Fiscal year 2020 research abstracts College of Arts and Sciences – FY2020 Research Abstracts ART, GRAPHIC DESIGN AND ART HISTORY Ultraviolet Reflectivity in Ink Jet Papers Many ink jet papers include optical brightening agents — or OBAs — which are chemicals that react with ultraviolet light to make the paper appear brighter and cooler. However, there is concern that OBAs may breakdown over time and shift the appearance of the printed image. In this experiment, 153 different ink jet papers were exposed to an ultraviolet LED and the reflected light was measured with a spectrometer. Higher absorption of ultraviolet light correlates with higher saturation of OBAs. The data collected are presented in a visual database as a guide for artists, designers, and anyone concerned with the archival properties of ink jet paper: https://andymattern.com/paper‐research/ Sponsor: Humanities Art and Design Grant, Office of the Vice President for Research, OSU PI/PD: Andy Mattern “Good pictures are a strong weapon”: Laura Gilpin, Queerness, and Navajo Sovereignty A book‐length study of the place of American photographer Laura Gilpin (1891‐1979) within the history of Navajo sovereignty and the broader cultural milieu of the American Southwest, illuminating the intersectional politics of photography, indigeneity, and queerness as they developed over the course of the twentieth century. Sponsors: National Endowment for the Humanities, Newberry Library (Chicago) PI/PD: Louise Siddons Cimarron National Works on Paper Reintroduction of the biennial juried exhibition of works on paper that was founded in 1987. This exhibition draws the best work from artists across the country and a juror who is prominent in the field of contemporary art to Oklahoma State University. This exhibition (held September 9‐October 10, 2019) is accompanied by a fully‐illustrated catalogue that includes a history of the Cimarron National. Sponsors: Private donors, the Department of Art, Graphic Design, and Art History, OSU Group II Student Fees PI/PD: Louise Siddons The Female Imitation of Christ in the Spanish World: Paintings, Sculptures, Prints, 1500‐1850 The art historical project focuses on the aesthetic foundations of an imitative, Christocentric faith in early modern Iberia and Latin America. It interrogates a visual and material culture that expressed and encouraged tenets of Thomas à Kempis’s De Imitatione Christi (ca. 1420), and it shows how the production, reproduction, and viewing of images were paradigms for the process of imitation central to spiritual life itself. Sponsor: Humanities, Arts and Design Grant PI/PD: Cristina Cruz González Domesticating Knowledge: Household Health and the Late Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts of the Régime du corps This is a book project that focuses on several illustrated manuscripts of the late medieval health guide, which depict a wide range of practices used within elite homes for the management of health and wellbeing. Their scenes of household care demonstrate the prevalence of female‐ dominated expertise within the domestic sphere. Sponsors: Oklahoma Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, Oklahoma State University, International Center for Medieval Art PI/PD: Jennifer Borland Different Visions: New Perspectives on Medieval Art The project involves the relaunch of this open access journal devoted to progressive scholarship on medieval art, which has involved redesigning the website, establishing a new platform for long‐term support, soliciting, editing, and publishing a new issue, and updating many of the journal’s policies and practices. Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, St. Olaf College PI/PDs: Jennifer Borland St. Olaf College: Nancy Thompson Gendering Treatment: Cupping by Female Practitioners in Late Medieval Visual Culture Late medieval representations of women practitioners support a more nuanced understanding of who received and administered healthcare at this time. Rather than solely the purview of male academic physicians, medieval medicine involved gender and class diversity. Sponsors: Oklahoma State University PI/PD: Jennifer Borland 40 Degrees North Latitude Creation of an art project of drawings, paintings and screen prints visually depicts the artist’s circumnavigation of the globe at the 40th parallel. Sponsor: Fulbright Scholar Award, Humanities Art and Design Grant, Xiaoxiang International Printmaking Center, Jentel Artist Residency PI/PD: Liz Roth Post Nature / Past Nature This solo art exhibition used printmaking, sculpture, and video animation to investigate themes of nostalgia for bucolic depictions of wilderness in the context of the Anthropocene era. Special attention was paid to the relationship between physical and virtual experiences of place. Sponsor: Utah State University Art Department, Logan, UT PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker The Artifice of Wilderness This solo art exhibition reflected upon fetishization of landscape as “other” in industrialized cultures as epitomized by ornamental representations of the natural world. The artworks included in the exhibition rearrange and re‐contextualize human‐made depictions of Nature. This body of work was created using printmaking, sculpture, and video animation techniques. Sponsor: Central Michigan University Art Department, Mt. Pleasant, MI PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker The Originality of the Avant Garden This solo art exhibition used printmaking, sculpture, and video animation to explore the concept of ‘authentic experience’ as relates to digital, printed, and painted representations of ecological phenomena. The artworks and the accompanying lecture reflected upon Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ and engaged with Rosalind Krauss’ essay The Originality and the Avant Garde. The artworks featured referenced both landscape painting’s Hudson Valley School and still life painting’s Dutch Golden Age. Sponsor: University of Wyoming Art Department, Laramie, WY PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker Wish You Were Here: Postcard Simulations This body of work featured nine postcard‐sized monotypes and one large‐scale drawing, all completed through the support of the Jentel Arts artist residency program. These artworks are meticulous reinterpretations of found vintage photographs that transform the postcards’ original cheerful hyper‐saturated color schemes into inky, foggy, ghostly greyscale. They represent after‐images far removed from first‐hand experience: memories of memories. This body of work elaborated on former projects’ explorations of aura and authentic experience as relates to landscape. Sponsor: Jentel Arts, Banner, WY PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker ‘Virtual Earth Garden: Year 2500’ Collaborative Art Installation This collaborative project was a sculptural wall‐collage of linoleum prints that encouraged participants to think critically about the impact a future ecological disaster might have on the cultural significance of botanical imagery. Participants were asked to pretend that they were researchers in a future where all flora is extinct. They were asked to design new “post‐ Anthropocene flowers” based only on art historical references from a ‘pre‐Anthropocene age’. They were told, “Your task is not to make the most realistic flower, but rather to make something that portrays the cultural significance of flowers or that fills the aesthetic void of their absence.” Sponsor: Theodore Waddell Fund, Sheridan Community College, Sheridan, WY PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker Resolution / Dissolution This eight‐layer reductive linoleum print was completed through the support of the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. The artist created an edition of 30 prints using an SP‐15 Vandercook Letterpress. The image reinterprets Dutch Golden Age painter Ambrosius Bosschaert’s Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge (1619) by filtering the image through a variety of digital and hand‐ rendered permutations. The image becomes fractured, distorted, warped, and unstable, yet still alludes to the original painting’s charm and beauty. This project is a continuation of the artist’s investigations into the relationship between digital/reproduced image, original image, and original object in the Anthropocene era. Sponsor: Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Nebraska City, NE PI/PD: Mary Claire Becker Letters Underground ‐ Mapping Typefaces in the Paris Metro This project contains several sets of prints that visualize the various typefaces used in the Paris Metro system as a component of wayfinding design. Unlike the NYC Subway, which uses a standardized signage design throughout its whole system, there are a large amount of old and new typefaces dispersed amidst station platforms and tunnels. My preliminary research indicates that there is limited English language resources describing the Paris Metro and its alphabet. My research would add to the English language offerings for this important design topic. This project give insight to the diverse use of typography and how it applies to wayfinding with a large transportation system as well as documenting the rich history of type in a Parisian institution. Sponsor: Oklahoma State University PI/PD: Ting Wang‐Hedges Shining a light on Chinese Graphic Design and its Bauhaus influences This project studies the development of Bauhaus in China and its impact on Chinese modern and contemporary graphic design. Despite the limitation of documentation and preservation of modern Chinese graphic design, China has had a substantial influence on world graphic design history. However, exposure to modern and contemporary Chinese