CLOTH^3 by Patrick Stefaniak CLOTH^3 is an art installation which focuses on cloth simulated cubes that have been rendered in 3 different media: crochet, 3D printing, and videogame. Unity Primitive: Cube is a hand-crocheted cube that is a to-scale version of the cube in the Unity game engine. A few ways of being a cube is a grid of 64 3D prints of cubes that have been deformed through cloth simulation in the Blender 3D modeling software. CUBEISM 2: Baroque Edition is a 2 channel videogame, played on a touchscreen and displayed on a large projection, that has digital counterparts to the other two sculptures. CUBEISM 2: Baroque Edition also exists as a desktop version that can be downloaded online and played on a computer at home. This thesis examines how CLOTH^3 proposes an analogy between crocheting and 3D modeling, as methods of figuration that are simultaneously mathematical and bodily. Both involve a process starting from loose fibers or points, which are drawn together into lines, and then woven or connected into faces, which then can close up into a 3D form. It also looks at how aesthetic strategies from both minimal and baroque art are useful in thinking about seriality and challenging the relationship of the viewer to the art object. When combined to a practice of queer videogame design, these practices offer a way of creating joyously in a way that expresses potential ways of being and moving while locked into a rigid grid.

Global (re)Entry is a 2D game and video/sound installation that takes a critical and parodic look at the Global Entry program designed by the US Customs and Border Protection agency. While players can play the game to learn more about unfair border control strategies and oppressive state policies targeting immigrants, they can also fictionally redesign discriminatory US immigration forms and generate pro-immigrant, antiracist manifestos. In this thesis, I argue that Global (re)Entry moves beyond a representational goal and instead facilitates a critical intervention in the failing US immigration system. Borrowing from pertinent discourses on activist art, new media, queer of color critique, and critical surveillance studies, I contend the project actively encourages a closer look at systems through which social, political, and civic ostracization of immigrants is perpetuated. Moreover, Global (re)Entry invites players to formulate a utopian vision of society based in equality, fairness, and inclusion.