Modern Classics : Andy Warhol and the Renaissance Masters

"This paper explores Warhol’s final and largest series entitled the Last Supper series in which the artist appropriated the work of Leonardo da Vinci’s original fifteenth century painting, replicating the image through repetition, radical cropping, and washes of neon color. While many scholars conclude this group of works is inspired by Warhol’s religious beliefs, others interpret these paintings as typical Warhol appropriation without religious association, but consistent with the artist’s interest in the cultural commodity of famous images"

Black maps/vivid waters : beauty and horror in David Maisel's The Lake Project and Terminal Mirage

"This paper examines The Lake Project and Terminal Mirage, the two components of David Maisel’s Black Maps series that concern water. Like the section of the Salt Lake chosen by Robert Smithson for his seminal Spiral Jetty, the alkaline waters Maisel photographs are subject to infestations of bacteria that that give them a visceral hue. Smithson provides a reference for this work; the artists are notable for their shared site, disorienting scale, and attraction to entropy"

James Turrell and the Northern romantic tradition

"This paper discusses the work of contemporary artist James Turrell as framed by the philosophy of the sublime. Focusing on the artist’s use of the medium of light, it addresses Turrell’s scientific approach to creating artworks and discusses his resolution of the problematic relationship between science and spirituality. This relationship is discussed through the examination of the artist’s use of total visual fields known as ganzfelden and other perceptual phenomena, such as those encountered while piloting aircraft"

Beautiful victims : childhood and the holocaust in the work of Gottfried Helnwein

"For the past three decades, contemporary artist Gottfried Helnwein has shocked viewers with his Holocaust-related paintings, drawings and installations. Born in Austria in 1948, Helnwein witnessed the immediate aftermath of World War II in Europe from a child’s perspective. Consequently, the horrifying images summoned from Helnwein’s imagination are inspired by the memories and repercussions of this tragedy. His work addresses his parents’ unwillingness to speak of the atrocities as well as the exploitation of the Holocaust in contemporary popular media. His work questions not only how such a tragedy could have taken place, but also how contemporary perception of this event has been affected by total media saturation and the passage of time. To shock viewers, Helnwein portrays strikingly realistic images of distressed, wounded and morally ambiguous children in works that have been regarded as controversial and outspoken"

Art influences on Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves and Los Angeles's influence on Johnny Truant

"...is a novel that combines literature and art to create a unique postmodern object. It was published just over a decade ago, and in that time numerous scholars and students have written papers and articles on it. Within these articles, the themes are usually about deconstruction, the house as a digital object, the house's lack of homeliness, or characters who claim authorial presence. Danielewski distance himself from that role. The house and its impossible labyrinth are the central feature of the book. A house should provide stability, but this house shifts its rooms and walls at random. A house should protect its occupants, but this one kills people. This house links itself into an infinite amount of information through its use of the internet as an influence and a stylistic device, but it has nothing but an absence in its very foundation, an empty labyrinth with an unseen monster."

Clarity, Light, and Logic : Parallels between Olafur Eliasson’s The weather project and the Gothic Cathedral

This Master’s Research Paper investigates Olafur Eliasson’s The weather project as a case study for the dialogue between Gothic artistic principles and prominent elements of contemporary art. A product of a post-modern mindset, weakened historicity allows us to examine these connections anew; past, present, and future blur and artists (and viewers) have the whole of time from which to gain inspiration and meaning in works of art. I demonstrate similarities through theories on phenomenology; the spatiotemporal relationship between viewer and artwork; the convergence of art and science; and the communal, quasi-liminal experience of pilgrimage. I embrace Eliasson’s belief in the self-reflexive potential of art and the importance of the viewer’s own values, memories, and methods of seeing. This new interpretive layer will hopefully offer a richer experience for future participants of both Gothic cathedrals and environments produced by Studio Olafur Eliasson.

Translating and Subtitling Humor Through Theory and Practice

This project assesses translating and subtitling humor in Italian and Spanish language films subtitled into English. Humor in film is problematic to translate when subtitling: visual humor may need no assistance to be delivered to a target audience, but verbal humor requires thorough analysis to be constructed effectively in the target language. To keep humor alive in target language translations, translators must understand the structure and function of humor. This project researches humor theory, translation and subtitling. It analyzes humor function through humor theory and applies this knowledge to translating audiovisual mediums. An understanding of joke structure and humor function can serve as a guide for translators to recognize, devise and evaluate equivalent translations of humor in film.

Applying Translation Quality Standards to a Certification Procedure for U.S. Language Service Providers

Many translation quality standards have been implemented to regulate the provision and procurement of language services. However, in the absence of a standardized procedure to certify U.S. language service providers (LSPs), the industry lacks consensus with regard to requirements, procedures, and expectations. This project establishes the need for such a procedure and proposes an LSP Certification Procedure based on existing quality standards. Through a review and analysis of existing translation quality standards, an interview with a key stakeholder, and the presentation of an LSP Certification Procedure, this project concludes that the U.S. language services industry requires a procedure to certify LSPs and that such a procedure may be designed and implemented based on existing standards.