Art and Society

How Capsule Wardrobe Discourse on Social Media Feminizes Minimalism and Aestheticizes Self-Restraint

Min Zhang — 2025-08-05

This paper critically examines the cultural phenomenon of capsule wardrobe discourse on social media, arguing that it feminizes minimalist aesthetics and aestheticizes self-restraint within a neoliberal framework. Drawing from feminist media theory, Foucault’s concept of governmentality, and critiques of digital consumer culture, the essay explores how capsule wardrobes serve not only as a fashion strategy but also as a symbolic system of aesthetic, emotional, and ethical labor. The analysis reveals how self-restraint is rebranded as empowerment, how unpaid curatorial labor is romanticized as feminine virtue, and how digital platforms reward visual coherence as a proxy for moral character. Capsule wardrobe influencers are shown to embody the ideal neoliberal subject—self-regulating, optimized, and perpetually productive—while simultaneously erasing the classed, racialized, and gendered dimensions of this aesthetic labor. The paper argues that the seemingly apolitical act of reducing one’s wardrobe functions as a performative ethic of aestheticized austerity, entrenching broader ideologies of digital femininity, self-branding, and consumer virtue under the veil of simplicity and style.

Xu Bing’s Reimagining of Landscape Through Conceptual Ink Techniques

Chenhao Ma — 2025-08-05

This paper examines how Xu Bing reimagines the genre of Chinese landscape painting by replacing traditional brush-based techniques with conceptual, textual, and installation-based strategies. Rooted in classical aesthetics yet operating within a global postmodern framework, Xu Bing’s work interrogates the systems of meaning that define landscape, ink, and cultural heritage. The study focuses on major projects such as Background Story, Landscript, and Square Word Calligraphy, analyzing how Xu employs non-art materials, typographic repetition, lightboxes, and digital projection to subvert the visual logic of ink painting.

Rather than engaging with nature as an expressive or spiritual subject, Xu stages landscape as an allegorical construct—one that reflects ecological fragility, urban simulation, and cultural nostalgia in contemporary China. His technique of staging nature through garbage and textuality becomes a critique of both modern consumption and the commodification of tradition. At the same time, Xu positions the viewer as an active decoder, blurring the boundaries between seeing and reading, painting and writing.

Through theoretical lenses drawn from postmodernism, visual semiotics, and Sinophone aesthetics, this paper argues that Xu Bing is not simply modernizing ink, but deconstructing the epistemological foundations of visual culture itself. His work reveals landscape to be a historically coded and ideologically mediated system—one that must be reassembled, interrogated, and remapped in the age of global art and ecological uncertainty.

From the Street to the Institution: The Flux of Publicness and the Ontological Crisis in Graffiti Art

Yibin Hai — 2025-08-05

This study traces graffiti’s ontological crisis through its “street-to-institution” trajectory, examining the irreversible shift from illicit urban subversion to commodified cultural artifact. Analyzing four phases — 1970s Bronx revolt, Beijing 798 commodification, Chengdu zoning interventions, and Basquiat’s institutional canonization — it reveals how the pursuit of legitimacy erodes graffiti’s foundational illegality. Framed by Habermas’s public sphere transformation, Danto’s art-end thesis, and Foucauldian heterotopia, the work identifies a triple crisis: marketized intent, ritualized reception, and commodified existence. As physical walls become inaccessible due to policy/technological barriers, the study probes whether AR graffiti and NFTs can reconstitute digital publicness. Findings indicate such “spectral survival” prolongs street spirit yet invites new capital capture vectors. The article proposes “graffiti heritage” metrics for historical preservation and envisions a “neo-street ethos” for trans-medial practice. Graffiti’s demise emerges as a synecdoche for modernity’s paradox, confirming publicness as an interminable transgression game.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET): An Overview on Production, Consumption, and Recycling

Haradhan Kumar Mohajan — 2025-08-08

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is a dimensionally stable thermoplastic with excellent machining characteristics that is transparent, lightweight, high tensile strength, semi-crystalline, virtually shatterproof, gas barrier, and solvent resistant. It is generally considered as inert and safe plastic, and highly recyclable. It is produced by the polymerization of ethylene glycol (EG) and terephthalic acid (TPA) or dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) during a polycondensation reaction. At present it is the most generally used thermoplastic polymer in the world. It is widely used as a packaging material in the food and beverage industries. It is also used to make fibers, pharmaceuticals, and make-up. With its lightweight, durable, and versatile properties, it has become an essential substance in the modern society. This paper tries to review the management of PET plastic waste with efficient recycling.

A Sociological Reflection on Ecotourism and Wildlife Migration in Tanzania Within the Framework of Sustainable Development

Fatuma Ngonyani — 2025-08-08

This paper offers a comprehensive sociological reflection on ecotourism and wildlife migration in Tanzania within the broader framework of sustainable development. Through an interdisciplinary lens, it explores the historical legacies of colonial conservation, the structural dynamics of community-based ecotourism, and the gendered dimensions of benefit distribution. The analysis interrogates the role of policy and governance in mediating access to tourism revenues, wildlife corridors, and decision-making authority. Particular attention is given to the socioecological impacts of climate change on migratory species and the communities living in critical corridors. The research highlights the tensions between ecological goals and community rights, underscoring the need for more inclusive, adaptive, and equitable governance models. Drawing on empirical studies, policy critiques, and case-based literature, the paper argues that sustainable ecotourism in Tanzania cannot succeed without centering local participation, securing land tenure, mainstreaming gender equity, and aligning conservation goals with social justice imperatives. Wildlife migration is not only an ecological phenomenon but also a sociopolitical process that reveals the limitations of top-down conservation and the potential of transformative governance.