Browsing by Author "Dineen, Mark, committee member"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

Open Access
Drawing as a phenomenological exploration of ritual
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Valentine, Clark, author; Lehene, Marius, advisor; Lajarin-Encina, Aitor, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Brady, Shawn, committee member
Historically, drawing developed in conjunction with ritual practices. Beginning with cave paintings, where drawings were traced and retraced over generations, drawing developed as a performative element of ritual practice. Even into modern day, drawing is present in many ritual practices throughout the world. In defining ritual from a phenomenological perspective, specifically through the language of Martin Heidegger's book Being in Time, ritual embodies a process of uncovering the horizons of the world, which is the realm of one's understanding. Many of Heidegger's key ideas overlap ritualistic perspectives from ancient China, including the philosophy of Daoism and the ritual culture of Confucian philosophy. Through these, I am able to articulate the way in which my own studio practice and current body of work (2020 through publication) function as a subset of this methodology of mark-making as ritual. I explain the relationship between the ritual of my making within the studio setting and the ritual of looking, audience members perform in the gallery. This ritual of drawing embodies both ideas of being-in-the-world as well as providing paradigmatic examples of the transcendence of ritual into everyday life.
Open Access
Excess flesh: a study on the universal commodification and consumption of the colored body
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Holmes, Jasmine Nicole, author; Lehene, Marius, advisor; Souza, Caridad, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Plastini, Johnny, committee member
First, the breakdown of hegemony and the creation of "race" must be explored before moving onto the branching facets of commodified colored figures: Entertainment, Labor, Sexuality. Western societies' basic understanding of race is laced with phenotypical notions. The term itself is entwined within every societal construct that exists within the contemporary world. In order to completely discuss my artistic practice and the pieces that have developed throughout my time within this program, we must study these compartments of racial discrimation and overall consumption of the Black form.
Open Access
Generalized persistence for discrete dynamical systems
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2025) Cleveland, Jacob, author; Patel, Amit, advisor; King, Emily, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member
We introduce a novel method for extracting persistent topological descriptions of discrete dynamical systems from finite samples in the form of generalized persistence diagrams. These persistence diagrams are decorated with eigenvalues of linear maps associated to a certain local system called the persistent local system. We also prove the stability of our method and provide an example of recovering the induced map on homology from a finite sample.
Open Access
Habitation: anthropocentric notions of home
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Laugen, Melissa, author; Bates, Haley, advisor; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Kissell, Kevin, committee member; Ryan, Ajean, committee member
One of the most essential human conditions is to seek and establish a home. Conceptualization of home is generated by the material and psychological structures impacted by our shared cultural ideals. The vernacular of the home extends beyond mere shelter and creates context for the discourse of identity. Our external selves are socially constructed and identified by our connection to an abode, a region, or an even larger territory….home. Concurrently, we have a need for a private realm, a space to conceal the personal and vulnerable parts of our existence. In the bodies of work, I reside, Armament, and Comforter, I have produced a system of structures that imply the fragility and strength of the fabric of the domicile. These objects exemplify an innate desire for the sanctuary, protection and comfort of the intimate interior and simultaneously reveal that there is imperfection and impermanence in the concept of the domestic.
Open Access
Intrinsic motions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Trujillo, Isaac, author; Plastini, Johnny, advisor; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Moore, Emily, committee member; Ryan, Ajean, committee member; Wohl, Ellen, committee member
This graduate thesis describes in-depth research and artworks produced by Isaac Trujillo from 2018-2020. His MFA works created at Colorado State University expresses and captures the importance of traditional printmaking, digital photography and twenty-first-century interpretations of the land art movement. His work contends that the sport of rock climbing, printmaking, and interdisciplinary art practice are all in collaboration with the phenomena of nature. This expands our ideas of a static material world and expresses the constant flux of space through juxtaposition and metaphorical references to geologic time. The primary argument for contemplation is that material things and objects are inevitably in a constant state of change and renewal.
Open Access
Resonance: memory and emotion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Shelby, Mariah, author; Bates, Haley, advisor; Brenner, Rachel, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Plastini, Johnny, committee member
Through an investigation into the trauma responses of my body, from dissociation to panic attacks, I have built a body of work that relies on the associations and interactions of material and process. I have developed a sensitivity to material and processes guided by the desire to communicate feelings and emotions that are difficult to put into words. These materials vary based on clinical properties, historical contexts, or personal memory. While working, I am concerned about what materials may communicate beyond their intended purpose, pushing the material to broaden my conceptual ideas.
Open Access
See man
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Jones, Adam, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Lundberg, Tom, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Martinez, Doreen E., committee member
My research asks a series of questions about how societal pressures sculpt male cultural roles in the United States. What components constitutes being a man? How have the constructed ideologies adopted by Americans affected my livelihood? How do the patriarchal structures in place shape my world view? Being a white, heterosexual male who fits within the privileged patriarchal systems of the United States, I feel a calling and obligation to utilize my voice to expose the toxic effects these systems have had on me and the rest of the American population. Toxic forms of masculinity are creating displacement, marginalization, and oppression of large groups of Americans. My work is an investigation aiming to unveil and exploit the effects of the ideologies of Christianity, nationalism and capitalism, and how these ideologies reinforce the toxic hegemonic masculine engine. The focus of my practice is to create and incorporate coded symbols and non-traditional painting materials as metaphors for stereotyped manliness.
Open Access
Socializing playgrounds and creating invisible borders
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Delgado, Vicente, author; Plastini, Johnny, advisor; Aoki, Eric, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Lajarin-Encina, Aitor, committee member
Equal rights have been the outcry for many protesters and environmentalist fighting against injustices done to communities throughout the years. Visual arts have the power to start and steer conversations, therefore juxtaposing objects, images, and the use of color to indicate concepts of invisible borders that are created by people, maps, and the built environment. An understanding of the early adaptation of children's stratification of others through the readings of Pierre Bourdieu's community doxa, and the three capitals that differentiate one's upbringing into a society. The ontology of the adult-made toy can tell us a bit more about how these objects introduce a child to a Marxist society, while other toys can teach them how to socialize and obtain skills that only belong to the community. Low social classes and high social classes are clear distinctions of the social economic state of families across the nation, yet Charles Tilly's Durable Inequality, helps us understand that we care to dissolve injustices, much more than fighting for equality.
Open Access
The boundaries of experience
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Price, Patrick, author; Faris, Suzanne, advisor; Harrow, Del, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Soler Gallego, Silvia, committee member
As I make my way through the world, I rely on my senses to inform me of the things and events around me that allow me to continue living and growing as a human being. I am keenly aware of myself as a living human consciousness that appears to inhabit a body. My mind is the center of this being, and my body and the senses it employs are the interface between this being within, and the reality without. My artwork explores the boundary between these worlds and how it gives shape to reality. With a focus on history, culture, and science, and how they affect identity, my research investigates the way these factors inform the creative act of being in the world. The sculptural objects and images I create attempt to reveal answers to the questions my artistic practice revolves around. My work casting and fabricating objects and then placing them in specific contexts challenges the frameworks of collective and individual world-view constructs by revealing them for what they are. Material and landscape, objects and space, create harmonious or discordant relationships that aim to question what a culture can take as certainty. The trajectory of this body of work has led to my thesis The Veil of Isis, which through metaphor and allusion, points to the limits of what our senses can tell us about reality.
Open Access
The edge of place
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Sullivan, Emily, author; Osborne, Erika, advisor; Badia, Lynn, committee member; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Moore, Emily, committee member
My thesis work uses clouds as a metaphor to explore transition, change, and shifts. I track the origins of my interest in landscape painting by discussing nineteenth century Hudson River School painters — the first to celebrate the American landscape in a traditional oil painting method. Their practice of painting en plein air, in addition to their mobile studio practices as artist-adventurers, influences my paint language and approach. Frederic Church's painted cloud sketches are highlighted for his process, materials, and relationship to place. I argue that these paintings, both finished and unfinished, exist in a state of liminality. Next, I detail a search for the "local" in the presence of multicenteredness and movement, as outlined in Lucy Lippard's text, The Lure of the Local. In my series Holding Patterns, and my thesis work The Edge of Place, I question what it means to find a sense of place within shifting localities. I reference contemporary approaches to landscape and skyscape painting within the context of Lippard's discussion. The history of liminality is followed, using anthropologist Victor Turner's work as a launching point to discuss how liminal spaces are illustrated in my paintings. My work is also supported by Rebecca Solnit's text A Field Guide to Getting Lost to show how relationships in flux can be mirrored in the landscape. Finally, time as a marker of liminality is discussed within the context of my paintings.
Open Access
The words we can't hear: decoding the language of objects through the eyes of object-oriented ontology
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Dong Saul, Samuel Omar, author; Frazier, Jason, advisor; Dineen, Mark, committee member; Kissell, Kevin, committee member; Gravdahl, John, committee member
The work presented in this paper investigates the presumption that objects relating to humans are part of a more significant philosophical discussion. Using the philosophical framework of Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) as the theoretical foundation, the thesis explores the acknowledgment that by not thinking about the sum of the material parts of objects and the cultural meanings of their interpretations, one could experience new relationships with his/her surrounding objects. Discussions on post-structuralist language theories in contemporary art address how artists use language and cultural symbols in art-objects, challenging already established cultural meanings. In addition, psychological theories of personification of objects, and how they help understand the life of non-living things, support the idea that objects communicate in non-verbal ways to other objects in their environment without the full awareness of people. Conclusively, the thesis will attempt to translate and interpret the unique relationship of living and non-living objects; how non-verbal code is left behind and by challenging language conventions, one can experience a new relationship with objects outside the cultural norms.