A Thesis Is a Product Is a Tracking

• Main Author: Li, Yixue
• Format: Others
• Published: VCU Scholars Compass 2019
• Subjects: migrant worker; China; transit; product; graphic design; global commerce; Chinese Studies; Graphic Design
• Online Access: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/5920; https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7025&context=etd

In this work, I discuss how global products/ identities are made, transported and consumed, and the inevitable ‘mis-’ in acts of transmission. This research ranges from the miscommunication in languages and linguistics, to the gap between production and consumption. I investigate how things and humans are misread, mispronounced, misfit and mistranslated when they traverse social and cultural borders, arriving at a place in between languages, holding on to and letting go of things that are familiar to neither and both cultures. This work explores diverse media such as publications, videos and installations, and examines how they maybe used to address such contexts as factory production, global trade, circulation and tracking of commodities as well as identities.