Battle Folds

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Narratives in the superhero genre and daily periodicals shaped and reflect the brainwashing I experienced during my formative years in the Marine Corps. This thesis begins with an artistic analysis of the propagation of military force for national interests by deconstructing their narrative via folding three-dimensional objects that then become rearranged into a unified visual whole. In this case, three unified wholes, Brainwashed, One-Point Perspective, and JOIN, or DIE will represent a phenomenological gestalt installation framed by critical authoritative reference images from the Berlin DADA art movement, one-point perspective in Western Culture, and the first political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin. Through an interdisciplinary focus on the literary theories of Umberto Eco and the visual theories of Marcel Merleau-Ponty, this thesis posits an intertwined correlation between the folded narrative of an embodied object with the Superman complex and its authoritative implications in the initial material, folded form, and illustrative installations.