Graduation Year

2023

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Media Studies

Second Department

Environmental Analysis

Reader 1

Carlin Wing

Reader 2

Char Miller

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

2023 Emma Duggleby

Abstract

This thesis fundamentally questions how representations of the environment and land impact how we relate to and live in it. By examining a set of 1925 stereoscope images of Zion National Park, it considers how use-based perceptions of place – structured by the entertainment of tourism and mass media – become part of the mundane practices of consumption. By revealing how these capitalist-colonial relationships to the land have been built through time, an analysis of these stereoscope slides reveals that these stories are anything but natural in hopes of making room for other stories to be built instead. The second part is an installation project extrapolating this research into a multimedia virtual reality and illustration piece that takes on the viewpoint of a fictional Martian travel agency. This section ultimately looks to reveal how use-based relationships to our environments have been packaged and sold throughout time, embodied by a comparison between the stereoscope and 21st Century Virtual Reality. Overall, by looking at how these capital-colonial narratives around land have been built, this thesis looks to propose one method of many through which to re-frame environmental issues as able to be addressed.

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