MOVING FARTHER, BUT NOT FAR ENOUGH

At the interim crit for the bipolar project, I took the following:
1. An infographic documenting Emilia + I's symptometered journey to and from Uni
2. A graph charting each test subjects daily mania/depressive episodes over 3-4 days.
3. Two test subjects daily activity symptometer.

Now you will see the progression since the crit. I basically just started wildly attacking font treating it as if it were bipolar itself because I was feeling very lost.

What would a bipolar typeface look like? I was considering doing a font family as the various types of bipolar disorder to show the difference between type I, II, Cyclothymic and NOS (not otherwise specified) also commenting on how it is 70% genetically inclined.

All my racing mind could conceive was that a manic episode resembles a rocket and bipolar on a whole assimilated a ferris wheel. I wasn't sure how to go beyond simply skimming the surface of the subject.

Now it's nearly midnight and I have a new direction. Revisiting my feedback with Emilia, my design respirator, she described a book that she had been shown and suggested I work with the bipolar blog entries I visited eons ago. Now I am attempting to turn one of the blogger's manic episodes and one of the depressive entries into a story, playing with the typography.

At one point I was desperately considering submitting a cake in lieu of an outcome. While I was struggling this morning I decided to prepare a banana-date-walnut one with cream cheese frosting and play with the piping kit that I got from Lina. Sadly I ran out of icing sugar. I am so exhausted but fear sleep as it will bring me closer to needle time. Egads.

IN THE MEANTIME

I am in a perplexing state of mind. After a few days of inertia (sans the usual panic), I have TWO days to produce a piece for the final crit on Tuesday. Right now all I can think about is being forced to face my intense needle phobia tomorrow morning (blood test) and it is giving me vertigo.

I neglected to post a couple videos Emilia and I have been relentlessly watching which have been fueling our raging excitement for our trip to Coachella in April.

This is a fantastique stop motion short film.
The giant crane at the festival is reminiscent of Emilia and I's wish project last year.



Of course there is an art facet of the festival. Interesting installations and whatnot, giant bubble - yes!!. I particularly like the scenery shots in this video - like the massive field of wine turbines!

AN ASIDE

Being as distracted as I am at the moment (it has been a really bizarre past couple weeks), Emilia and I decided to create a 3D montage to relieve our spastic minds. Seeing as how we are attending California's Coachella festival in April, we used that as our theme and gathered as many items around our house that were connected to our trip.

FYI I made THE BEST pizza EVER last night. Tasty homemade pesto crust, vegan mozza and veggies. I nearly demolished the entire thing. Can't wait for vegan pizza at Coachella, I hear it's amazing.

NEUROCHEMISTRY

To help us choose subjects for self-directed briefs last term we partook in a mind mapping exercise. One of the three avenues I came up with was psychology and mood disorders.

For the self-directed brief I am working on now deal with neurochemistry. I have been reading a very engaging book ...

I've been looking art therapy exercises, particularly ones that fall into three categories: emotional, relaxation and happiness.

These are ones that I found particularly relevant:

HAPPINESS
Take photos of things you think are beautiful Draw a quote you like Represent freedom Document a spiritual experience

RELAXATION
Mandala (circle with a centre) depicting yourself as you are now Draw outside Use colour blocks to create an image
EMOTIONAL
Paint a mountain (what makes you happy) and a valley (what makes you sad) Release a balloon with a message attached Design a postcard you will never send Draw three wishes Draw yourself as an animal A free drawing
Keep an art journal

I chose a few to test out and record how I felt after completing, one or two from each category.

Take photos of things you think are beautiful
Mandala (circle with a centre) depicting yourself as you are now
Use colour blocks to create an image
Release a balloon with a message attached
A free drawing

At first I experimented with using the activity to try and improve my memory. I recorded my dream as soon as I woke up, did an exercise and then wrote what I recalled from the dream again. I got rather tired of recording the same information and realized it was just better to focus on how the activity effected my state of being.

First I tried the colour block exercise.

Next up was the Mandala... which left me feeling a bit angry.

The free drawing activity left me with the ability to concentrate.

Then I gave the mountain/valley exercise a go, but had a hard time thinking of things that made me happy/sad.

My favourite was the balloon send-off! It was pretty cathartic but somewhat disappointing... as you will see in the last photo.

After researching, my initial reaction to the symptoms of bipolar disorder was that they seemed typical of what we experience on a daily/weekly basis, particularly in London. I created a worksheet for people to fill in for 3-4 days, twice a day that indicates how they are feeling and what they are up to during the time.

I then made a graph of each person's feelings and where they fell in the range of symptoms from depression and mania.

My last experiment was recording where I felt symptoms of bipolar disorder during my journey from home to Uni. I generated a large list of symptoms to refer to and gave them numbers.

It's been since organized into an info graphic.. I am considering making a book, a handbook for 'Life Disorder' that encompasses all my experiments and their findings.

PROVERB BRIEF

The set brief I am currently working on is about comparing different countries via proverbs. It was difficult to shift into work mode after my brain's month-long vacation, particularly while dealing with gnarly sleep patterns. The ideas are still flowing, but the execution process is suffering. I chose the topic 'nature' (big surprise) and collected as many proverbs as possible from a wide range of cultures to produce an info graphic/map of the functions of each aspect of nature. I sort of arranged it onto an octaglobe. Still playing with the placement of the information and quick renderings of the icons to see how it looks.


My other concept was to use a natural history display case for each idioms (or one per country) with these in mind:


Below is the version I took to the crit. The feedback was that I had too many styles going on with the various illustrations and no one really recognized the shape as being a tree stump. The leaf was a last minute add on, and to be honest I wasn't all that pleased with it either. I think it was all I could muster during the readjusting back to Uni. I'm not sure I really want to go back and redesign it, but rather move on to the next project.

Holidays

Over the holidays, I rediscovered my close-up filters after having a good dig. I had long given up hope of ever finding them. Strange how that happens! I put them to use immediately.