Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Mariela Yeregui
Second Advisor
Alex Chechile
Third Advisor
Leah Beeferman
Abstract
Nostalgia is sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. In Chinese, nostalgia is more like an experience of chóu(惆), it is like a subtle weaving of heart and mind, where an ineffable emotion circles endlessly within. This is a process of repetition, of continuously generating and renewing—a reflection on loss, memory, and the passage of time. Within this affective terrain, images—particularly those expired in digital communication—act as traces of presence and absence, mediating our encounter with the past and our sense of home from a distance. These expired images, though seemingly unreadable or even lacking value and potential, retain the capacity to evoke sensation, to be “touched” emotionally and conceptually, bridging the gap between faraway places, memories, and embodied experience. How can such images be touched? What kind of distance does their expired state create, and how far does it reach? Expired images not as static remnants but as generative sites for reflection, sensation, and artistic inquiry.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Yuanji, "Waiting for Memory to Expire" (2026). Masters Theses. 1563.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1563
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
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