"Playin' Tha Game" explores the connections between black gangsta rappers, black basketball stars, and the degree to which they are vocal about black sociopolitical issues. Specifically the 1992 Dream Team members and L.A. based gangsta rappers were studied. Through analysis of personal identity and brand identity, it was theorized that gangsta rappers were more vocal about issues that affected black communities because their personas were connected to their personal identities. Conversely black basketball stars were less vocal because their personas were tied to their brand identities. In order to compare and contrast these two personas the responses of gangsta rappers and basketball players on the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots were evaluated. While basketball stars didn't address these incidents for fear of damaging their brand identities, gangsta rappers were quick to criticize those they deemed responsible. Although basketball stars of the past weren't able to connect their persona with their personal identity, the advent of social media has made this possible for current basketball players. Now that their personas are intertwined with their personal identities, current basketball players have become more vocal about issues that affect black communities.

Designed to call attention to itself and the network of ideologies that create it, INFORM is a typeface that intentionally disrupts the process of reading in order to display the ways in which gender norms and typefaces structure one another. Over the course of the alphabet, INFORM slowly shifts from a typeface with very stereotypically masculine features to one with very stereotypically feminine features. When put to work together, the letterforms highlight the processes of both typographic design and gender norm construction, which normally render themselves invisible. Drawing upon a larger historical discourse surrounding gender and typography, the project seeks to unsettle ingrained understandings of these meanings behind both gender norms and typography, and to call attention to the ways in which the two constantly inform each other.

The amalgamation of the real and digital worlds has forced us to critically consider our evolving relationship with technology. My thesis aims to examine practices of digital advertising and the effects they have on Internet users' privacy and anonymity. I will examine the history of the Western advertising industry throughout the 20th century before transitioning to an analysis of Google. Then I will discuss the evolution of public-private ties and how they reflect legislation that gives companies free reign to implement their own lenient policies. I will compare the FTC's laws and regulation with their EU counterparts to highlight the differences between a self-regulatory system and that of a centralized, user-focused one. I will conclude with an analysis of modern users' sentiment. I hope to prove that it isn't just what is happening now that hurts us as a society, but rather what will happen if these powers go unchecked.

This project takes a transdisciplinary approach to spatial interactivity, incorporating elements of theoretical discourse, speculative design, narrative worldbuilding, making, scientific experimentation and video. To me it is destructive to segregate bodies of knowledge, or any bodies for that matter, and it denies the synergism that is possible with transdisciplinary work. I combine scientific materiality with imagined alechemies and interweave these throughout the text with borrowed and original philosophical contemplations to more fully grapple with the shifting complexities of <em>Conversational Ecologies. </em>I firmly believe that due to the complex, multisensorial nature of interactivity, the discourse must exist outside of just the written. This discourse can exist simultaneously as fantasy and reality–as long as it engages the senses and encourages people to reconsider their ecological positionalities. This theoretical, textual body acts as both a beginning for these experiments, and as a site to re-incorporate what I learn 'in the field.'

In the 21st century, there is a strong trend of the audience's personal technology-dependent behavior in live music events, specifically music concerts and music festivals. This project, <em>Interplaying, </em>investigates the way technology is used to encourage the audience's human-human interaction in such events in order to allow audience members to better engage in live-music-listening experience's benefits such as socialization. My paper finds a lesson from human-human interaction in cultural/community festivals. Also, it does not criticize the presence of technology itself in the events. The project rather provides the way technology can bring the audience back to real environment from virtual communication. The prototype of <em>Interplaying </em>tangibly embodies the possibility of technology encouraging live social interaction amongst audience members.