Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Industrial Design
Department
Industrial Design
First Advisor
Charlie Cannon
Second Advisor
Anthony Graves
Third Advisor
Robyn Stout Sheridan
Abstract
Context Clues explores the tensions between identity and appearance, especially as it relates to queer identities and the bodies that carry them.
It assumes that identity and appearance aren’t always straight forward or line up in expected ways.
It aims to expose our discomfort about this uncertainty.
It explores how we look at and evaluate others; what we observe and what we fill in.
It compares how we look at others and how we look to others.
It critiques the absurdity of how people perceive and interact with each other, by putting them in uncomfortable scenarios and exaggerating awkward situations.
It examines how we learn to interact by observing others and how, like spies, we begin to decode identity.
It confronts social norms and etiquette around appearance-based assumptions and stereotypes.
This body further considers what it means to re-categorize people. While we tend to think of categories as fixed, these interventions force active participants to confront the tensions, along with the fluidity of, identity and appearance.
Recommended Citation
Trusewicz, Brynn, "Context clues" (2016). Masters Theses. 44.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/44
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Industrial and Product Design Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons