Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item LUCID DREAMS: AN EXPLORATION IN IMMERSIVE INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING WITH AUGMENTED REALITY(2024) Lazar, Rashonda; Kachman, Misha; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis examines my design process and discoveries while investigating one way live performance and immersive storytelling can act as a form of augmented reality, and explores whether incorporating traditional forms of augmented reality is one way to enhance a performance and builds on the narrative agency audiences experience in immersive theater. The production opened on April 8th, 2024, in the Herman Maril Gallery at the Parren J. Mitchell Art and Sociology Building at the University of Maryland.Item "AMBER LEAVES" FOR SOLO SITAR AND ELECTRONICS(2012) Regulski, Thomas; Delio, Thomas; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Amber Leaves is a composition for solo sitar and live electronics. The work constitutes a fusion between Western musical composition and Indian classical music, which I have been studying simultaneously for the past seven years. The sitar's music draws heavily upon its traditional performance technique, while also introducing a number of extended techniques developed specifically for this piece. Compositionally, I rely minimally on the tonal elements of Indian music, choosing instead an approach to tonality consistent with my recent work. The instrument is amplified by four loudspeakers, which are positioned in a square around the audience. At the same time, a microphone is picking up the sound and sending it to a computer, where it is modulated in various ways. Once processed, the computer sends the sound out to the same loudspeakers. The speakers themselves play an important role in the composition, as the sound is constantly moving from one to another. A large portion of the electronic processing occurs in a patch that I programmed in Max/MSP. The patch creates a variety of musical responses based on a real-time spectral analysis of the sitar performance. This initial process establishes a fundamental relationship between the synthesized sound and the sitar's music. Furthermore, I make use of the programming language Lisp to perform a number of algorithms that aid in the generation of these sounds.Item Designing Happiness: Architecture and urban design for joy and well-being(2016) Habtour, Rebecca; Simon, Madlen; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Scientific studies exploring the environmental and experiential elements that help boost human happiness have become a significant and expanding body of work. Some urban designers, architects and planners are looking to apply this knowledge through policy decisions and design, but there is a great deal of room for further study and exploration. This paper looks at definitions of happiness and happiness measurements used in research. The paper goes on to introduce six environmental factors identified in a literature review that have design implications relating to happiness: Nature, Light, Surprise, Access, Identity, and Sociality. Architectural precedents are examined and design strategies are proposed for each factor, which are then applied to a test case site and building in Baltimore, Maryland. It is anticipated that these factors and strategies will be useful to architects, urban designers and planners as they endeavor to design positive user experiences and set city shaping policy.Item Spatial Perceptual Transformation: a thesis in body_scale_form_movement(2010) Faulkner, Shawn; Eisenbach, Ronit; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis is based on three stems of interest. First, the love and respect of making and the knowledge that comes through the process of making. Second, the interest in the thesis as a proposition and the process in which a thesis is developed, similar to that of a scientific experiment. The third interest is the profound intersection between the human body and space. Building at full-scale allows one to ask questions important to the field of architecture that are not possible to explore through the conventional means of scale models, drawings and writing. The tangible qualities of a full-scale structure allow for inhabitation and direct modulation of space. This strategy enables an inquiry into the relationships between the body, embodied movement, perception, and space. The thesis will address the effects of transformational space upon the individual psyche, while exploring ways to record and measure bodily movement and perception in a changing space. This is accomplished by testing whether the introduction of change at the boundaries of an enclosure might affect human experience. The following questions are raised by the work: Is it possible to create an environment whose form alters human perception? How can we record this transformation and successfully analyze, and interpret the results? Can a dynamic, ever-changing space participate in relation between body, mind, and form? The first step of this thesis is the production and fabrication of a device in which the spatial configurations can be modulated and the reactions and movement of people can be recorded. Captured data will be analyzed to gain understanding into the relation of environment and the psychology and motion choices of the inhabitants. Knowledge gained from this experiment will be applied to design choices in which an existing movement-oriented site will be transformed. This second phase of the thesis will further speculate and reflect on the relationship between a designer's choice and the effects that choice has upon the inhabitant's movement.