Installation Art as a Means of Exploring Place and Activity Fragmentation in Interior Environments Resulting from Contemporary Digital Technology

This thesis explores how information and communication technology creates activity fragmentation within the interior built environment. This paper analyzes the work of psychologists, philosophers, architects, artists, designers, and others who have considered our relationship to physical space as well as how technological advancements alter our behavior and perspective. In addition to reviewing current thinking on the topic, the research conducted also looks at how architects, artists, and designers, particularly of the late 20th century, responded to notions of fragmentation and disconnectedness often spawned by modernization. Through precedent analysis, a strong relationship between architectural design and installation art emerges. This thesis paper provides a foundation for a gallery installation that creates an experience for visitors, challenging their relationship to interior space

First momentary unboxing experience with aesthetic interaction

Department of Industrial DesignThere is a popular trend of online videos called unboxing: people are documenting the process of unpacking product packaging with commenting what they feel and think. Catching up with the trend, designers and practitioners in companies have struggled to improve packaging design, especially concerning unboxing experiences. Unboxing is spotlighted in a sense that it plays a role in making the first impression upon product as well as intensive emotion is aroused at the moment. When it comes to packaging design, most of the previous studies have focused on examining the visual elements for eye-catching packaging in the purchase stage, but there is little research on testing packaging design regarding unboxing interaction. Under the notion, this study aims to address the possibility of unboxing interaction as a significant factor influencing user emotional experience and first impression for the product under the two research questions: 1) How unboxing with aesthetic interaction will affect to user emotional experience? 2) How unboxing with aesthetic interaction will influence the appraisal of product first impression? Research-through-design approach was adopted to prototype experiment stimuli under the control of packaging elements. The concept of aesthetic interaction and three factors were applied as design criteria for making three packaging types: freedom of interaction (Type A), interaction pattern (Type B) and richness of motor actions (Type C). The three types of packaging were developed, and 45 participants were asked to unbox them in random order and respond 14 emotions through PrEmo, a self-report emotion measuring tool. Then, they were requested to appraise the impression of product with 29 bipolar semantic differentials (SD) scales and tell overall impression of unboxing. This was followed by an interview in which the reasons why they thought like that were asked. Statistical analysis was utilized to compare the difference in emotional responses and SD between the prototypes. Descriptive and in vivo coding processes were used to analyze the unboxing experience in general. As a result, the emotions of ‘joy’ and ‘fascination’ were aroused by the unboxing activity itself, and the three packaging prototypes evoked different types of and intensity of emotions. Primarily, it was revealed that the types of interaction significantly influenced the negative emotion of 'dissatisfaction.' Also, the interaction type of unboxing packaging was shown to influence the participants' appraisal of the packaged particular product's semantics significantly. Product type and interaction metaphor were associated with each packaging prototype, and the verbs describing unboxing activity varied between the package types. These findings are expected to provide design practitioners with a design guideline for packaging design and furthermore, to contribute to intentionally design emotional experience and first impression via unboxing packaging. Limitations and recommendations to a further study are discussed at the end.ope

The Experience of Public Art in Urban Settings

The sine qua non for an artwork in the urban realm is neither its judged goodness nor the ability of audiences to perceive it correctly, but is the total experience the work contributes to as part of the fabric of interlocking meanings that places have in people\u27s lives. In urban settings, the physical attributes and private intentionality of a work do not stand alone. As carefully as an artist installs his/her pieces in a gallery, the same concern for their working together and with their total environment must be applied to artworks in complex public settings, where choice to be with artworks is eliminated de facto. The information for the study was obtained through interviews and observations around selected agency-placed public artworks in New York City. The results indicate there is a new, broader philosophy to apply to understand the importance of art in public places. It was found people generally appreciate that artworks exist in public settings, and they respond to diverse works. People\u27s judgments about art include not simply like/dislike evaluations but interpretations of form, content, intent and associations to the works. Behaviors around works can be centripetal or centrifugal and sometimes do not agree with positive or negative verbal responses. Such findings indicate that experience with works and places is variegated: a negative response to a work is not necessarily bad, but is part of a range of experience which can be interpreted. The author proposes a new construct to explain the impact of public art: an Evocative-Provocative Continuum postulates that experiences with artworks vary in intensity and meaning as a function of the interwoven relationships among the qualities of the work, the setting, and the people together. These relationships balance or not to affect experience. Approaching art in public places as part of a meaningful experiential context and continuum can enhance creative freedom as well as placement decisions because it generates broader questioning and information than has been yielded before by other orientations

Designing an effective user interface for the Android tablet environment

With over 1.3 million applications on the Android marketplace, there is increasing competition between mobile applications for customer sales. As usability is a significant factor in an application’s success, many mobile developers refer to the Android design guidelines when designing the user interface (UI). These principles help to provide consistency of navigation and aesthetics, with the rest of the Android platform. However, misinterpretation of the abstract guidelines may mean that patterns and elements selected to organise content of an application do not improve the usability. Therefore, usability tests would be beneficial to ensure that an application meets objectives efficiently and improve on user experience. Usability testing is an important and crucial step in the mobile development process Many freelance developers, however, have limited resources for usability testing, even though the advantages of usability feedback during initial development stages are clear and can save time and money in the long-run. In this thesis, we investigate which method of usability testing is most useful for resource constrained mobile developers. To test the efficacy of Android guidelines, three alternate designs of a unique Android tablet application, Glycano, are developed. High-fidelity paper prototypes were presented to end-users for usability testing and to usability experts for heuristic evaluations. Both usability and heuristic tests demonstrated that following the Android guidelines aids in user familiarity and learnability. Regardless of the different UI designs of the three mockups, Android guidelines provided an initial level of usability by providing familiarity to proficient users and an intuitiveness of certain patterns to new users. However, efficiency in building Glycano schematics was an issue that arose consistently. Testing with end-users and experts, revealed several navigational problems. Usability experts uncovered more general UI problems than the end-user group, who focused more on the content of the application. More refinements and suggestions of additional features to enhance usability and user experience were provided by the experts. Use of usability experts would therefore be most advantageous in initial design stages of an application. Feedback from usability testing is, however, also beneficial and is more valuable than not performing any test at all

Digital History and Hermeneutics

For doing history in the digital age, we need to investigate the “digital kitchen” as the place where the “raw” is transformed into the “cooked”. The novel field of digital hermeneutics provides a critical and reflexive frame for digital humanities research by acquiring digital literacy and skills. The Doctoral Training Unit "Digital History and Hermeneutics" is applying this new digital practice by reflecting on digital tools and methods

Image and Evidence: The Study of Attention through the Combined Lenses of Neuroscience and Art

: Levy, EK 2012, ‘An artistic exploration of inattention blindness’, in Frontiers Hum Neurosci, vol. 5, ISSN=1662-5161.Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.This study proposed that new insights about attention, including its phenomenon and pathology, would be provided by combining perspectives of the neurobiological discourse about attention with analyses of artworks that exploit the constraints of the attentional system. To advance the central argument that art offers a training ground for the attentional system, a wide range of contemporary art was analysed in light of specific tasks invoked. The kinds of cognitive tasks these works initiate with respect to the attentional system have been particularly critical to this research. Attention was explored within the context of transdisciplinary art practices, varied circumstances of viewing, new neuroscientific findings, and new approaches towards learning. Research for this dissertation required practical investigations in a gallery setting, and this original work was contextualised and correlated with pertinent neuroscientific approaches. It was also concluded that art can enhance public awareness of attention disorders and assist the public in discriminating between medical and social factors through questioning how norms of behaviour are defined and measured. This territory was examined through the comparative analysis of several diagnostic tests for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), through the adaptation of a methodology from economics involving patent citation in order to show market incentives, and through examples of data visualisation. The construction of an installation and collaborative animation allowed participants to experience first-hand the constraints on the attentional system, provoking awareness of our own “normal” physiological limitations. The embodied knowledge of images, emotion, and social context that are deeply embedded in art practices appeared to be capable of supplementing neuroscience’s understanding of attention and its disorders

General Catalog 1994-1996

Contains course descriptions, University college calendar, and college administration.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/universitycatalogs/1038/thumbnail.jp

A Good Appetite: A Thomistic Approach to the Study of Eating Disorders and Body Dissatisfaction in American Women

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. PopeThe aim of this dissertation is to expand a contemporary multidimensional discourse on the nature of eating disorders to encompass also a moral dimension. Eating disorders are complex phenomena which include biomedical, psychological, and sociocultural components. This dissertation brings the psychosocial literature on eating disorders and body dissatisfaction into dialogue with contemporary studies in Thomistic moral theology, and argues that such a multidisciplinary dialogue can illuminate new insights both for the study of eating disorders and for recent efforts to recover Thomistic moral theology in a contemporary context. Beginning empirically, the dissertation examines recent evidence showing that exposure to “thin-ideal images” in the mass media is positively correlated with an increase in body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptomatology. Socioculturally, the explanation for this phenomenon is called “thin-ideal internalization,” and basically measures the extent to which individuals “buy into” the validity of images using ultra-thin female models as a paradigm of beauty. Women who have a high level of internalization desire to conform to a thin-ideal, and behave accordingly, even when they are rationally aware of the unrealistic and unhealthy nature of such an ideal. Turning to Thomas Aquinas' moral theology, the dissertation argues that thin-ideal internalization is a form of connatural knowledge, an affective form of knowing (per modum inclinationis or ex instinctu) which is at the very basis of Aquinas' moral theology, both in explaining the operation of habits and in explaining the role of grace in the moral life through charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This dissertation argues that Aquinas' theory of connatural knowledge provides a relevant and constructive contribution to the study of eating disorders, especially on the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptamatology. Additionally, the incorporation of the psychosocial literature on eating disorders into Thomistic moral theology provide a valuable contribution to Thomistic moral theology in the effort to understand the role of the affections in moral deliberation, the development of habits, and the importance of Christian practices in the moral life.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Theology

Arts handbook

2006 handbook for the faculty of Art

Arts handbook

2006 handbook for the faculty of Art