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Lost and found: escape from the longing past towards the uncertain future of art and design

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Lost and found: escape from the longing past towards the uncertain future of art and design

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Content LOST AND FOUND:
ESCAPE FROM THE LONGING PAST
TOWARDS THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE
OF ART AND DESIGN
By
YiXuan Zheng
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(DESIGN )
May 2022
Copyright 2022 YiXuan Zheng

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my family
and friends, and several individuals. Many thanks to my MFA Design Chair, Ewa Wojciak, who
has helped me since day one in my USC MFA study, guiding my work and supporting my
growth in such a difficult time. Thank you so much, April Greiman, who has inspired me with
her career and as a mentor always pushing me to be a better designer. Thank you to all the
instructors, Jason Ellenburg, Brian O'Connell, Alexis Zoto, who have believed in and influenced
me over my academic career. I wish to thank my partner, Carson Elder, for being by my side
throughout the years and teaming up with me as a creative duo: the ideal collaborator over the
years, together we have built so many proud works. I cherish all our sparking creative moments
and conversations. Finally, I wish to thank my mother, Xiang Huang, a constant role model in
the family who has always had faith in me even in the face of adversity.
To my father, Ping Zheng, in loving memory. A lost and found experience. This one is
for you, dad. Thank you for everything.

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... ii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1: Nostalgia
Introduction to Nostalgia .....................................................................................................3
History of Nostalgia .............................................................................................................3
Nostalgia in Art and Design .................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: Lost and Found: Collection One
Inspiration ............................................................................................................................8
Newspaper Design ...............................................................................................................9
Poster Design .....................................................................................................................10
Chapter 3: Past Perfect, Animation Film
Film: Past Perfect ...............................................................................................................15
Chapter 4: Conclusion ....................................................................................................................18
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................20

iv
LIST OF FIGURES

1-1. Sony SLV-D350P ...................................................................................................................2
1-2. Nokia 5700 .............................................................................................................................2
1-3. Nostalgia by Hollis Frampton ................................................................................................6
2-1. Daily Trojan Newspaper .......................................................................................................10
2-2. Newspaper Club Website .....................................................................................................10
2-3. Apples Make Great Carrots ..................................................................................................11
2-4. Apple 80s Ads ......................................................................................................................12
2-5. National Geographic Chart ..................................................................................................13
2-6. Blobject & Beyond ...............................................................................................................13
2-7. Blobject Chart .......................................................................................................................14
3-1. Past Perfect Computer Scene ................................................................................................16
3-2. Past Perfect CD Scene 1 .......................................................................................................17
3-3. Past Perfect CD Scene 2 ........................................................................................................17

v
ABSTRACT

An attachment to objects and images from the 90s triggered my emotions and memories
from my childhood in the early 2000 digital age. This led me to examine nostalgia as it applies to
earlier design in printed mediums and advertisements from the 80s and 90s. My research and
resulting design work is presented in this thesis.
How is nostalgia adopted into contemporary design? Nostalgia revels in images and ideas
from the past, while contemporary design embraces experimentation in modern digital and
physical environments. Creating narratives that explore the space between these two areas,
physical and digital, provides open territory for exploration.
This new territory creates a potential to connect physical and digital environments using
visual elements and forms to create a vocabulary that reflects both past and present. Through a
mash-up of various artistic platforms such as 3D and graphic design, my work explores
contemporary design from both current and past perspectives. With Lost and Found, Collection
One, a newspaper project, I hope to remind people of the nostalgic sentiments of yesteryear and
provoke memories about how people interacted with newspapers in the past. On the other hand,
nostalgia is not always about a specific memory; it is often a vague and foggy idea about the
past. This newspaper project creates a visual archive that resembles the past and engages with the
audience’s memory. It will also work against the audience’s memory by looking at a visual that
is quickly fading away from daily use. The goal is for the viewer to think deeply about the
content while holding the newspaper—a nostalgic form of art and design. Additionally, my 3D
short film, “Past Perfect,” is inspired by industrial and product design. The film features a mix of
industrial design shapes and forms, each with its behaviors and characters interacting in the

vi
digital environment. It aims to challenge and question people’s memory about the past through
the lens of 80s product design.

1
INTRODUCTION

Advertising posters from the 80s and 90s and art forms such as blobject and glitch digital
art have created new forms in the digital world. These cultural objects influence how the viewer
experiences nostalgia in both physical and digital spaces. My practice includes pre-digital art and
visual elements that reference vintage iconography and its cultural residue. I adopt products and
forms from the past that allows me to create a visual language that references past and current
eras. My goal is to develop projects that present visual aesthetics from the past and challenge
viewers’ memories about nostalgia. What we hold up to in the past may not be what we believe it
was; through time, our memory has slowly changed our perspective.
Living in the United States for over ten years and coming from a different cultural
background in the southern part of China has allowed me to better understand and appreciate my
native cultural heritage and history. I see myself as a bridge between Eastern and Western
culture. Adopting to and understanding Western culture has given me the ability to see the world
from both an Eastern and Western point of view—a hybrid point of view. Experiencing these
two cultures has led me to the examination of nostalgia from a contemporary point of view in my
current work. As a designer, I am interested in how design and life is shifting from physical
products, analog design, to environments in which life is immersed in digital space. As a
millennial, I remember seeing my parent’s combination DVD/CD + HiFi VCR player (Sony
SLV-D350P). I enjoyed the experience of interacting with the machine. Without reading the
manual, I would press every button, plug and unplug every cord and cable, and figure out how it
worked. In middle school, I owned a Nokia 5700 XpressMusic smartphone. I remember the
rubbery texture on the side, the hard plastic tactile keyboard, and how heavy it felt—like a

2
brick—in my pocket. The phone had innovative features like twisting the keyboard 180 degrees
to activate the music player and reveal the playback controls. It made me feel like a hardcore
music fan who could have music with me anywhere and anytime. Nowadays, with all the
advanced software developed for smartphones, more than just being a hardcore music fan,
people can become music composers by just accessing a phone app.
This transition from analog to digital allowed me to see the world in a more dynamic
context: what has been lost to “progress” and what has become the new normal. Experiencing
our analog lifestyle being eclipsed by more digital experiences via apps, augmented reality,
virtual reality, etc., I began to understand my point of view of translating these thoughts about
the past and how they can remain in the current digital world through my work. My thesis
experimentations are heavily influenced by history and out-of-date elements. In my research into
the visual aesthetic and language of physical and virtual spaces, I’ve come across nostalgic forms
in three main categories that inform my projects: product photoshoots, glitch art design, and the
blobject.

Figure 1-1. Sony SLV-D350P. Source:
https://www.porterelectronics.com/sony-slv-d350p-dvd-vcr-combo-dvd-player-only-vcr-player-recorder/

Figure 1-2. Nokia 5700. Source:
https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/nokia-5700-xpressmusic

3
CHAPTER 1 - NOSTALGIA

Introduction of Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a longing for the past, and it is not necessarily about happiness or sadness. It
is a foggy, uncertain utopia that leaves us with a warm feeling. People often hold old memories
dear—often expressing that everything seemed so much better in the past compared to the
uncertainly of the present and future. One might say it is a form of escapism to yearn for days
gone by. However, I believe nostalgia is the fuel that gives people courage and confidence. It
promises that everything is going to be ok. People worry about the unpredictable future, both
short and long term, and they allow their future projected stress and anxiety from family, work,
society, etc., to overwhelm them from making decisions in the present. However, the truth is that
stress and anxiety have always been in our past and will always be in our future. People feel a
sense of loss and longing about nostalgia and often forget the problems and difficulties they have
overcome. “Nostalgia in practice today reveals a deeper engagement with the truth; in fact, it
expresses not only how we see the past, but also who we are now, and how we see our own
future”
1
Living in the present is an excellent example of having overcome past challenges.

History of Nostalgia
The word nostalgia has a bad reputation. It was coined in 1688 as a disease explicitly
linked with homesickness. Johannes Hofer published a “A Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia or
Homesickness” arguing that the condition had both physical and emotional roots. Hofer linked
the term to the Greek words Nosos (a return to one’s native land) and Algos (as a forms of

1
Anne Massey and Guffey Elizabeth, “Nostalgia,” in A Companion to Contemporary Design since 1945 (Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019), pp. 32-51.

4
suffering). And nostalgia was understood as a menace that might strike unsuspecting migrants
and travelers far from home.
2
Nostalgia was reported as a widespread disease that happens to
soldiers on the battlefield. Swiss soldiers fighting as mercenaries lost the will to fight and walked
away from the 1710 battlefield in Zwinger. By the 18th century, nostalgia was accepted as a
disease closely linked to separation.
Later, nostalgia built its credibility in the 19th century with the rise of Romanticism.
Romanticism was a cultural movement that reshaped art, music, literature, and philosophy over
the 19th century and emphasized inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.
3

Romanticism was opposed to the rationalism of the enlightenment period and championed
imagination, subjectivity, and emotions. Nostalgia was absorbed into the movement and turned
into a literary sensibility to help express the angst of the period.
4
Shortly after World War I,
society started to look into the idea of rationality, standardization, and emotionless objectivity
that pushed designers and artists to break from the past, “Using new materials and embracing
functionalist design, they began to look forward rather than backward.” There is often tension
between forward-looking futurism and backward-looking nostalgia. Up to now, with the
increased development of technology, people start to look back and ask themselves, “what kind
of progress this kind of technology might bring to the human world,” and with this kind critical
thinking, “in the past 40 years, nostalgia has gained more and more credibility in the design
circles. We now have a thousand words for nostalgia.”
5

2
Anne Massey and Guffey Elizabeth, 32-51.
3
Rund Abdelfatah et al., “The Nostalgia Bone,” NPR (NPR, October 14, 2021),
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/1045812865/the-nostalgia-bone.
4
Rund Abdelfatah et al., web
5
Rund Abdelfatah et al., web

5
Nostalgia in Art and Design
The word, nostalgia, has been used to describe an emotion or mood, and it has been
wildly used as a brand marking tool. Some legacy brands such as Polaroid and Nintendo use
nostalgia as a marketing strategy to spark old memories and create an emotional connection with
customers. “Nostalgia marketing is a go-to tactic for companies trying to reach millennials.
Rather than fostering a new emotional connection with a product, nostalgia ties a product to a
strong, positive emotion that already exists.”
6
Nintendo released Super Mario 3D All-Stars on
the Nintendo Switch in 2021, a collection of three high-definition ports of classic 3D Nintendo
games from 1996, 2002, and 2007. In 1983, Polaroid released the instant film camera, OneStep
600, as a reboot of their vintage 1977 OneStep camera. These brands found a way to generate
familiar memories from the past and impact them with new technology. Nostalgic strategies can
reconnect with original consumers and draw in curious new ones.
7
These memories remind
people of a moment in time when life seemed simple and more carefree. They make people feel
something comforting, whether it is safety, innocence, or simplicity. Brands, media, and film
have embraced the nostalgic remembrance of things past, and there is no shortage of the public’s
interest in reliving those bygone days; suddenly people are traveling back to those times. In
recent years there have been a flood of film remakes such as Aladdin, Dune, A Star Is Born,
Godzilla, It, The Jungle Book, Space Jam, and The Planet of the Apes series.
The film, Nostalgia, made by Hollis Frampton in 1978, interacts with the audience’s
experience and memory temporality through the disjunction of sounds and images. The images

6
Lynde Langdon, “Nintendo Makes Bank on Millennial’s' Memories,” WORLD, accessed January 18, 2022,
https://wng.org/roundups/nintendo-makes-bank-on-millenials-memories-1617229215.
7
Lee, Katy July. What's Old is New Again: Using Nostalgia in Product Design to Create Positive Association.
TREND HUNTER Inc., July 30, 2012. https://www.trendreports.com/article/nostalgia-in-product-design.

6
are of photographs burning one at a time on a hotplate and the sounds are Frampton’s comments
and reminiscences about the images. However, the sounds and images exist on two different
timelines. At any given moment, the audience are listening to commentary about a specific
photograph that they will see in the future or looking at a photograph that they heard about in the
past. We are pulled between anticipation and memory. The nature of the commentary reinforces
the complexity; it arouses our sense of anticipation by referring to the future. It also reminisces
about the past, about the time and conditions under which the photographs were made.
8
This film
is a perfect example of how nostalgia is a foggy feeling and an imperfect recollection of the past.
Details are forgotten, and only emotion is left from a vague memory.
9

Figure 1-3. Nostalgia by Hollis Frampton. Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz0Y6jNaCp0

Like Frampton, my thesis project attempts not to use nostalgia as a decorative or
emotional hook but rather to embed it as a structural lynchpin of the viewers experience of a past
memory. This can be further seen in my newspaper, Lost and Found, Collection One, and short
film, Past Perfect. These projects share the ambition to trigger an emotional aesthetic and critical
responses through nostalgia. Lost and Found, Collection One, is a newspaper project inspired by

8
Bill Simon, “Nostalgia, A Film by Hollis Frampton,” Hollis Frampton, accessed January 18, 2022,
http://hollisframpton.org.uk/nostalgia.htm.
9
Ed Halter, “A Hollis Frampton Odyssey: Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come,” The Criterion Collection, accessed
January 18, 2022, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2267-a-hollis-frampton-odyssey-nostalgia-for-%20an-
age-yet-to-come.

7
80s and 90s product advertising. The mid and late 90s mark the moment when print
advertisement had reached its zenith and was beginning to be supplanted by digital platforms
through website design and social platforms like Facebook and MySpace. This moment in design
history and culture is the last wave of analog before the digital experience would soon define a
user’s experience of a product or service. “Younger generations have less and less connection to
anything analog; the iPhone became the digital camera with Instagram as its photo book.
Snapchat—despite its recent struggles—hugely changed how everyone under 30 thinks about
photos. Over time, pictures have become less and less precious, and Snapchat further eliminated
some of the preciousness of photography by making it ephemeral; moments became easily
replaceable.”
10
This analog moment would evoke a nostalgic feeling because people grew up
with it when they were children in the 90s and later. Moreover, the newspaper medium is
nostalgic as not so many people are reading them nowadays. Therefore, it is a medium that
represents a past experience: a carefree afternoon sitting on the sofa and browsing through the
oversized newsprint pages. The texture, the smell, and the tactile experience brings back an old
memory and allows people to travel back in time.

10
Molly McHugh, “The Death and Life of the Instant-Print Camera,” The Ringer (The Ringer, May 15, 2018),
http://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/5/15/17342466/instant-print-polaroid-instax-fuji-kodak.

8
CHAPTER 2 - LOST AND FOUND: COLLECTION ONE

Inspiration
I made the choice to use the newspaper format for my project—the idea stems from a
series of vintage 80s and 90s advertisings I collected from the internet. I discovered that the
internet site eBay has a print collection section that sells vintage printed product posters from
newspapers and magazines. As I browsed through the vintage advertisements, it reminded me of
seeing the physical magazine and newspaper advertisings at the dinner table as a kid. I remember
looking closely at the commercial product shoots and being fascinated by the form and color.
Looking back on that memory, I still remember the experience of holding a tactile newspaper,
the texture of paper, the choppy ink gradient, and the distinctive smell of newsprint that punched
at my nose and stained my fingers dark. However, as people entered the digital age, the
explosion of technology allowed people to read the news anywhere and anytime on their phones.
As a result, newspapers lost their magic for most readers as a way of receiving first-hand news
and information. According to the Newspaper Fact Sheet, weekday print circulation decreased
19%, and Sunday print circulation dropped 14% in 2020.
11
(cite, web). As newspapers slowly
move into the history book, they have begun showing other qualities (character) as a precious
object.
The purpose of Lost and Found, Collection One is to create the nostalgic experience of
looking back at history from the modern age. This project allows us to travel back to a previous
design language and get lost in a medium that carries a certain weight and responsibility. Also,

11
“Trends and Facts on Newspapers: State of the News Media,” Pew Research Center's Journalism Project (Pew
Research Center, December 15, 2021), https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/.

9
hopefully, the newspaper will bring each viewer a memory from their—a personal experience of
folding the page and feeling the paper.

Newspaper Design
I began my research on this project by looking at USC’s Daily Trojan, a traditional two-
spread newspaper design. The Daily Trojan contains six sections: news, opinion, art &
entertainment, classifieds, games (sudoku, crosswords), and sports. Headings and news titles
utilize the largest font, and the body text is divided into a five-column grid system. This basic
and straightforward layout design helps one better understand the information and content. I used
this traditional layout and design as a guide to create my own newspaper design.
I then came across a website called Newspaper Club that prints custom newspapers.
Newspaper Club is based in London, and they print newspapers with both digital and traditional
technology. Their digitally printed newspapers are printed on a digital printer using dry toner
(electrophotography process). The newspapers are printed in a batch onto one giant roll of
newsprint which is then machine cut and folded into individual newspapers. Their traditionally
printed newspapers are printed on a web-offset press—a large traditional press designed to print
thousands of newspapers at a time. Most newspaper printers print more than 1,000 at a time.
12

Because of my limited order quantity, I decided to use digital printing for Lost and Found,
Collection One.

12
“Differences between Digital and Traditional Newspaper Printing Explained” Newspaper Club, accessed January
18, 2022, https://www.newspaperclub.com/choose/paper-types/digital-or-traditional.

10

Figure 2-1. Daily Trojan Newspaper. Source:
https://twitter.com/dailytrojan/status/1108106869128597504

Figure 2-2. Newspaper Club Website. Source:
https://www.newspaperclub.com/

Poster Design
A key component in Lost and Found, Collection One is to visually represent the past as
well as to look at nostalgia in a contemporary way—implant nostalgia as a concept into the
newspaper and give vintage graphic elements and content a new meaning in a contemporary
way. For example, one of the poster advertisements I created for the newspaper, Lisa System,

11
examines the blurry and fuzzy nostalgic world from a modern digital point of view. The poster is
based on a 1983 Apple II magazine advertisement, “Apples make great carrots.” The original
poster features a large tagline on top, followed by a single image of the Apple II, followed by
significant advertising copy. I adapted the same 1983 poster layout, remodeled the Apple model
based on a prototype Lisa System, and simplified it with smooth, bubbly forms. Rather than
selling the product on the 80s poster, I changed the bottom text to an informative description
about the Lisa system. Viewers feel a sense of nostalgia by looking at a similar visual layout
from a previous era, backdrop gradient from the 80s, and noise pixel visual treatment, but the
copy is relevant to date. I purposely created this “advertising poster” to contradict viewers’ eyes
and minds: an old poster introduced as an archive recording of the past.

Figure 2-3. Apples Make Great Carrots 2021,
Source: Author’s own

12

Figure 2-4. Apple 80s Ads, Source:
https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/the-evolution-of-apple-ads/

Another excellent example of adapting content format from the past was the use of the
picture chart. I was absorbed by the picture charts in National Geographic magazines when I was
a child. These traditional type and image infographic charts always drew my attention. Based on
the picture chart idea, I created one for my thesis research book, Blobjects & Beyond: The New
Fluidity in Design. This book focus on a distinguished abstract visual form: blobject.
A blobject is a design product, often a household object, distinguished by smooth flowing
curves, bright colors, and an absence of sharp edges.
13
I organized the blobject designs from the
book as well as from my collections. I edited all the objects to have a transparent background and
a smooth white shape around the objects to emphasize a smooth and bubbly aesthetic. Below the

13
“Blobject,” Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation, November 5, 2020),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blobject#References.

13
visual image is the described content containing each object’s information and the creator’s
name. I created this visual archive spread to analyze blobject, a familiar form from the past that
allows people to feel a sense of nostalgia.

Figure 2-5. National Geographic Chart, Source:
https://www.popscreen.com/prod/MTAyMjc0NTE1/out-poster-map-of-pinnipeds-around-the-world-
picturing-seal-lions-

Figure 2-6. Blobject & Beyond, Source:
https://www.amazon.com/Blobjects-Beyond-New-Fluidity-Design/dp/0811847659

14

Figure 2-7. Blobject Chart, Source: Author’s own

15
CHAPTER 3 - PAST PERFECT, ANIMATION FILM

Film: Past Perfect
“Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps
things for you or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will of its own.
You think you have a memory; but it has you!” – John Irving
Nostalgia is more than just an emotion. It is an emitter that is triggered by everyone’s
memory differently. For some, nostalgia is triggered by a song, for others, a childhood diary, and
for others still, an old cartoon sweater. These memories take us to the nostalgia experience: a
warm, fuzzy pleasure that promises us that everything is pure and simple. On the other hand, the
memory is covered by a thin layer of mist, keeping it vague and unclear. Lost in nostalgia, it is
easy to ignore the details and only see the polished experience created by a distorted and
stretched memory.
My project, Past Perfect, is a 3D motion design film inspired by industrial and product
design analogies. It is a film about memory and nostalgia. So many vintage products and
industrial designs are no longer a part of people’s lives and have slowly faded from memory.
However, because I grew up with people who grew up with analog products I tend to hold them
in a special place in my heart as they are tied to my childhood memories. The film features a mix
of products that reference the 1980s to early 2000s, such as computers, music players, mobile
phones, and game consoles, each interacting in the space with its behavior and character. With
3D rendering and digital design, these antique products come back to life with a playful spirit of
experimentation. Living in virtual space as visual candy, these products can exist forever for

16
future reference. Moreover, 3D rendering allows me to conceptualize the idea of nostalgia by
rebuilding the model forms and casting then with untraditional lighting and texturing.
I began with the 3D model designs. Focusing on the 1980s–2000s early digital period, I
put together a collection of vintage products with a signature look: CDs, VHS tapes, cassette
tapes, floppy disks, Gameboy color console, Walkman music player, CRT TV, and the Apple
Lisa system prototype computer. These archaic products had very distinguished forms at their
time, and they all represent a period. I purposely edited out any logos and anything else viewers
could associate with a specific brand of a product. This way, each product becomes a universal
prototype product itself as TV, computer, music player, etc. The focus is on the form and shape
of each product to reminds the viewer of their physical beauty and evoke the sleeping memories
and stories of their past. Similar to how I approach modeling, I textured all the products with
unconventional choices such as cement, ceramics, and stone. One of the advantages of the digital
environment is that allows designers to manipulate something obsolete and give it new meaning.
This unique look catches attention and makes one curious as to what will happen in the film. In
addition, it added a certain weight to the products and presented a more precious visual. I also
utilized mirrors and bump particles to create a metaphor of how messy, stretched, and distorted
our memories can be.

17
Figure 3-1. Past Perfect computer scene, Source:
Author’s own

The overall tone of the film is slow and peaceful. It is a showcase of the by gone products
unfolding in digital space. I employed low color saturation to mirror black-white films from the
60s to give the feeling of watching someone’s memory. In my first scene of the storage devices,
the viewer sees the forgotten external media (CDs, floppy disks, and cassette tapes) as the
lighting slowly fades across the frame casting shadows. In the second shot, all these objects
become creatures of sorts that can run and move out of the frame and into drawers. The camera
moves in close to show the details of the objects—the gradient fading color textures describing
something from the past—a vintage feeling.

Figure 3-2,3. Past Perfect CD scene, Source:
Author’s own

18
CHAPTER 4 – CONCLUSION

Nostalgia is an emotion, and everyone is triggered by it differently. People are a product
of their generation, society, and culture. However, no matter what generation people are defined
by, they all feel nostalgia for their memories and are triggered by the past.
Ironically, I did not grow up in America in the 90s. However, even though I don’t have
my own 90s American memories of events and objects, I still feel nostalgic when I look at these
objects. It is a vicarious emotion of other people’s memories. The out-of-date graphic elements
and vintage products from this period still make me feel a sense of nostalgia. I am fascinated by
this feeling of nostalgia. It becomes inspiration for my work and in-depth research for my thesis.
Furthermore, looking at these historical designs and art has helped me understand how design
has evolved based on different technologies and what is has meant for new product development.
History educates me about the past. My goal is to adopt “history as a concept” into my work to
allow viewers to remember and appreciate the past by seeing it in a new light.
In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic combined with a personal family tragedy changed my
life, I found myself lost in a rabbit hole of the past unable to make sense of the present.
Sometimes I prefer being stuck in the past because everything is as expected and seemingly
perfect compared to the current reality of painful uncertainty. However, as I progressed further
with my research, I realized that the power of nostalgia is not just about favoring the past and
romanticized memory
14
(cite), but also a robust tool that gives people strength and confidence to
meet the future. History has proven time and again our ability to face and surmount difficulties

14
Asher Isbrucker, “Past Futures: Nostalgia in the Age of Escapism,” Medium (Medium, November 21, 2018),
https://asherkaye.medium.com/past-futures-nostalgia-in-the-age-of-escapism-ab314f50f4f9.

19
and hardship as we move toward uncertain futures. We are going to be okay. Therefore, I want to
address this thesis as a personal note to myself: “The future won’t be easier than the past or the
present, and more and more difficulties lie ahead, but I believe that I will find the way to make it
work, just like before.”
Finally, as one of the generations shifting from analog to digital technology myself, the
newspaper and film parts of this thesis are my way of recording history using the language of
contemporary design. The newspaper was presented as a visual archive connected to the past,
and the short film was introduced as a digital design practice with a contemporary 3D virtual
approach. It will be interesting to see how the next digital generation looks at these works and
interprets the concept of nostalgia.

20
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdelfatah, Rund, and Ramtin Arablouei. “The Nostalgia Bone.” NPR. NPR, October 14, 2021.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/1045812865/the-nostalgia-bone.
“Blobject.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 5, 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blobject#References.
“Differences between Digital and Traditional Newspaper Printing Explained .” Newspaper Club.
Accessed January 18, 2022. https://www.newspaperclub.com/choose/paper-types/digital-
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract An attachment to objects and images from the 90s triggered my emotions and memories from my childhood in the early 2000 digital age. This led me to examine nostalgia as it applies to earlier design in printed mediums and advertisements from the 80s and 90s. My research and resulting design work is presented in this thesis. ❧ How is nostalgia adopted into contemporary design? Nostalgia revels in images and ideas from the past, while contemporary design embraces experimentation in modern digital and physical environments. Creating narratives that explore the space between these two areas, physical and digital, provides open territory for exploration. ❧ This new territory creates a potential to connect physical and digital environments using visual elements and forms to create a vocabulary that reflects both past and present. Through a mash-up of various artistic platforms such as 3D and graphic design, my work explores contemporary design from both current and past perspectives. With Lost and Found, Collection One, a newspaper project, I hope to remind people of the nostalgic sentiments of yesteryear and provoke memories about how people interacted with newspapers in the past. On the other hand, nostalgia is not always about a specific memory; it is often a vague and foggy idea about the past. This newspaper project creates a visual archive that resembles the past and engages with the audience’s memory. It will also work against the audience’s memory by looking at a visual that is quickly fading away from daily use. The goal is for the viewer to think deeply about the content while holding the newspaper—a nostalgic form of art and design. Additionally, my 3D short film, “Past Perfect,” is inspired by industrial and product design. The film features a mix of industrial design shapes and forms, each with its behaviors and characters interacting in the digital environment. It aims to challenge and question people’s memory about the past through the lens of 80s product design.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Zheng, YiXuan (author)

Core Title Lost and found: escape from the longing past towards the uncertain future of art and design

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Design

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 02/09/2022

Defense Date 05/04/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 3D,art,design,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Advisor Wojciak, Ewa (committee chair), April, Greiman (committee member), Brian, O'Connell (committee member), Jason, Ellenburg (committee member)

Creator Email hellothisisyi@gmail.com,yzheng47@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC110702282

Unique identifier UC110702282

Legacy Identifier etd-ZhengYiXua-10387

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Zheng, YiXuan

Type texts

Source 20220214-usctheses-batch-912 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu