Graduation paper

Forward/Introduction

As a modern graphic designer, you design and create for communication purposes. But in the traditional sense, you do it for clients, either in the form of print or a screen. As a creative designer, I always wanted to dabble my feet in other media like photography, film and the physical world. At this point in time, I experience the traditional way of graphic design as very limiting. There are many senses the human species can use to get communicated to that don't get to be used if you just stick to print and/or screen, or complicated behaviors and situations that you can’t provoke or comment on. I work to discover and learn new ways of expressing and communicating my ideas and findings using other materials and mediums. In this way in the future, I have even more freedom to think outside the graphic design box. Though limiting, being a graphic designer does give me the advantage to already have a clear understanding of what to do in order to communicate ideas, principles, and feelings.

As a craftsman, I'm a conceptual creator. I find a story, a metaphor or a happening and create a project around it. We as humans are very complicated creatures. How we interact with each other, the physical world and with the digital realm, created a lot of opportunities to discover, highlight or enhance different corks and characteristics that we possess. Doing this, I hope to bring more awareness to how humans interact. This can be taken into consideration when developing new products or technologies. Or if newer technologies get produced, I can use them to let people reflect on the situation, either positive or negative, in order to create a better understanding of what really makes people tick in the progression and development that we experience.

Abstract

The world we live in has become smaller and smaller ever since access to the internet has grown and become more accessible by mobile devices. We have created tons of applications over the years to make it easier to find and connect with one and other. By using emails you can do business with people on the other side of the world and using facebook, twitter, Instagram we can stay connected with friends and family or even make new ones. But the same devices and applications helping use doing this are encouraging us to say connected every moment we have. We are too distracted to focus on daily tasks or listen to other and get bored if we are not confronted with the constant flow of information. As a result, we are losing our moment's solitude and collecting all sorts of anxieties. I ask myself, is this the future we want for our selves or is there another way?

I want to make an artistic expression that will bring awareness to a more conscious way of using our devices.

Central Question

How can I use our mobile device to move us away from the negative behavior we are creating with it?

Relevance of the Topic

We are still in the infancy of using and creating technology like our mobile devices and the internet. And it is already changing our lives rapidly in ways that we could have never imagined. it is improving our lives in great ways. But just like everything else it also comes with its pitfalls. Vilém Flusser said in an interview at the European Media Art Festival in 1988 that, every revolution as in Neolithic revolution or the revolution or the bronze age, iron age or the industrial revolution, have all been technical evolution mimicking the body. The current revolution is the first time our new technics simulate the nervous system.

Because it is a new frontier we have to learn and evolve together with our technology in ways that will give us the benefits of having access to constant information but is also mindful to us as humans.

Hypothesis

As our relationship with our devices and technology evolves to a more complex situation, it will be of utmost importance to take a step back en re-evaluate our behavior towards our social environment and more importantly ourselves. We are just now starting to realize that we are unknowingly getting pulled in to misusing our devices and technology. With my project, I will try to bring an artistic solution to the problem of lack of solitude and try to bring awareness to what we are going through now. with the knowledge, people can take more control over their time and lives.

Research Approach

My research consists of theoretical and practical research. all my experiments and theoretical findings will be written on my wiki as a hub to easily pick up where I left off and continue working where ever I am.

Better understanding

Most people know how it is to be hyperconnected these days. But not a lot of people know to what extent it influences our lives. And so did I. So my research started with me getting familiar with the subject. Knowing how it changed the world around us, our social interactions with people and how it changed our relationship with our selves.

At the same time, I had to research the opposite side of being hyper-connected. In my mind, I wasn't satisfied with what the problems are, so I also started looking in to answer that could provide a cure for the problems.

Short experiments

In my research, I found out and decided that object I wanted to focus on was the mobile phone. It is the most used object that is our portal to the connected world. And the applications platforms are more often than not build to reel our attention in and never let it go. To find out how the phone behaved I filmed it to see what it does to draw in the user.

Pen on paper

during the collecting all my findings, I did a lot of notebook writing and drawing. this was my way of collecting my thoughts and creating logic. with all the thoughts on paper, I tried to create connections between the different information and experiment on ideas that would be visually interesting and conveyed the idea in one way or another.

Inspiration

to fully flesh out my vision on what I wanted my project to be and look like, I looked up different art installation that had conveyed similar thoughts of creating the feeling I also wanted to let my visitors experience. This helped me set goals and start working on my final idea.

Creative choices & Prototype

For every Creative choice I make, I tried to find a reason to have it in my project. This meant breaking down the experience and researching each part on what would bring the feeling of relaxation. and to test this I made a prototype to test it and see if it works.

Key References

the referenced I tried to find artistic expression, artists or informative pieces that would help me understand my theme better and could help inspire me to create the experience that conveyed my vision.

InnSaei

In the Documentary innSaei, they document different famous thinkers and spiritual leader in being more connected with the self. They talk about how the world connected as it is, effects us now. In the documentary, they also show places and situations where they teach mindfulness and meditation to the youth. What was interesting for me was that it gave the first answers to what are the distractions and what you need to do to get more connected to yourself. in the documentary, they state that going into nature is a big part of getting the needed rest from the chaos of our daily lives and finding solitude.

Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity

Yayoi Kusama was an interesting artist for me. Her way of using space to make you feel like it goes on for eternity makes you feel small and insignificant closely resembling the feeling of ego death the complete loss of sense of self. This is a state reached by meditation. the Buddhist practiced meditation to reach this state they call this state enlightenment. The artwork Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity is inspiring to me because it sucks all your attention in and can create peace in your mind. For my project, I want to create a similar feeling keeping the person locked into the experience to provide rest.

Giant Psycho Tank

Carsten Höller also created a space and situation that helps the one using it to find solitude. But instead of it being a visual experience it is a physical experience. the visitors were encouraged to take off their wardrobe and lay in a shallow pool of an epsom salt solution kept at body temperature. The saltwater keeps the visitor afloat in perfect balance. Höller intention was to induce extreme relaxation to have the visitor experience an out-of-body experience. What I liked about it was that it focusses on the body aspect of the experience. getting rid of all the outside noise to turn inwards is not a way that often gets considered.

Robert Irwin

Another artist that had a lot of inspirational influence on me was Robert Irwin. He started his career as an expressionist painter. But eventually changed is ways and went on to do site-specific artworks. He's conditional art is interesting to me because of the approach and the minimalism. The whole room or area he is working in is his canvas but his intervention is not always very apparent or in your face. he studies the situation and tries to alter how you perceive that situation. For my project, I am also trying to change our perception of our devices and lives. In my case having people look at them in a slightly other way, may help them realize how they are being influenced. I also liked the minimalist approach Robert Irwin uses. His work showed me that a small intervention can have big results. Having less decorative features to my installation could help me bring down the experience to the essence.

Literature

Before starting my project I had some inkling ideas that there were negative effects to constantly using a mobile device with all the social aspects it presents us. So I started out looking what the opposite is of being hyper-connected. The answer was solitude.

Solitude

Solitude is when you isolate or seclude yourself. Over the years the definition has changed somewhat. In the article What is solitude on the website psychologytoday.com they say, Where solitude is choosing to be alone and can lead to self-awareness, not choosing it and feeling isolated would be loneliness.

Sherry turkle

With a better understanding of what I wanted to accomplish I started looking for information on how it related to the modern day. That is how I found Sherry Turkle. In her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Penguin Press, She states that our hyper-connectivity is making us lose communication skills and it's affecting our social en empathy skills towards ourselves and others. The book gave me a good starting point on what the effects can be but I realized that its a lot more complex.

Experiments

(what are you going to test out and why)

Insights from Experimentation

(what have you pulled from your hands on practice based research?)

Artistic/Design Principles

With my artistic expression, I want to change the visitor's perception and show a first step in how humans and technology can co-exist in a more mindful way. I will use the mobile device as the source to create a new experience.

Artistic/Design Proposal

I want to build an art installation that lets the user experience a performance. By letting the user turn on their sound and notifications on their phone and posting something and put it in a box that is part of the installation I will use the output (sound, light, and movement) made by the phone. Using sensors I will control the performance that will consist of audio and visuals.

Realised work

(what did you actually make)

Final Conclusions

(what was the point? what do you take away?)

Bibliography

(what did you reference in this text (other texts, images, films, exhibitions)? Remember to use proper in-text citing!!!!!!!!!!