“We write not only to be understood but to also to be misunderstood.”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
This project was an exploration into the ways that we process heartbreak and the emotions that encompass it. I initially set out to produce an interactive body of work that would romanticise heartbreak and eradicate the stigma of suppressing emotions- all through an archaic style of literature: love letters. I also aimed at producing and showcasing a working device that would receive the viewer’s written words (their love letter) and create an encrypted new entry that would both visually and figuratively represent a paper jam based on their (the participant’s) recorded heartbeat readings.
However, within the beginning stages of this project, I soon realised the creation of such a device- whilst writing my dissertation- would be too ambitious and worrisome a task to feet for January. As a result, I decided to cut my timeline in half and stretch my aims over two modules. I made this conscious decision with hopes of bettering the development of my project so that I could comfortably study both the psychological and technical aspects of this piece within the first term and realistically code and play with the device itself in the second.
Thereafter, I was able to effectively explore different methods of initiating participation, collecting data and producing new pieces of text that can be regarded as scientifically correct and creative. In total, I held five experiments within this module. Each fueled by personal interests and excessive research, allowing this project to grow in ways I couldn’t have imagined:
The first experiment was quite cathartic as I was unsure how to invite people to write about something so personal for my artworks, nor, what questions to ask. As a result, I used my entries and juxtaposed them, alternating font colour with each entry to create a dense body of writing. Through this, I found beauty in the visible words as I did in my original paper jams.
The second experiment was inspired by John Murphy’s six watercolour series. Each piece is concerned with absence or loss, and the melancholy tone with his ruptured and appropriated sentences inspired me to create my replications. Through my attempts, I concluded that heartache is a branch of grief, and to understand heartache, I must read about grief. These readings led me to the Kübler-Ross model, more popularly associated as, The 5 Stages of Grief. I decided to create entries that would portray each stage. However, I wanted to practice ways of creating a compounded entry of outside vices, as my device would. So I cut up 9 different song lyrics and grouped each line to a stage of grief. Leaving me with the piece we know today as ‘5 Grieving Letters’.
After finishing the second experiment, I was reading into Mel Bochner’s work and was fascinated with his showcase of artworks in public places. It made me consider the composition of my artwork and how it would affect the viewer as well as the participant. In the end, I framed ‘5 Grieving Letters’ hung it over a bricked wall within the Studio in a fashion that modelled one of the public spaces I’ve been surveying within Plymouth. I used the Open Studio as a chance to discuss it with my peers.
My fourth experiment was also influenced by Mel Bochner and his earlier/smaller working styles involving the overlapping of text. In particular, ‘Language is not Transparent’ 1969, where he printed that title in different angles on lined paper. I thought hard on how he might have produced that piece and went to the letterpress workshop to dissect his style. I used this opportunity to make myself a poster with my hypothesis for my psychological, scientific experiment. A hypothesis I came up with after an unsuccessful outreach from the Psychology department, and through readings on an online psychology journal: Psychology today. Throughout my printing process, I realised that to come up with an authentic-looking visualisation of a paper jam, the overlap has to be random, yet controlled. *This was the theme at the V&A conference I attended in October, that heightened my passion for computer art and my yearn to study at Goldsmith University for my MA*
My fifth experiment was a scientific one where I tested my hypothesis in an interactive workshop called ‘Launch How You Feel’: People who process their emotions after heartache are better able to practice self-compassion than those who suppress their feelings. (Fig5) Within this workshop, I was able to put my proposal in action, collecting both written and bodily data. I was told by the majority of the participants that they found it ‘therapeutic’.
These experiments helped mould my final piece greatly by broadening my subject knowledge as well as, influencing its direction. Shortly after the Launch How You Feel (LHYF) session, I matched up the heart rate recordings with the typewriting recordings and juxtaposed the written entries with a BPM on the correlating word and an found the average BPM for each entry. I found this an extremely tedious and at times inaccurate task, highlighting a major flaw in the data retrieval process. As a result, I decided to showcase multiple singular pieces that would cypher the ways with which my device would dissect and read the given data.
This piece, Emotions in Algorithm, is an effort to showcase the steps our minds go through when reassessing suppressed emotions in a very procedural and mechanical way. Each overlay is an example of the algorithm configuring the entry due to the heart rate readings. I choose to keep the LHYF set up within this exhibition to invite my participants to come to grips with their emotions, as well, as gather more figurative data to add to my database for term two. Likewise, the typewriter is present, just as my laptop is, to provide the audience with more information so they can better understand the presented text.
To conclude, I would like to think that this module was a success, as I was able to positively change the way that my viewers perceive the grieving process by making it a social and figurative effort. Though a device was not yet made, I was able to keep in mind it’s aesthetics, processes, build and location throughout the whole project( this is most evident within my sketchbook). With my final piece being a culminating effort.