Design Questions

How do your questions

Reflect new developments in your domain of interest

Reflect your individual contribution to this domain

Incorporate experimentation, ie something new

Incorporate of ideas of method, aesthetics, interactivity, and technology

Concept Presentation_ How to express negative emotions?

How to express negative emotions?

New Concept

How to Express Unpleasant Emotion In a Fun Way?





Domain: Urban life, Social Relation, Psychology

I'm interested in how, when, and where people vent emotions in lives. I think that nowadays most urban people are trying to be perfect in working performance and social relation as well, and therefore they end up being hiding their private emotion when they need to vent negative emotions.

I view negative emotions, such as argue, as one of the causes of crime. Although I need more research, the relationship of motion and crime seems very close. So controlling one's emotion is necessary for themselves and also for all of us.

I want to create a space (website or mobile application) for people who need to freely express their negative emotion in order to feel catharthis. I'd like to add sense of humour so that people can forget their unpleasant emotions easily.




Major Audience:

-Urban Residents.

-Emotional Labor workers.

-People who have disfluency in speech: Newly immigrants/ International students

-Famous people who are subject to media attention

Content/Outline of prototype in a digital way

-Users don't need to create their own ID and Password to access mobile application. They can access by submitting their current location as their ID. After this log-in location information will provide a data map in which users can track and analyze a range of negative feeling distribution.

-Users are not forced to explain why they got stuck in negative emotion. However, if they want to contribute their stories in order to share others, then they can publish their stories or upload the photos of the scene they face. But also they can simply mark the degree of negative emotion.

Precedents:

1.FUCK MY LIFE http://www.fmylife.com/

I'd like to provide users with fun and enjoyment space so that they can laugh at their depressed emotion. In this aspect, the FML is pretty much similar to what I want to achieve through my thesis.

2. 대놓고 욕해줌 : We are ready to shout and cuss on behalf of users.






https://market.android.com/details?id=com.imaginenshow.yokM

People might want to shout and cuss as much as they want to, but it's impossible if they want to keep their jobs and friends around them. So this application is prepared with all diverse cuss and sarcastic marks and speak out on behalf users. There are several versions such as for male and for female. People get relieved their stress through this application.

In a way which the two precedents solve problems with fun and laugh, I do want to make it like these two. However, I also like to deliver informative directions, but not a boring and cliche way.

The 1st Brainstorming _Sep 06

My first domain was Visual Thinking and Communication. I was interested in hand drawings because drawings serve not simply to convey stories or thoughts but also provide a process in which visual thinking extracts problems from our subconscious and problems solve issues related to the psyche. So I researched about art therapy because solving problems with art/drawings is mostly done by the process of art therapy. Also, I think the relation between human and technology has been issued since there exist many side effects from the technology, such as video game addiction. So I wanted to study solving those technology-side effects problems through physical activity like drawings.

Grid of Nine

Visual Thinking

A- Drawing for visual thinking and its communication level

Hand drawing is a natural and effective way of expressing and solving problems for all ages.

1. Describing an abstract word or personal problems by means of hand drawings can derive a hidden mental state from one’s personality.

2. Communication drawing – When delivering messages and understanding them how are they helpful and strong?

3. Keeping a drawing journal – This is private for those who draw and keep a drawing journal, but it can be opened to the public as the drawings can be accepted in different ways for others.

B- The visual form of letters
Unknown facts when we are trying to see letters visually.

1. Tracing to the origin of Chinese Glyphs letters.
Chinese letters carry meanings by each symbol.

2. Some combinations of letters with colors and typefaces give particular atmospheres in itself before being read.
(Haagen-Dazs has no meaning and this word is neither English nor any other lanuage, but it gives European mood)

3. The beauty of letter forms especially in strange language letters. When we try not to read letters but see them as purely visual form, we can discover unknown attractiveness in them.

C- Signs and marks conveying symbolic contents – Visual Information

Public Signs and Symbols in brand logos represent their contents effectively and efficiently without particular language.

1. Comparing and analyzing the origin of symbols in brands logos in certain fields and moreover their communication skills (Eg: Mercedes-Benz and BMW)

2. Brand logos and names convey imagery in their visuals.
(Eg: Comme des garcons logo)
Pleasure of making their stories with only a few shapes inspired by a particular logo shape.

3. Visual communication for symbols (logos) that have their own sounds – Correlation of sounds with logo shapes and it communication skills

Precedents Review

Topic: Visual thinking / Information / Awareness

-Picturing to Learn(http://picturingtolearn.org/index.html)

The Three Premises of Picturing to Learn

• Drawings made by science students for the purpose of teaching others reveal misconceptions

• Those drawings provide teachers with direct feedback on what students are and are not “getting,” to help promote more effective teaching

• The process of creating a drawing to teach others has the potential to deepen students’ understanding of scientific concepts

“Picturing to Learn was funded by the National Science Foundation, DUE from 2007-2010. The project involved science students and faculty from Harvard, MIT, Duke University and Roxbury Community College, along with design students and faculty from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Students.”
“Create a freehand drawing to explain to a high school senior…” various scientific phenomena.
Based on Felice Frankel’s experiences, the idea of Picturing to Learn was started to emerge. She discovered if researchers use drawings it helps better understanding to others when they need to explain the process of scientific concept.

>> Objective:
To create drawings from the concepts students learn from lectures and texts. For many students, thinking visually and trying to draw for the purposes of communication can highlight areas of confusion.

>>Service/Function

Under the topics among science Textbook, student and faculty submit their drawings through “explore the data base” and their drawings were produced while understanding the each topic. When they upload their drawings, other registered members are able to share the drawings by downloading.
The drawings are shown with some explanation on the right side.

Registered members are also able to use filter function which helps collect only images they want to see.

>>Other Activity
In 2007 winter and 2008 spring 4design students from SVA and 3 MIT students gathered to generate the visual explanation of science. This collaborative workshop was helpful to both sides because nowadays technology cannot overlook design area and also current design is mostly related to technology.

Literature Review

Visual Thinking

Drawings, paintings, and other devices serve not simply to convey stories or thoughts but also provide a process in which visual thinking extracts problems from our subconscious and problems solve issues related to the psyche. At times it can be therapeutic, where in which deep seeded problems are uprooted and transformed to paper, canvas or any other ancillary mediums, which evidently reveal themselves to the artist as a form of a self-acknowledgment and mitigation.

Traditional thinking based on logic, critical search, argument and the memory of valuable information has provided the foundation for thought and learning. Education also has been built on this premise and has delivered excellent logical/sequential thinkers. While this type of thinking is indispensable, sequential learning has not suited everyone. We have acknowledged that people learn, and subsequently act, in different styles. Visual thinking approaches a different style that can be helpful. When people want to readily apprehend problems and understand them they are able to manage them via this technique and also deliver this method to others. Therefore the method of visual thinking provides opportunity to meet self-discovery in the process of drawing.

In Rudolf Arnheim’s book (Visual Thinking) “Concepts Take Shape” (116-141), it describes how thoughts rendered to paper can express emotion through memory. In the chapter “Drawing series of a ‘Youth’ theme” Brina Caplan who is a teacher requested her subjects to draw their youth by using as many pieces of paper as they need. They continued drawing until they were satisfied with their drawings. Eleven subjects had an average of nine drawings each. As the experiments proceeded, the subjects’ drawings were getting clearer, specific and more individualized. Also, their drawings were commonly complex at the end of their drawing session. Some of their drawings made no connections with the first and the last drawings, but there was gradual refinement as it progress towards the end. One subject produced thirteen papers for their experiment which showed enrichment of their youth during the end of his depictions.

It is hard to say that there was consistency in everyone’s drawings. But all the subjects were able to experience the process of how they can define the abstract word of Youth. All of the images were not just created by chance, but freely expressed by their thoughts and memory of how they felt. Sometimes it is easier to render how you feel rather than just saying it.

Abigail Angell, another professor, asked mostly fellow students to depict the notion of good and bad marriages using abstract drawings. From a linguistic prospective the word marriage does not indicate its pictorial twosome, but the concept itself involves two physical persons. Therefore, many subjects portrayed marriage with two units in a relationship. One drawing reflected marriage partners as two shapes of units. Both shapes do not reveal themselves as any particular gender.

In Figure 1, the saw-tooth outlines constitute one gender in a bad marriage relationship, as it represents one aggressive partner. Another unit was described with smooth circle. In this, lines in the drawing convey the subjects’ intention.

Figure 1

The coherence of marriage can be indicated simply by the amount of contact among partners. In Figure 2, the shapes juxtapose each other representing a good relationship. There exist a harmonious symmetry between the two shapes, presenting civility, equality, and structure, and unification. Contrary, the shapes below neither overlap nor seem to contain a similar shape size. One can see a dominant partner suggesting inequality, and lack of balance.

Figure 2

In Rudolf Arnheim’s book (Visual Thinking) with the chapter “Personal Problems Worked Out”(251) of “Words in Their Place”, a seven –year old girl who just immigrated to the United States described her situation at her school in a series of drawings. At first she didn’t know what to do at her public school. Because it was freer compared to her strict previous school. In her first depiction, she portrayed herself as being depressed in tears, without arms but with a jump rope. Her friends besides her were also depressed in her drawings. In her next picture, it was a time she was getting closer with her friends. Her rendition included herself with all her friends whole smiling and jumping rope.
The girl was not able to draw these pictures without pointing out her causes her problems. She saw herself alienated and shocked with her given freedom. Later she reached a pleasant settlement of being accustomed to her new environment. By visual thinking the girl found her own pictorial formula and she was able to understand her problems and emotions, and therefore constructively alleviated her plights.

In “Picturing to Learn”(http://www.picturingtolearn.org) Felice Frankel, who is science photographer, describes one can learn science with visual information.
In Massachusetts Institute of Technology research website Fankel also said “For many students, thinking visually and trying to draw for the purposes of communication can hightlights areas of confusion.” Felice Frankel,( http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/picturing.html) She explained that hand drawings are helpful to students and teachers for communication with an academic concept.
Since Frankel believed that visual thinking is vital when conveying new theory in studying, she expanded this idea into classroom as a way of learning chemistry.
Donald Sadoway, another professor, who taught introduction to solid state chemistry to freshmen, commented that “This visual exercise program was largely met with enthusiasm.” (Picturing to Learn, http://picturingtolearn.org) Through the program many students were able to have a chance to rethink about physical features such as molecular size and electron configuration by visual information. This exercise was helpful for students to understand deeply basic concepts and they could discover a different way in communicating and learning through visual awareness.

As one medium of perception, language is created by specific rules which has standardized rules to maintain consistency. We speak with language and read letters because those are part of communication, but drawing or pictorial language with shapes can offer various methods of expressing what letters cannot achieve. I envision mind maps for the first step of my experiment of visual information using simple shapes to communicate one another easily. I think it might give me an opportunity to use one’s intuition to develop unique solutions to process, even if produced drawings have random connections. Lastly, I’d like to focus on how we look at numerous objects and see how much deeper they may signify, imagine, and discover what we don’t initially see in them.

Bibliography

- Rudolf Arnheim, “Visual Thinking,” (Univ. of California Press, Renewed1997)

-Sasha Brown, “’Picturing to Learn’ makes science visual,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology News, June 27, 2006.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/picturing.html

“Picturing to Learn,” http://www.picturingtolearn.org/

- “A Learning Community,” Frye Art Museum http://fryemuseum.org/community_article/4003/

- “A Learning Community,” Frye Art Museum, Uploaded in YouTube, Feb 10, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkyrW2-HjT0

The 1st Brainstorming _Sep 06

My first domain was Visual Thinking and Communication. I was interested in hand drawings because drawings serve not simply to convey stories or thoughts but also provide a process in which visual thinking extracts problems from our subconscious and problems solve issues related to the psyche. So I researched about art therapy because solving problems with art/drawings is mostly done by the process of art therapy. Also, I think the relation between human and technology has been issued since there exist many side effects from the technology, such as video game addiction. So I wanted to study solving those technology-side effects problems through physical activity like drawings.