digital culture and the pervasive presence of digital interfaces. By purposefully revealing the constitutional elements of digital information, glitch art acts as a resistive form that combats the transparency of digital media and the passive engagement it enables.


identifier: Tolja, Gorana  (2014) The Book of Stone: Architecture, Memory, and the Graphic Novel.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: city and architectural space, personal and collective memories, histories, urban environment, psychological dimensions, and visual structure.

abstract: This paper looks to explore the contemporary graphic novel as a platform to engage with the city and architectural space as an experiential, lived, site as well as an archive of personal and collective memories and histories. It looks at graphic novels that present architecture and the urban environment as an active character within the novel, and their portrayal of historical and psychological dimensions embedded within built space. The visual structure of the comic, with its forms of representations and unique temporalities are taken into consideration as this thesis explores how these works become a viable form of research into the urban environment, portraying how architecture and urban space is an active force in shaping and influencing the lives of its inhabitants.


identifier: Akitt, Tara  (2014) Get Your Mind Outta the Gutter: Actor-Network Theory and Panel Layout in Comics.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Narrative, Actor-Network Theory, and contemporary comics.

abstract: This thesis explains how the element of the panel layout in comics conveys both a linear progression of narrative and a simultaneous image for the reader. Using Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory this research asserts that the portrayal of time and space in a comic should be considered as a network. While most definitions of comics rely on the sequential juxtaposition of the form, this thesis demonstrates how panel relations operate both sequentially and nonsequentially to produce meaning for the reader and thus changing the defining feature of the medium. To demonstrate how changes in panel layout affects various networks of time and space in comics I have examined three contemporary comics, Watchmen, “A Contract with God,” and Violent Cases.


identifier: Roberts, Vera  (1999) Children's concept of understanding, its role in comprehension monitoring.  Masters thesis, University of Toronto.

type:
Thesis (external)
NonPeerReviewed

abstract:
Research in the area of comprehension monitoring shows that children often fail to monitor
their own comprehension. This study hypothesizes that what these poor monitors may lack is a
concept of understanding. A concept of understanding is argued to involve aspects of information
and information transfer. Thus subjects were tested on their ability to judge information adequacy,
assess information perspective, ascribe understanding and describe the purpose of discourse.
Children ages 3 to 7 years were tested for comprehension monitoring ability as well as for a concept
of understanding. Most tests showed a substantial increase in performance on measures of a
concept of understanding and of comprehension monitoring at around age five. The two types of
tasks were highly related in that high monitors were consistently superior in measures of
understanding understanding. The results show that comprehension monitoring can be explained by
the acquisition of s concept of understanding.


identifier: King, JP  (2015) What is it Like to Be a Landfill?: A Fictocritical Guide to the Department of Discard Culture, Compassionate Phenomenology, and Surrealist Ethnography.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Waste, Material Culture, Surrealist Ethnography,
Object-Oriented Ontology, Hoarding, Clutter, Defamiliarization, Buddhism

abstract: This thesis is a fictocritical text framed as A Guide to the Department of Discard Culture — a speculative institute dedicated to interrogating discard phenomena as a subject of cultural analysis. This thesis argues that contemporary human-object relations constitute an emergent ontological crisis, and concludes by calling for an ethics of matter. The author’s film, Solid Waste, is described as critically positioned as surrealist ethnography. Using compassionate phenomenology to contemplate the relationship between civilization and waste, subjects like clutter, compulsive hoarding, and overconsumption are examined using humanist, posthumanist, and Eastern mystical theories. Because complex problems require complex methods, a transdisciplinary approach is positioned to research in both the field and lab, where two primary questions guide this inquiry: How can the perception of waste matter be shifted? And, What is it like to be a landfill? The conclusion offers a letter to humanity on behalf on an anthropomorphic landfill.


identifier: Bassidji, Ali  (2014) A.N.T, Agency and Cinematic Authorship.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: A.N.T, Agency and Cinematic Authorship

abstract: To be added


identifier: El-Khateeb, Tarik  (2016) Lore: A Hybrid Card Game.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Lore: A Hybrid Card Game

subject: Hybrid card game, Digital physical game, Fiducial marker recognition, Digital storytelling, Folktales, Stock Characters.

abstract:
Lore is a critical and creative exploration of stock characters in folktales that o en take the form of one-dimensional representations of stereotypical minorities. Lore is a social digital-physical card game that challenges these classifications by allowing players to go on a storytelling journey that brings back the orality of traditional folktales into the digital age.

By engaging a research-creation approach to explore storytelling through social play, the history of literary stock characters, and the motifs and dramatic structures of folktales; the goal of this project is to create a platform that has the potential to generate discussion on stereotypes.  is goal is achieved on two levels: by making non-active stereotypical characters active through agency and customized play, and by providing them with language tools and choices that augment their capacities with actions that might be unconventional to their stereotypical representations in literature.


identifier: Skubovius, Tamara  (2016) LAND|MINE.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: LAND|MINE

format: text video

subject: LAND, mine, rock, Indigenous, resistance, interdisciplinary, art, performance

abstract:
LAND|MINE actively deconstructs and (re)constructs linkages to the LAND that connects city spaces to the constructed wild, materials to mine sites, and bodies to the LAND.

“This investigation grapples with the body, my body as it has witnessed material and metaphysical landscapes changing and continually impacted, shaken and consumed by corporate resource extraction. I critique how the value of land and natural resources are created and assessed through Western measures-of-wealth (social, economic, environmental, power, ownership) and how these types of evaluations impact traditional and contemporary cultural production in the Canadian wilderness, which is still considered an untapped frontier for natural resources. This project is sparked by strategies of Indigenous resistance to neo-colonization, the embodied knowledge and everyday acts of decolonization as ways to understand the imaginary Canadian true-north and industrial reverberations felt by those who live downstream.” — Tsēma


identifier: Rabbani, Rida  (2016) Destination Street Art Toronto.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Destination Street Art Toronto

subject: Toronto, Street Art, Public Space, Artist & Spectator Dialogue, Digital Community, Expressive Medium, Web Platform, Photo Map, Locative technology, Multiple Engagement, Visual art, Geo location

abstract: The designed platform facilitates a conversation between street artists and their spectators in terms of the street art of Toronto. It is a tool to be used in order to build a digital community, to represent the artists’ views, and understand public art. By allowing them to freely express themselves through their own art, this platform has started a dialogue onto the street art itself. This is done in the way spectators capture, engage and show their relationship with the public art of Toronto. Collectively, the submissions are mapped onto a photo map, using geotags, representing the actual location of the street art on the roads of Toronto that is uploaded onto an online platform. The product of Destination: Street Art Toronto is a whole new digital world, similar to a segment of Second life, as it exists outside of the physical realm visualized onto a virtual environment.


identifier: Wigmore, Jennifer  (2016) Training Artistic Reflexivity in Visual Artists.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Reflexivity, collaboration, visual art education, creativity, impulse,
intuition, interdisciplinary, a/r/tography, play, pedagogy.

abstract:
Training Artistic Reflexivity in the Visual Artist

How is the reflexive impulse recognized, valued and taught to the visual artist? Reflexivity is the artistic response to the idea or impulse from the brain. Training reflexivity as a tool is not about training the impulse, but about training the reflexive response to impulse. Acting pedagogy, through improvisation and repetition improves the reflexive response. Using actor-training methods that I have adapted into gestural drawing exercises, visual artists can practice responding reflexively in collaboration with others. Learning and artistry are social processes; they require embodied engagement with others to teach reflexivity and artistic individuality. This research contributes new interdisciplinary language and innovative techniques to visual artist training and identifies artistic reflexivity as a trainable part of a developing the artistic process.


identifier: Snook, Ashley  (2016) Intraspeciation Within the Ontological Biosphere.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Intraspeciation, biophilia, species, interconnectivity, biosphere, becoming, posthumanism, animality, sculpture, drawing

abstract: Intraspeciation Within the Ontological Biosphere investigates the intuitive connection between human and animal. Ideas of human animality are explored through biophilia, the innate affinity between living organisms. By examining the relationships between human and nonhuman animals and vegetal/botanical life, this thesis argues for a removal of barriers from dichotomies between species to enable species interconnectivity. This artistic exploration aims to establish intimacy and animalism between the human, animal and surrounding biosphere by the use of organic and synthetic material in sculpture and drawing.


identifier: Traficante, Alana Marie  (2016) Sensing the Image: Embodied Art Criticism.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: art criticism, moving image arts, Canadian art, curatorial practice, embodied subjectivity, feminism, sensory studies, affect studies, Aleesa Cohene, Soft Turns

abstract: This thesis examines the sensorial dimension of moving image artworks and its relation to art criticism. Artists and curators continually expand moving images through evocations of multimodal sensory affect, yet criticism has not adequately responded to this impulse. Drawing upon pre-existing scholarship within feminist theory, anti-ocularcentric discourse, film, media and affect studies, this thesis develops a method of embodied criticism in response to a sensory turn in Canadian artistic and curatorial practice. I present case studies of artists Aleesa Cohene and Soft Turns to interrogate the affective relations between artworks and beholders, and how artists, curators, and critics may be triangulated in the sensory network of moving image arts. As much as embodied art experiences destabilize dominant aesthetic and cultural norms, embodied criticism may enhance their social and political potential by giving credence to the senses, building intimate relationships between artists and readers, and calling attention to variable subjectivities in public and private realms.


identifier: Ji, Chen  (2016) MobileSync Web.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: MobileSync Web

subject: mobile sensors, multi-touch screens, web interactions, web design, mobile remote control, web synchronization on multiple displays, screen gestures control, motion gestures, user experiences on web, web app

abstract: With the development of mobile technology, smartphones have become a necessity in our daily lives. Various sensors and multi-touch screens of smartphones have contributed to a large amount of functional and excellent mobile applications and games. However, the support on interactive webpages is not sufficient. Since, in the most circumstances, smartphones are available when people use computers to browse webpages, I consider whether mobile technology might be effective to enhance the user experience when people browse webpages on computers and whether it has the potential to be a new way for web interactions. Through researches, mainly user testing, and analyzes, a project as a form of interactive webpage integrating mobile technology shows the potential needs of this combination. This project proposes a new way for people to browse interactive webpages which can lead user experiences, by use of mobile technology, to a new place.


identifier: Fraser, Jennifer Lorraine  (2016) Awards: Acknowledging Absence and Situating Toronto’s Incarcerated Women - 1919 - 1940.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Research, Co-Construction, Re-Examination, Feminism, Women’s Studies, social and moral construction of women

abstract:
Abstract
“Awards: Acknowledging Absence and Situating Toronto’s
Incarcerated Women – 1919-1940”
Master of Fine Arts, 2016
Jennifer Lorraine Fraser
Criticism and Curatorial Practice
OCAD University

Awards, is a co-construction of research, contemplation and response to the history of women being unethically incarcerated; their forced labour within asylums, and their lifestyle choices which led to their incarceration. Reconceptualising the lives of women charged under the Female Refuges Act (FRA), following its revision in 1919; Awards outlines the systemic oppression young women faced when they were asylumed. Women were disciplined for reasons such as feeblemindedness, deviance, and incorrigibility; and this curatorial project highlights the lack of their personal narratives.
Awards incorporates archival reproductions with contemporary artistic practice used to raise questions about societal expectations of women. Included, are eight artists: Ana Čop, Anna Copa Cabanna, Britta Fluevog, Gillian Dykeman, Jamey Braden, Kristina Guison, Paddy Jane, and Rene Vandenbrink. Acknowledging Velma Demerson’s personal narrative of incarceration, (2002) and the subsequent research that followed her publication, Incorrigible; Awards re-examines what life was like during the inter-war period in Toronto.


identifier: Zheng, Xiangren  (2016) "My Heels Are Better Than Yours".  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: "My Heels Are Better Than Yours"

subject:
Wearable Technolog
y
, Data Visualization, Center of
Pressure (CoP), Footwear
Design, Luxury Brand

abstract: The role that technology plays in our lives is rapidly growing. We are becoming increasingly dependent on and less willing to separate ourselves from our devices. The rise of wearable technology has been fueled by technology’s tendency to get faster and smaller. In the fashion industry, luxury brands have focused on exclusivity that includes bespoke fashion, high levels of craftsmanship, and high-quality materials.  However, a subtle shift is starting as luxury brands look to technology, and wearable technology in particular, as a means of providing exclusive, customized products.  The high-heeled shoe is an important part of the luxury shoe market, but high heels can cause discomfort and more serious health problems for the wearer. This research project explores the possibility of a wearable-based web data visualization application that offers an approach for female to wear comfortable high-heeled footwear, while it also provides possibility of customized services for luxury brand fashion footwear.


identifier: Carew, Valerie  (2016) Enclosure Movement: Comparative Dwelling and Embodiment.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
MFA Thesis Paper
Keywords: Ecosophy, Biomimicry, Dwelling, Domesticity, Fibre Arts

abstract: This thesis conceptualizes the home as a practice-led research site in which to investigate a mergence between the reclusive, interior domestic realm and the outer natural world. Hand fabricated wearable textile forms express this interplay with the use of reclaimed household fabrics, embodiment and performance.           These pieces combine sensory isolation as a metaphor for reclusion with biomimetic role-play featuring neighbouring organisms in fallow farm field ecosystems, which exhibit insulating behaviours similar to our human domestic versions. This thesis asks: How do natural communities resist human borders and constraints? How might we emulate these natural processes as acts of subversion to isolating normative social structures? Can performative mimicry of the natural world contribute to social and environmental connectivity? This work is a practice in comparative dwelling which considers persistent housing development in southern Ontario, and describes an effort to navigate constructed notions of the ideal home and family.


identifier: Pullen, Treva  (2016) Whimsical Bodies: Agency and Playfulness in Robotic Art.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: art, robot, agency, play, nonhuman, wonder, enchantment, curate, whimsy, media

abstract: This thesis examines issues related to agency, playfulness, and behavioral design in robotic art. Using the term ‘whimsical bodies’ (inspired by artist Steve Daniels’, Whimsy, 2008) as an evocative metaphor for the playful ecology and creations of robotic art, I take up historical and contemporary case studies as entry points to a multi-faceted discussion of human-machine engagements considering the lenses of philosophical, art historical and curatorial methodological research. Robotic art’s whimsical bodies are also explored through references to new media scholarship, object-oriented-philosophy, metaphysics and speculative theory. In assessing characteristic features of the art form, such as its playfulness, use of humor, and critique/reconfiguration of wonder as a mode of critical engagement, this thesis aims to move robotic art from the periphery to the center of new media art as a lively and unique field of research.


identifier: Slater, Theresa R.  (2016) Sensual Alterity of Digital Objects.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Sensual Alterity of Digital Objects

subject:
object, digital, simulation, sensual, apparatus, boundary, touch,
alterity, rasterization, exteriority.

abstract: This thesis hypothesizes ways in which contemporary theory constructs sensual qualities in digital objects. I disrupt the common epistemological understandings of objects to describe what constitutes a sensual alterity. The sensible object is defined to be something more than representing a real object. This thesis expands upon demonstration files available in breve, an open-source, multi-agent simulation software. The digital object substructure is unpacked through the lenses of theorists Karan Barad and Graham Harman. I negotiate digital bodies as vertices and attributes to be ontologically stable. I formulate rasterization (transferring vector to pixel visualization) to be a model of the intra-actions (assemblage of causal forces) of agential separability (practice of mattering) showcasing the apparatus as inexhaustible in its penetrative cut. I explore this sensual exteriority and apply the apparatus of touch to indicate the capacity of digital objects to experience otherness, or sensual alterity.


identifier: Raceviciute, Barbora  (2016) Ways of Being Here: The Making of Immigrant Subjects.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Canada, contemporary art, critiques of nationalism, curating, diaspora, exhibitions, feminism, immigration

abstract: This thesis project investigates how contemporary artists articulate immigrant positionality in their work. It asks: how are notions of selfhood taken up in contemporary art practice to speak to the political and affective dimensions of moving from one place to another, and consequently establishing oneself in relation to multiple locations? The exhibition Ways of Being Here featuring works by Abedar Kamgari, Rah, and Alize Zorlutuna was conceived to answer this question. The works in the exhibition performed the tensions inherent in negotiating multiple cultural and individual identities. This feminist thesis project argues that the works in the exhibition challenged the normative multiculturalism demanded by official Canadian discourse. It insists that current art practice responds to the need for a renewed political consideration of the realities of being an immigrant in Canada today. In doing so, this thesis informs a broader cultural understanding of the local, national, and international dimensions of global migration.


identifier: Oncu, Yasemin / YO  (2016) De•monstra•tion: The Monster and the Demonization of Other.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Turkey, monster, neo
-
expressionis
m, graffiti, media and politics

abstract: In this dissertation paper I aim to put in words what I artistically express in my thesis exhibition de-monstra-tion.  The exhibition includes paintings, drawings and an installation imitating the national elections atmosphere in Turkey. It offers an artistic response to aggression and violence in different forms prevalent throughout the world. It does this by “demonstrating” how we can artistically criticize cruelties through re-politicizing politics in a manner as to neutralize all kinds of moral degradation associated with the demonization of other. I consider different connotations of the monster as expressed and elaborated in the literature to discuss how I use it as an artistic tool to humorously subvert moralized politics dominant in society and media. Then, I build my exhibition on neo-expressionism and graffiti with particular emphases on the works of Spero, Basquiat and Haring. Finally, I elaborate on how in my exhibition I used Artaud’s theatre of cruelty to re-politicize politics against the moralization of politics.


identifier: Cram, Robert  (2016) To Ash: The Development of Converse Landscape.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Site Sculpture, Landscape Architecture, Planetary Urbanism, Installation, Converse Landscape

abstract: In response to theorists’ position that ecology is undergoing accelerating transformation due to planetary urbanism, converse landscape is positioned as a visual art and design practice. The intention is to disrupt the aesthetic and conceptual standardization of space through embodying a conceptual outside to a dominant ideology that promotes efficiency and competition as paramount. This post-disciplinary approach was developed as a result of the intersection between my graduate studies in fine art, my professional practice as a landscape architect and through the creation and implementation of three site sculptures during the same time period.


identifier: Meleca, Amy  (2016) Notes on an Eternal Return: Photographic Self-Portraiture and the Spectral Subject.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
spectr
ality, subjectivity, self
-
portraiture, performance

abstract: Focusing on the characteristics of ghostliness and haunting, my MA thesis project considers spectrality as a lens to rethink representations of otherness in photographic self-portraiture. Spectrality, a metaphor within the humanities, and now applied to visual art, foregrounds the presence of what is absent and testifies to the invisible aspects of our socially constructed subjectivities. I question how photographic self-portraiture initiates a dissociative transformation for the subject, and apply this line of questioning to an analysis of works by Claude Cahun, Suzy Lake, Eleanor Antin, and Mona Hatoum. I analyze how these artists present intentionally othered versions of themselves, by exploring and re-performing the intricacies of their identities. I support this research with a body of artistic work, where I embody the self-as-other and present myself as a spectral subject as a means to understand how we can rethink representations of the female body and female subjectivity.


identifier: Han, Yutong  (2016) Dynamic Pattern Creates Interactive Fashion.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Dynamic Pattern, Wearable, Fashion, Smart Textile, Thermochromic Pigment, Heating Fabric in Fashion, Mobile interaction, Interactive Fashion, User-centered Design, Start Up Fashion Brand.

abstract:
In recent years, the fashion industry has started to focus on user
communication and behavior moving towards a promising future of
integrating wearable technology into a wave of new fashion design. The
fashion industry plays an important role in the adoption rates of
wearable technology. They bring brand recognition, design aesthetics
and expertise in wearability and fit to the field. Many start-ups fashion
firms incorporate wearables in their products or business plans.
This thesis uses user-centered approach for designing interactive
garments that bring interactive functions, communication and
entertainment to the user. It also creates a business plan for the
interactive fashion brand. In so doing, the thesis aims to create an
effective design and business method for successfully bringing an
interactive fashion brand to the mass market.


identifier: Aydemir, Mehnaz  (2016) Digital Tools for Children with Autism: Enhancing sensory development and the recognition of faces and emotions.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, Sensory development, Facial recognition, Emotional recognition, Mood rooms, Sensory rooms, Autism apps, Cocoon chair, Puzzle app, Autism LED Lights

abstract:
Digital Tools for Children with Autism: Enhancing sensory development and the recognition of faces and emotions Mehnaz Aydemir, Master of Design in Digital Futures, OCAD University, 2016
This thesis creates a personal sensory environment and app for children aged six to eleven with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in order to stimulate and teach facial and emotional recognition in others. This thesis also suggests that children with autism and their macro and micro social connections exhibit a communication difference that is interpreted as a communication problem or gap by neuro-typical people. It is suggested in this thesis that if neuro-typical people can exhibit empathy for the different communication practices of children with autism, this awareness may create a better environment for the development of autism therapies. This thesis project recognizes that children with autism live in a predominantly neuro-typical world and experience expectations of neuro- typical individuals; as such, the tools presented here are designed with the intention to assist children with autism to communicate well in their environment so that they can feel more confident and fulfilled.


identifier: Vu, Phuong H  (2016) ARTable.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: ARTable

subject: digital media, digital drawings, co-creation, co-located collaboration, Internet of Things, interactive tabletop display, playful interaction, Raspberry Pi, mobile web app

abstract: Examining issues that come with the emergence of technology, such as the fear of boredom, of intimacy, and of face-to-face conversation. This thesis studies the possibility of a customizable design technology whose goal is to mitigate those issues. Pixls is a low cost interactive tabletop allowing users to collaboratively create digital drawings on a 64-by-64 LED matrix screen using mobile phone touchscreen, thereby encouraging social interaction amongst them. Adopting the research through practices approach, insights, and solutions gathered from literature review and relevant case studies are used as a theoretical foundation for the conceptualization and building of the aforementioned prototype. Based on three key findings derived from the analysis of user feedback, this study concludes that the technology stack used within Pixls should be generalized into a platform, upon which different features can be implemented to afford various types of social interactions, including, but not limited to face-to-face interaction.


identifier: Chai, Shengquan  (2016) VIRTUAL URBAN GALLERY: An immersive installation based on 3D remote experiences of Toronto Public Art.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Public Art, Digital Gallery, Virtual Gallery, Experience Design, VR, Oculus
Rift, Technology

abstract: Public art is important not only for its aesthetic appearance, but also for its contribution to and reflection of the history and culture of the city it inhabits. However, given the intimate connection between public art and its social and geographical contexts, it is not possible to build a physical gallery for public art; the only way to display such artworks together is virtually. Virtual Reality technology provides new opportunities for audiences to experience public art in its social and spatial contexts. This thesis investigates the use of VR to create an interactive virtual gallery of public art in Toronto. This work is an attempt to utilize 3D modeling of public arts and the areas surrounding them, along with an immersive and exploratory interactive experience, to curate a virtual gallery that allows audiences to appreciate and interact with public artworks in an embodied way.


identifier: Manetta, Erica  (2016) Presenting Design: a reflection on the Museography of Industrial Objects.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
industrial design, presentation  methods, display criteria,
design
museography, design
museums, design exhibitions
, company museums, architecture exhibitions, science centers.

abstract: This thesis investigates exhibition strategies and display criteria in design museums. Design collections require a different approach and attention from contemporary art and other museum artifacts. This is why the emergence of a museography specifically dedicated to design is fundamental. What are the processes and negotiations involved in constructing a contemporary arrangement of an industrial design collection? How does the content and style of a specific installation inform public understanding? And how might a renewed approach to the display of design provide for a fuller experience of these objects? Outlining the limits of traditional approaches to the exhibition of industrial products, this thesis proposes that design museums could look to other models for exhibiting design, those found in architecture exhibitions, science centers, and company museums. The intent of the project is to allow a development of a critical appreciation of the issues pertaining to the presentation of industrial objects.


identifier: Saimaldahar, Daniah  (2016) Virtual Pet Companion A digital console to enhance the Experience of Children with Cerebral Palsy.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: User experience design, designing for disability, inclusive design, cerebral palsy, Gamification, Augmented Reality, Mobile app, Children , Assistive technology.

abstract: This research investigates the use of game style consoles as service technology for children with Cerebral Palsy, in order to help them develop their fine motor skills and thereby become more independent in interactions with family and caregivers. The game involves a virtual pet companion for a six-year-old child with Cerebral Palsy currently living in Toronto. It was designed specifically to cater to his interests and needs; however, this research more broadly seeks to explore the potentiality of video games for rehabilitation for children with Cerebral Palsy, taking into account the propensity and interest children often have for new technologies. Drawing from research on Cerebral Palsy, the psychology of play, existing service technologies for children with disabilities, pet therapy and gamification, my project provides insight into how new interactive technologies can afford children with Cerebral Palsy the opportunity to interact more easily with the physical world.


identifier: Williams, Richard  (2016) Embedded Script.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Embedded Script

subject: Accelerationism, Actor Network Theory, Global Capitalism, Information Technology, New Media Art

abstract: The purpose of this thesis will be to explore, through the theoretical lens of Actor Network Theory and Accelerationism, the current nature and problematic elements within Human/Computer interaction, specifically as it relates to Global Capitalism and New Media artmaking. This exploration will include the roles and behaviors of contemporary Users, the nature of Global Capitalism, (as well as its next stage formation, Xenocapitalism, to be described herein) a number of global infrastructures related to the movement of both information and material goods, and the combined effects of these upon contemporary conceptions of space/time. Beyond simply identifying these elements, this exploration will also seek to devise possible strategic interventions within the Human/Computer relationship, again with a special emphasis on New Media artmaking.


identifier: Ji, Yushan  (2016) Commonplace Exchanges: New Documentary Networks and International Students.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Web
-
Documentary, Interactive Documentary, Participatory Media,
Nonlinear Storytelling, International Student Experiences, Educational
Migration.

abstract:
International students have to overcome language barriers, adapt to different cultures and lifestyles, and grapple with the loneliness of living far from home.

This documentary is about “typical day” of four international students living and studying in Toronto. Including on-location shots and interviews, the footage was edited into different video formats, which were combined into a nonlinear interactive user-interface. This documentary project conveys some cultural complexities involved in going abroad; the documentary profiles are imbued with affective power and contain subtle details about environmental and cultural contexts. Being built on a website this project allows the audiences to add personal experiences via comments or video-responses and become documentary subjects.

My thesis investigates how participatory online documentary can assist current/potential international students in gathering information about studying overseas. It also helps international student service professionals, including administrators at universities and study-abroad intermediaries, to better understand the unique challenges these students face.


identifier: Zhang, Yikai  (2016) Virtual tourism – Digital scanning, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality as a Holistic Approach to Chinese Historic Building Preservation.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Chinese    unprotected    monuments,    heritage    digital    preservation,    3D
recons
truction,    photogrammetry,    virtual    real
ity,    augmented    reality,    panoramic
image,    educational    mobile    app,    storytelling,    Google    Cardboard

abstract: There are many historical buildings spread around the rural areas of China and very few of them have been documented through digital media. In the face of massive Chinese urbanization, many of these cultural relics are facing the risk of damage, collapse, and even disappearance. The undocumented disappearance of these monuments would be a great loss for Chinese traditional culture and therefore this thesis proposes to solve this preservation problem using a combination of digital media platforms including 3D digital reconstruction, virtual reality, and augmented reality to digitally document and present these monuments. This thesis introduces these three technologies individually by presenting case studies for each to illustrate in greater depth the value each technology brings into the realm of heritage conservation. In the final section of this thesis, a mixed reality educational mobile application is presented as a test of this integrated technology solution to explore the potential of implementing this solution on a massive scale.


identifier: Olsen, Chris  (2016) Expanding the Information Fidelity of Calm Technology Devices Through Techniques of Information Visualization.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Calm technology, information visualisation, ambient data visualisation,
experience design, research through design
, weather, internet-of-things,
ubiquitous computing, interaction design, experience design, user-testing, rapid-
prototyping, 3D printing

abstract: This thesis explores the creation of ambient data visualisation devices that keep users informed via their use of colour and light to convey information. It is an exploration into how the principles of information visualisation can be applied to the design of “calm” devices in order to enhance their features as well as expand their information fidelity. This exploration builds on the concept of “calm technology”, coined by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown of XEROX PARC (1996) which describes unobtrusive, informative technology. Calm technologies should exist mostly in the periphery, continuously relaying information in a non- intrusive manner. The research employs iterative prototyping and reflection to explore was to improve information delivery within calm technology. The project demonstrates several opportunities to enhance visual-based calm technology devices by incorporating principles of information visualisation in order to expand the information fidelity of these devices.


identifier: Baumstark, Mary Callahan  (2016) Craftivist Clay: Resistance and Activism in Contemporary Ceramics.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

abstract:
Abstract
Craftivist Clay: Resistance and Activism in Contemporary Ceramics
Mary Callahan Baumstark
Master of Arts in Contemporary Art, Design, and New Media Histories
OCAD University
April 2016
Since the late twentieth century, the social engagement of craft emerged as a
primary concern for both makers and activists. While “craftivism” was quickly defined
by the work of a few, this thesis expands previous considerations of craftivism as both
theoretical construct and making method. Considering the emergence of craftivism as
method, this paper examines the work of ceramic craftivists, analyzing their practices and
produced works within a context of increased political urgency, using ceramics as a
microcosmic exploration for craftivism in a given craft media. This thesis will analyze the
efficacy of this method in contemporary ceramics, seeking to clarify both the import and
impact of craftivism in a world overwhelmed by both activist causes and material goods.
This thesis questions and complicates the history of craftivist theory, its role in
contemporary ceramic practice, and its efficacy as a whole, exploring the extent to which
craft can create social change.
Keywords: craftivism, craft, ceramic, maker, activism, method, feminism, clay, activist,
object


identifier: Clark, Colin  (2016) Insignificant Surfaces: Cinema, Systems, and Embodiment.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

format: text video video

subject: experimental film, video, software studies, sound, algorithmic art, interdisciplinarity

abstract: Insignificant Surfaces explores the creative and theoretical relationships amongst computation, cinema, and sound in my artistic and design practice. I propose an alternative framework for digital practice in which software and cinema are understood not solely as immaterial and informatic, but also as distinctly material, energetic, and embodied forces. Employing my own practice-inclusive research methods of adjacency and lensing, I explore the complex networks of influence that are possible amongst works of art, active viewers, and technological apparatuses. I call for a new mode of open community-based software development, computational materiality, which supports the ongoing, serendipitous, and unexpected creative modification of shared software artefacts. Using the theories of McKenzie Wark, Bruno Latour, Reza Negarestani, and others, and the artwork of Stan Brakhage, Chris Welsby, and Ernie Gehr, I explore the ways in which my cinema and sound can be understood within a framework of energetics, transformational ecologies, and material closure.


identifier: Centeno Garcia, Hector  (2016) Sitting under a highway: exploring the integration of place mindfulness and immersion in audiovisual art practices.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Audiovisual Art, Mindfulness, Virtual Reality, Landscape, Soundscape, Acoustic Ecology,
Geophilosophy,InteractiveArt. SpatialAudio

abstract:
Postmodern society is characterized by an increasing disconnect with our inhabited spaces. The \textit{glocalization} efforts made by commercial interests and the emphasis on the utilitarian conceptualization of the world affect local culture, contributing to a thinning out of the relationships with our lived places. Making reference to the standing-reserve theory of Heidegger; the geophilosophy of Edward Casey;  Zen meditation; soundscape composition and other audiovisual art practices, I suggest that artistic processes informed by the attentive exploration of a geographical location may contribute to create awareness about the nature of this disconnect.

Sitting under a highway is a research-creation project presented as an interactive audiovisual virtual and presential space. By wearing a head-mounted display, a hand tracking device, headphones and an electroencephalography band, the audience experiences photorealistic 3D visuals and spatial audio that are the product of an artistic practice centred on the attentive aesthetic exploration of a physical place.


identifier: Jennings, Tatiana  (2016) Seeker Number 1.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Seeker Number 1

format: text video video video video

subject:
Interactive Storytelling,
Digital Media,
Live
Performance
,
Liveness,
Non
-
linear Dramatic
Structure,
Aura,
Agency,
Interactivity
, Networked
Technolog
y, Broadcasting.

abstract:
Seeker Number 1 is an interactive story which combines performance, filmed by multiple cameras and streamed live, with an interactive installation at an exhibition space. Homer’s Odyssey, the story’s base narrative structure, is situated within multiple storylines and environments. Audience members are able to access and interact with the performance during the exhibition by exploring a physical setup with objects that relate to the story and characters. By experimenting with interactivity, open narrative structures, and the aura of live performers in the virtual space, Seeker Number 1 attempts to bring liveness and emotional affect to the Interactive Digital Narrative.
This thesis uses research design methodology to explore how various combinations of dramatic structural elements, live performance, audience agency and computer procedural capabilities can collaboratively create meaning. Seeker Number 1 is a reflection on the emergent relationship between liveness and networked technology represented by the machine.

Keywords: Interactive Storytelling, Digital Media, Live Performance, Liveness, Non-linear Dramatic Structure, Aura, Agency, Interactivity, Networked Technology, Broadcasting.


identifier: Pham, Phuc Huy  (2016) Theatre of Disjunctions: A Performance on Adaptive Reuse and Gentrification.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
adaptive reuse, architecture, curatorial practice, disjunctions,
displacement, dissenssus, Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, gentrification,
integrated media,
relational aesthetic
.

abstract: Theatre of Disjunctions: A Performance on Adaptive Reuse and Gentrification re-examines art and politics to suggest curatorial practice as an alternative method to traditional adaptive reuse practice in architecture. The project investigates the role of architecture as a gentrifying agent with the example of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres, and addresses issues of heritage preservation. Artists Lizz Aston, Marina Fathalla, Layne Hinton, and Carson Teal create disjunctions through deliberate act of effacement. Using elements of performativity and theatricality, the artworks conceal and project onto the gallery architecture to capture the displacement and mutation of architectural heritage. Each artwork allows the viewers to contemplate and reflect upon different narratives within a homogenous historical psyche. Offering a critique of socio-architectural developments, the exhibition as a theatre critically and creatively encourages an interdisciplinary approach towards more sustainable and socially informed adaptive reuse solutions for historic buildings in major cities as an outcome.


identifier: Connell, Katherine N.  (2016) Objects in Human Drag: The Queerness of Object-Oriented Ontologies.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: queer theory, queer, objects, object-oriented ontologies, drag, mannequins, post-human, dildos, psychoanalysis, Judith Butler, Speculative Realism.

abstract: This thesis explores the intersections between queer theory and object- oriented ontologies (OOOs) through examining three case studies of objects in human drag: (1) hats, purses and shoes; (2) mannequins; and (3) dildos. I argue that queer theory and OOOs are necessarily connected in that both offer philosophical strategies of resistance to hegemonic structures imposed by binary gender categories, compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory anthropocentrism. By applying Judith Butler’s theories of drag to the objects of my case studies, I look at how, similar to the means through which drag performances destabilize a heterosexual claim to originality, these objects undermine the anthropocentric ‘claim to originality’ that OOOs also aim to subvert. The conclusion of the thesis asserts that drag opens up an unstable and uncanny ontological wake, through which all objects are revealed as radically queer.


identifier: Fathalla, Marina  (2016) Un-Registered Affects; Archiving Dormant Landscapes.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: siting, landscape, archive, affect, decolonial, haptic history

abstract:
“Un-registered Affects” is an experimental project in search of an alternative/meta-methodology for architectural and landscape practices of siting, based in notions of “haptic history” and “haptic geography,” that proceeds through an archiving of affective and ephemeral aspects of site derived from an embodied experience of landscape. Taking two peri-urban sites in Mississauga linked together by the Credit River, I create an alternative archive for the temporal, intangible, and fleeting narratives contained in these sites, re-presenting them as a “spatial archive” to counter notions of “the cleared site” (Burns) with a model of land as record and dwelling (Ingold), and with Indigenous ontology and knowledge that land is sacred, “alive and thinking” (Watts). I argue for a re-linking of these impermanent archives to siting practices, to reconnect the body to the layered histories of land and place. Merging distant and proximal histories, my installation places Aboriginal and ‘newcomer’ narratives into relation. The histories of the land include the death of agriculture, immigrant passage/settlement, and Anishinaabe cultivation around the Credit River.
	This is an artistic exploration of tensions: between architectural/mechanical models of precision and measurement, while setting these against the poetic nature of the landscape. My installation counters architectural and colonial clearing of place as a tabula rasa by engaging in processes of surveying, sampling, preserving and archiving land, in anticipation of its imminent erasure. This project is thus a cross-disciplinary exploration of architecture, landscape, geography, and artistic practice.


identifier: Willis, Garnet  (2016) So Late So Soon.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: So Late So Soon

subject:
Anthropocene Climate Change Inaudibility Installation Latour Listening
Perception Sound Sculpture

abstract:
So Late So Soon: A thesis exhibition positioned on the crossroads between
sculpture, installation and sound, investigates the line between subject and object
as well as the means by which the listener/viewer can be physically integrated
into the work.
Some of the works function through direct performative bodily interaction
while other works explore heightened awareness of sound, requiring active or
enhanced listening to nearly inaudible sound. In all cases the manifestation of
sound is visually cued by clues provided by the visual apparatus of the physical
installation.
The intention is that the four pieces comprising this exhibition will reveal
their overarching thread of experiential meaning to deliver an environmental
message speaking to interconnectedness-made-urgent under the imperative of
time as it ticks ever onward, to spur a shifting… an unease ….a political response.


identifier: Sturgeon-Reed, Hart  (2016) Microcosm.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Microcosm

subject: Play theory, infinite games, cybernetics, ecology, artificial life, neural networks, evolution, companion species, symbiosis

abstract: Microcosm explores the potential of responsive, evolving games through the lenses of play theory and cybernetics. It aims to provide an engaging play experience while supporting the exploration of dynamic networks. It is inspired by biological models of cell signalling and neural networks. Building on the framework of play theorist James Carse, microcosm is an attempt to create an infinite game that is played not to be won, but to keep all participants in play by continually shifting the relationships and boundaries that constitute the game. Microcosm is populated by virtual organisms that play with the boundaries between organic and artificial, component and whole, human and non-human.


identifier: Mohamoud, Esmaa  (2016) #000000 VIOLENCE.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: #000000 VIOLENCE

subject: Keywords: Violence, Black, Male, Body, Basketball, Multiplicity, Athletics, Race, Gender, Colour

abstract: #000000 VIOLENCE is an exhibition that investigates the Black male body in contemporary culture and the (in)tangibility of Blackness through the exploration of athletics—specifically, the sport of basketball. The exhibition seeks to highlight racial and gender tensions in contemporary North American society. By staging symbolic rituals of confrontation referred to as performative violence, I seek to highlight differential power dynamics that ground relations between Blacks and non-Blacks. Through the use of industrial materials—dark, grey, heavy, strong—the exhibition aims to re-examine our contemporary understanding of Blackness and challenge the relationship of Blackness as a colour and shade, and Blackness as a societal or cultural construction of a group of people. The exhibition consists of a series of artworks that culminate in an installation that examines the Black male body’s navigation within contemporary space. Utilizing the visual vernacular of basketball to delineate institutionalized violence, the works explore contemporary notions of Black masculinity. Through the process of repetition and the practice of multiplicity, the works highlight the contemporary struggles of the Black man in North American society.


identifier: Virtue, Monica Lynn  (2016) The Ipperwash Beach Walk (Vers. 3).  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: The Ipperwash Beach Walk (Vers. 3)

subject:
Keywords:
storytelling,
counter
-
mapping,
mobile locative media,
documentary,
data visualiza
tion,
embodiment
,
c
o
-
d
esign,
Indigenous
,
colonization, Ipperwash

abstract:
The Ipperwash Beach Walk
Master of Design
2016
Monica Virtue
Digital Futures
OCAD University

This thesis project uses geo-location to deliver documentary media and interactive visualizations to mobile users during an embodied “beach walk” along a disputed strip of land on Lake Huron. As users travel an historic trail between two Indigenous communities, crossing a series of GPS points along the water’s edge, they will learn via smartphone how settlers colonized Ipperwash Beach. The content is delivered through a mobile platform designed specifically to tell stories. The project is a form of counter-mapping which presents an alternate viewpoint to mainstream notions about how Ipperwash Beach became a vacation destination. Created through the use of co-design methods, the project is intended to benefit the Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation through a sharing of original archival research, an opportunity to improve relationships with non-Indigenous neighbours, and a value-added experience for the carloads of tourists who visit each summer.

Keywords: storytelling, counter-mapping, mobile locative media, documentary, data visualization, embodiment, co-design, Indigenous, colonization, Ipperwash


identifier: Kotler, Katie  (2016) Art Movement: Light, Space and Time.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Art Movement: Light, Space and Time

subject: Light, space, movement, contemporary, sculpture, digital artist, self-reflexive, perspectival, gallery, minimalist

abstract: Art Movement is the result of three years of theoretical and studio-based research on the status of contemporary digital art and its relation to the older minimalist sculpture Light and Space Movement, an older period in minimalist sculpture. This project brought to life the notion that these two movements are related; my studio practice bridged the theoretical underpinnings that connected the two. Through theory, animation, video projection and sculpture, my research was able to discern major themes throughout a number of artists’ works and their intentions. My studio practice enabled me to understand the history and applications of light art, both in the analog and digital- or physical virtual realms.


identifier: Paterson, Nancy  (2009) Bandwidth is political: Reachability in the public internet.  PhD thesis, York University.

type:
Thesis (external)
PeerReviewed

abstract:
The global public Internet faces a growing but little studied threat from the use of intrusive traffic management practices by both wholesale and retail Internet service providers. Unlike research concerned with bandwidth and traffic growth, this study shifts the risk analysis away from capacity issues to focus on performance standards for interconnection and data reachability.

The long-term health of the Internet is framed in terms of “data reachability” – the principle that any end-user can reach any part of the Internet without encountering arbitrary actions on the part of a network operator that might block or degrade transmission. Risks to reachability are framed in terms of both systematic traffic management practices and “de-peering,” a more aggressive tactic practised by Tier-1 network operators to resolve disputes or punish rivals.

De-peering is examined as an extension of retail network management practices that include the growing use of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology for traffic-shaping. De-peering can also be viewed as a close relative of Net Neutrality, to the extent that both concepts reflect arbitrary practices that interfere with the reliable flow of data packets across the Internet. In jurisdictional terms, however, de-peering poses a qualitatively different set of risks to stakeholders and end-users, as well as qualitatively different challenges to policymakers.

It is argued here that risks to data unreachability represent the next stage in debates about the health and sustainability of the global Internet. The study includes a detailed examination of the development of the Internet’s enabling technologies; the evolution of telecommunications regulation in Canada and the United States, and its impact on Internet governance; and an analysis of the role played by commercialization and privatization in the growth of risks to data reachability.


identifier: Li, Wensi  (2016) Integrating Traditional Chinese Needlework Imagery and Techniques into Contemporary Textile Art Practice.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Traditional needlework techniques, Chinese motifs, contemporary textile art, women garment workers, mass production.

abstract: My thesis project represents my personal critical exploration, as a Chinese woman, in search of my cultural identity through my contemporary textile art practice. My thesis work attempts to integrate imagery and techniques from traditional Chinese needlework into my art practice in Toronto through deconstruction and reconstruction to create textile artwork that reflects my cultural identity and brings about a fusion of the East and the West. At the same time, I feel troubled by the absence of traditional Chinese artistic expressions in garments mass-produced in China due to alienation of workers in the industrialized production process. Using sewing, patchwork and embroidery techniques with pieces from discarded mass-produced garments and my textile artwork, I created new garments. I intend them to be my critical response to the situation of worker alienation, hoping to prompt the audience to reconsider their conceptualization of ‘Made in China’


identifier: Langill, Cydney  (2016) Embodiment and the Digital Continuum: Post-Cinematic Diffractions in Ex Machina, Her, and Under The Skin.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject:
Post
-
cinema, affect,
embodiment, new media, new materialism,
transcorporeality,
eco
-
cinema, hyper
-
informatic, transmedia

abstract: This thesis explores ties between three recent films: Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013), and Ex Machina (2015). I will argue that each of these films incorporates a distinct post-cinematic aesthetic – 1) digitally rendered eco-cinema, 2) hyper-informatic cinema, and 3) transmedia – while narratively working through how bodies are becoming entangled with and porous to their increasingly affective and convergent media. Each of these films show human bodies in-becoming-with technology, both in terms of narrative (or diegesis), and the non-diegetic processes of computer-generated imagery, sonic manipulation and audiovisual or rhythmic intensification that manipulate and digitize bodies as captured by the camera. Each film thus reflexively expresses through post-cinematic affect the spatiotemporal and corporeal discontents associated with the digital shift or the “audiovisual turn” (Vernallis 2013) when humans and technology are in a moment of coevolution: bodies, space, and technology fold into each other and become equalized phenomena, tied by an increasingly reciprocal bio-digital flow.


identifier: Irizawa, Jay  (2017) Extra:Muros:Intra: Into the Heart of Quantum Matter.  UNSPECIFIED thesis, OCAD University.

format: text image image image image image image image image image video

subject: Quantum physics, Design, Agential, Materiality, Affect, Embodiment, Affordance, Surface, Digital, Presence, Transmaterial, Architecture, Phenomena, Entanglement, Apparatus, Posthuman

abstract: Extra:Muros:Intra: Into the Heart of Quantum Matter is a phenomenological investigation in design processes between digital and physical space. As the physical landscape changes with the hybridization of digital communications, classical concepts of Cartesian and Newtonian space are disrupted in non-classical, quantum indeterminacies. The research involves an interdisciplinary study of quantum physics and contemporary architecture in two phases: the first phase is a comparative analysis of spatial theory in modern architecture and quantum physics starting from the 20th century, and the second phase entails a research-creation prototype in the form of an experiential display, installed in a site-specific public location for 9 days. An analysis of quantum space theory is evaluated in the literature and materialized in the display through a variety of methods: a comparative literature study, observation and documentation, a sample study interviewing participants, and a reflective practice, through which the design process is assessed.


identifier: Zhang, Jielu  (2016) Wearable or Not? : Experiencing Contemporary Jewellery.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

format: image video video image image text

subject: Contemporary jewelry, wearability, curatorial practice of objects, critiques of display strategies, interactive exhibition, contemporary art, craft.

abstract: “How is that supposed to be worn?” is the general query of people who come across contemporary jewellery. Sitting at the intersection of art and craft, contemporary jewellery blurs the relationship between form and function. Emerging out of the aesthetic radicalism of the 1960s and evolving ever since, contemporary jewellery breaks the culturally-informed role as bodily adornment and exists as conceptual artwork that constantly challenges traditional thinking. Not surprisingly, contemporary jewellery has also challenged traditional exhibition strategies. The standard museum practices of display are called into question. In this exhibition I examine the relationship between the human body and contemporary jewellery via the works of six artists. I also explore ways to interact with visitors to experience the works visually and tactilely. As contemporary jewellery is a relatively new art form, my thesis exhibition contributes to scholarships in the realm, as well as the curatorial practice for other art-based objects.


identifier: White, Kimberley  (2016) Out of Order: An Exegesis of Concealment.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

abstract: This MFA thesis consists of a body of research-based studio work, an exhibition of selected studio works combining variations of writing, painting, sculpture and installation, and a supporting written document. Combined, this interdisciplinary thesis project questions the conditions, limitations and violence of order and ordering practices. Drawing on histories of institutionalization and postmodernist considerations of time, space and place, this work critically navigates the tensions between discipline and transgression, concealment and transparency, excess and restraint. The pieces in this collection, including the written document, work together to trouble the boundaries of order, and consider what it means, or if it is possible to have meaning, out of order.


identifier: ANNETTE, MANGAARD  (2017) Meltdown An Investigation of a Seascape in Two Film Forms.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

format: image text image image image image image image image image image image image image image image video video video video video

language: en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en en

abstract: In my thesis exhibition I juxtapose two distinct forms of cinematic representation of landscape, specifically depicting a grounded iceberg and tidal pools off coastal Newfoundland. In a screening room, a four-minute time-based documentary portrays workers on a repurposed fishing boat, ice harvesting. In an adjacent gallery, a cinematic media installation includes enlarged underwater imagery of tidal pools, and shots of icebergs projected onto and refracted from acrylic discs.  In the gallery area, viewers move through at their own rate, following their personal drift of attention as they choose. This invites an embodied process of audiovisual assimilation, opening up opportunities for affective response to the image environment. In the supporting thesis paper, I have drawn upon the texts of Hito Steyerl, on horizon and aerial cinematography, John Stilgoe on horizon, seascape and landscape, Brian Massumi on embodiment and affect, and Eugenie Brinkema on cinema and affect. Through the juxtaposition of narrative time-based and expanded cinema, I invite spectators to reflect from different vantages on the impact of environmental changes on water, including its economic, community and personal consequences.


identifier: Schwanz, Eli  (2017) First Position . Second Position: Accessing Conceptual Space in Animation.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: Animation; Inbetween; Conceptual Space; Animation Reflex; Vitalism; Structuralism

abstract:
First Position . Second Position proposes animation as a framework of both analysis and
practice that goes beyond its more common consideration as a form of narrative or genre.
Animation can also be embraced as a theory unto itself, bringing with it all of the pleasure,
danger, and consequence given to other modes of thought, such as structuralism and agential
realism. The work requires from the viewer, a form of conceptual interactivity that addresses concepts of inner conceptual space, layered environments, and structural possibilities. Animation is a process, one which occurs in multiple systems simultaneously and cooperatively. Animation is a practice, a medium, and a genre, but it is also a way of thinking, seeing and existing through a
fundamental expression of being. Within the exhibition, animation engages with these various possibilities through sculpture, installation, and video.


identifier: Castro, Beatriz Margarita  (2017) Ijiam: Augmented Reality Technologies for the Adaptation of Ecuadorian Intangible Cultural Heritage.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

subject: oral storytelling, Ecuadorian Amazon, Shuar indigenous community, intangible cultural expression, ancestral heritage, decolonizing methodologies, critical digital adaptation, augmented reality technologies, physical performance, gesture, Kinect sensor, Unity, interactive installation

abstract: Oral storytelling is a dynamic cultural expression for passing down human knowledge and perceptions of life and nature, building a meaningful bond between the past and the future. Over time, much oral expression has lost most of its unique flexibility and generativity as a result of textualization. This project uses digital technologies to create critical adaptations of ancestral wisdom from the Shuar indigenous community of the Ecuadorian Amazon, transposing relevant concepts of their cosmovision into a new digital storytelling experience. Following a post-colonial ethnographic research approach, this thesis employs decolonizing methods to analyze the complex knowledge system of the Shuar culture, engaging the community through a communication protocol of reciprocity and fair exchange of knowledge. The outcome of this project is an interactive digital installation that allows participants in the Shuar community and elsewhere to embody an audiovisual experience based on Shuar ancestral wisdom.


identifier: Syed, Nimrah  (2017) Wisewrds _ Bridge Employment & Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

format: video text

subject: Global Aging, Retirement, Bridge Employment, Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer, Age-integration, Flexible Working Environment, Mentorship

abstract: Paid employment following retirement is a growing phenomenon known as bridge employment. With a predicted rise in the aging population and no mandatory retirement age, this form of employment is expected to see an upward trend. This research explores the concept of part-time bridge employment at OCAD University. The university is an age-integrated workplace that includes mature adults (Baby Boomers) and young adults (Millennials). Through a user-centered design approach, potential challenges and opportunities afforded by inter-age knowledge transfer for faculty members (young and mature) and students are examined. Mentorship is used as a strategy for workload reduction at the institution. A web app, Wisewrds, is designed to facilitate part-time bridge employment to mature adults and contribute to young adults seeking informal mentorship. An online platform, a flexible working environment and support of intergenerational knowledge transfer through mentoring service are proposed to the University as enabling conditions for part-time bridge employment.


identifier: Zheng, Minsheng  (2017) Navigation in VR for visual analytics using the latest consumer-grade hardware.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

abstract: The Virtual Reality (VR) hardware market has been evolving rapidly since 2016. Consumer-level VR headsets or HMDs (head-mounted display), such as HTC Vive, have become more affordable and accessible during the last few years. As the hardware specifications improve, a greater level of immersion will be able to be achieved. This trend is paving the way for exciting new opportunities in the software market for exploiting the new possibilities afforded by these interactive display systems. One new avenue of design research in this space is immersive analytics, which refers to data visualization using immersive technologies. Many design challenges remain in such VR-based platforms such as user navigation and interface design. My research re-examines the validity of existing navigation techniques and VR interface design by building and testing an immersive data visualization environment using the latest VR hardware and software packages.


identifier: Salazar, David  (2017) Performing Human through Animal.  Masters thesis, OCAD University.

title: Performing Human through Animal

format: text image image

abstract:
PERFORMING HUMAN THROUGH ANIMAL
Master of Fine Arts
2017
DAVID CONSTANTINO SALAZAR
Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design
OCAD UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

The exhibition Performing Human through Animal is comprised of animal sculptures that explore anthropomorphic characters, for the purpose of communicating desire, addiction and degradation through allegory. Animal forms speak directly to human characteristics. I simultaneously use this to evoke humour through the ridiculous circumstances of the individual and collective narratives of the artworks. The underlying intent was to symbolically use the animal figures to discuss human intellectual and emotional conflicts, which result during periods of abstinence from our desires and addictions. This exhibition aimed to engage the impulsiveness of the addict. The consumption of excess, the pleasure of satisfying desire, and the battle against these desires. With these pieces, I engaged my own struggle with addiction, the processes one goes through when confronting temptation and relapse; the use of allegory helps the viewer to identify with figures, permitting recollections of their own impulsiveness to consume in excess.
Keywords: symbolic constructs, human identity, allegory, anthropomorphic characters, desire, addiction, relapse, sculpture