Research Catalogue

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design Since the Covid19 pandemic began, we have to wear a mask to protect ourselves. Not being able to see full facial expressions and hear the voice can be crucial to the interaction of speaking a second language. Additionally, with most of our physical routines online, it has become impossible to see the whole body, making it difficult to observe non-verbal messages. This thesis explores the ideas of how we can communicate more efficiently if the current phenomenon continues. How could we communicate when our language delivery is impaired? It argues that communication obstruction caused by the mask worn can be overcome with bodily communication with gestures and eye contact. Gestures as a symbolic action and eye contact as a window by emotionally synchronising brain waves require a deeper level of contextual and emotional exchange. Empathising from a desire to understand and to be understood can break a blockage by connecting together. Furthermore, the thesis suggests what mindset and position we need to take when experiencing difficulties of cultural differences during bodily communication. If we keep the gestures simple and embrace the embodied cultures and co-learn the diversities, we can go beyond language and connect globally.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design I was born and raised in The Netherlands, a country that is seen and communicated as a rich and prosperous country where you can be yourself and over/underwhelm yourself in the lowlands paradise. But what if you don’t always feel like you belong in it? When you don’t feel like you fit the frame or archetype, it can feel like you go through hell. In my case, it’s the archetype of my neurodivergence (PDDNOS/ADHD) vs the neurotypical mindset. The Netherlands shares its low geological position with the Nether-Hell from Dante Alghieri’s Inferno. Starting from that position and looking at The Netherlands through that lens, my thesis is in a constant zigzag between hell on earth and hell in fiction but also targeting the archetypes like demons / sinners / the location of hell, the feeling of hell and the acceptance of hell. When you don’t fit in a frame that is shaped by a certain status quo, you seek comfort in the damned. The Damned are the poor, lame, sick and the blind. The reader is challenged to look at sins and taboos through a lens of politics, policy and pop culture. Who is the decision maker and why would one follow? into eternity. When it comes to the status quo, the question is stopped with the answer: “Because we have always done it like this.” He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

Annually, theory teachers from various departments of the Royal Academy of Art nominate their department’s best thesis for the thesis award. An independent and annually changing jury decides on the winning thesis award. The jury consists of a chair, an artist or designer teaching at the academy and/or the previous winner of the thesis award and an external member.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE)

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Interior Architecture (INSIDE) Intimacy is found where the individual feels comfortable expressing, creating and existing. Our home, the domestic environment, teaches us every day, from the moment we are born, how to exist in a place that often functions as a miniature of the social and cultural system that we will later live in. This relationship continues throughout most of our lives if one considers that we spend more than half of our lives within the domestic realm. This of course does not only concern the relationship that is developed between the space and the people who inhabit it, but also all those elements that make up these interrelated relationships and often define them. Standards, values, cliches, traditions, norms and stereotype patterns are often found in a big part of our daily lives within the domestic environment. Meanwhile, each individual creates their own space of familiar interpersonal encounters.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 Master Photography & Society In Silenced Womb Petra Kroon ( @fotosvanpetrakroon) examines the age-old taboo on menopause. What does it mean to be systematically silenced for centuries? What effect does it have on how you are represented? How you are treated? And how do you behave? She explores these questions from three perspectives: the medical world, society and photography. She investigates what this in/visibility looks like and analyses what it does to her and to her allies. Since she wants to lift this taboo on menopause, she also makes some suggestions for a different representation.

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