Gradually exposing myself
Hate, a three piece individualistic structure that speaks the story of my relationship with my father when I was young. This is translated into the actions and shape of the structure. The Dominant (Father) is seen trying to reach out to Subordinate (myself) whom I always shun away from by closing the door on him. Depicted as the Sub-Dominant (Door) serves as a guardian that always protect me from him whenever I hide in my bedroom to avoid contact with him
This project “Anxiety Sensational” is to raise awareness of Society Anxiety Disorder (SAD) among Singaporean through the test by simulating the symptoms of SAD. SAD sufferers will be subjected to the symptoms of Dizziness, Chest and Stomach muscle tightness when they are in crowded environment. Thus our project is to get testers to wear the set up attire with the IR sensor and vibration motor, before being place within a cramp space with other participants. Their task is simple, crossing from one end to another. Getting into close proximity with the participants will result in the sensor to detect them, triggering the vibration motor to simulate the symptoms. Testers will feel the discomfort and they have to figure how to stop the motor, which is to get out of the space. But maneuvering across the cramp space will trigger difficulties and discomfort, which simulates how SAD sufferer feel in normal daily situation.
Our research
Design process documentation (intermediate designs, sketches, ideas)
These are the documentation processes.
However, things does not goes accordingly to plan when the product is being tested out during storming process as the main feedback pointed out was that if we were to simulate the idea of SAD, it should come with a stronger triggering sensation and discomfort to the testers than to the head as classmates who observed feedback that it is just simulating headache.
After the general feedback, researches were done to enhance the wearable in sync with the symptoms of social anxiety and these were what we had found.
The three most common symptoms were the vital body parts of SAD sufferer, which calls for the use of a hoodie or jacket. There were many complications as per how the use of wearable is selected as we have our list of concerns to choose the wearable.
This is a demo testing of how the product works in the actual context of a crowded or narrow environment with high human traffic.
Observational documentation for user tests
Slide presentation and product explanation.
Tester one – Daryl
Tester one – Rui Hong
Instruction manual
The Coding file is in Arduino language and 3D is in STL file.
Voila! Your product is able to work now!
Before going through the manual, I have attached the Coding and 3D Printing File in this link. The coding file has input of the connection of the ports in more detail.
Final thoughts from us.
How do you feel during the process? Do you even still want to cross across the space or just want to turn back and walk away?
References
Unknown. (n.d.). Social anxiety disorder (social phobia). mayoclinic. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/social-anxiety-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353561
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/social-anxiety-disorder-more-than-just-shyness/index.shtml
Richards, Thomas. (n.d.). Social Anxiety Fact Sheet: What is Social Anxiety Disorder? Symptoms, Treatment, Prevalence, Medications, Insight, Prognosis. Socialanxietyassociation. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
https://socialphobia.org/social-anxiety-disorder-definition-symptoms-treatment-therapy-medications-insight-prognosis
Higuera, Valencia. (2016). Social Anxiety Disorder. What Is Social Anxiety Disorder? Healthline. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/social-phobia
Unknown. (n.d.). More children and teens are stressed out – Department of Psychological Medicine. nusmedicine. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
http://nusmedicine.nus.edu.sg/pcm/2017/03/14/more-children-and-teens-are-stressed-out/
Unknown. (n.d.). Anxiety Disorders Among the Young.adelphipsych. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
https://adelphipsych.sg/anxiety-disorders-among-the-young/
Subramaniam, Mythily. (2017). Stigma among Singaporean youth: a cross-sectional study on adolescent attitudes towards serious mental illness and social tolerance in a multiethnic population. ncbi. Retrieved April 20th, 2019 from.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5652546/#
Ng, Charmaine. (Sep 9, 2018). Many still steer clear of people with mental illness: Poll. They agree on need to reduce stigma but harbour misconceptions. Straitstime. Retrieved april 20th, 2019 from.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/many-still-steer-clear-of-people-with-mental-illness-poll
Choo, Cynthia. December 11th, 2018. Mental illness more prevalent among young adults, OCD one of top disorders in S’pore. Retrieved april 20th, 2019 from.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/mental-illness-more-prevalent-among-young-adults-ocd-one-of-top-disorders-spore
Part 1 Local
For assignment Zine, I have chosen Kampong (Village in Malay Lanugage) Lorong Buangkok, the last remaining Kampong in Singapore. This location is located near my residence of Hougang which is coincidentally beside my primrary school! During Primary five in 2007, I had the chance to visit the then undeveloped Kampong and it was a 12 year gap since I have visited it again and I am surprised to see how much it has developed.
A source from the URA 2014 plan stated that this Kampong is to be razed in the future for development of a highway that connects Seng Kang town to Yio Chu Kang Road as well as the building of two institutions. Presently, the village chief, Ms Sng Mui Hong, is struggling with the authorities’ development plan as she wants to preserve the village, which is also her home from getting raze.
I have found this to be a crucial location to pick on as many youths in Singapore does not know what is a Kampong and let alone even knowing that there is one hidden in the concrete jungle. Thus I felt that presenting Kampong Buangkok will be a good choice as I can use this to educate the public on the situation of the Kampong.
Before that, researches were done to support my facts and also to let me set the direction of how I would want to present. Firstly, I went around to check on the current development at the estates around the Kampong. Seen below is the construction of the Buangkok link drive to be connected towards Yio Chu Kang Road via Gerald Drive.
On top of primary research, I had also conducted secondary survey research both online and face to face record. The online research were crafted to question users about their knowledge towards Kampong and it also serves as an informative sharing on it’s current and future development, it was spread to a wide demographic age range of age which made me realised that not many youths know about Kampong Buangkok.
On the other hand, the face to face survey interview were mainly asked around the vicinity for their thoughts towards the future development of Kampong Buangkok. These are the information of the survey responses collated in excel sheet, video recordings of the face to face interview and power point presentation slide show covering on the research information with pie chart visuals of the survey responses.
Locale Part 2.
From my research , the topics that I covered on were on the past, present and future of the Kampong. Which leads to the direction that I want to do – History, Gift and Mystery. Secondly, the approach of my Zine is based on the approach of an interactive comics which gives the audience a walk through from the current state of the comics to the future through humorous illustrations.
The comics that inspired me are Old Master Q, Crayon Shinchan and Doraemon. These are the childhood comics that saved me out of boredom before the technology kicks in.
A few examples of each comics and how do I share my reference from them.
These are the drafts sketches that I had before touching up for scanning.
After consultation with Ms Joy, these are the changes that I had made for the final zine.
Overall, Zine is an interesting project that allows me to stretch beyond my boundary through illustrating the comics in a humorous direction to depict myself interviewing non-human living things. And also adding a little touch of political reference into the comics as well.
The problems that I had faced for this comics were the conceptualizing of the comics, as I had previously thought of depicting it as a children comics in which Joy mentioned that if I were to do it, there should not be any references of real life pictures as it will be too jarring for the children. After seeing how the comics has been churned out, I decided to conceptualized it into both children and adult, with a hint of political reference in the latter.
Lastly, what would I do better given the opportunity and from the feedback? I would want to show a visual story telling on the transition from history to future, in which the story basically illustrates on how did the Kampong develop over the years to it’s unknown underlying fate in the future.
References.
Q, Old. n.d. Serenading a donkey. (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 from. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/342062534190396442/
Fabiola, Ixora. n.d. Crayon Shin-Chan – chapter 32 (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/38/f4/79/38f47918b27bfe3ab09c9e565f8b91ca.png
feihong. August 16, 2010. Serenading a donkey. (picture). Retrieved April 20, 2019 https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/27419-grand-comic-reading-project-1-doraemon-color-collection/
From the article “Destructive Games: Creating Value by Destroying Valuable Physical Objects.” It clearly defines destructive games as a fun element that ends with the user’s personal product to be destroy. All of this links back to the idea of being able to justify that the game has beneficial values for the users in order for them to use.
As seen in DESU 100, The main purpose of the artists in developing this artwork is to bring a hypothesis to the question. “Are humans tempted to destroy robots?” (Ringer, Reckler). For the fact that the participants are given a choice to either destroy the robot or spare it’s life by the single push of button. What I have concluded from the artists’ perspective is that the intended outcome is to get users to command the robot to destroy itself through presenting the beneficial value by exchanging the users’ wasted time for its’ destruction. The users will be bored and frustrated to see a slow moving robot wasting their precious time thus it will make sense if they choose to vent their boredom or frustration by destroying the robot through this equivalent exchange as for what is beneficial to them is seeing the robot that wasted their time get destroyed.
The participants will have a series of chain effect. Firstly, when they have decided to push the button of destruction, this led to the effect of self temptation to be tempted to see the process of destruction. The process of destruction will serves as a form of verification of the robot to them as it seems like the robot is complying to the participant’s order to gradually destroy itself overtime. This will make the participants feel guilty as they might be reminded that they are “murderers” who end the life of the robot even. This effect is form largely due to the fact that the robot is moving, thus it does mimic a “living thing” in the eyes of the participants during first contact and seeing how it gradually destroyed itself. However at the end of the everything, the participants will felt the effect of amusement to see a robot destroying itself which they will have no feeling associated as it is not a living thing but a programmed machine used to listen to orders.
The idea of destruction generate the answer towards the question “Are humans tempted to destroy robots?” (Ringler and Reckter, 2012) – Yes. Users will take the importance of machines for granted and not treat them with respect like real human who are providing the same services to them. As the destruction of DESU 100 in this activity will only bring across the message that machines exist and operate upon human command, they become mere tools to serve our needs and at the end of day, the fun of self destructing element ultimate leads to the overall destruction of machine’s appreciation and the value of machine become zero.
References:
Eickhoff, David and Mueller, Stefanie and Baudisch, Patrick. (2016). Destructive Games: Creating Value by Destroying Valuable Physical Objects. Retrieved April 9th, 2019 from. https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/18s2-dn1010-tut-g01/wp-content/uploads/sites/3038/2019/03/Destructive_Games.pdf
Ringer, Julia and Reckter, Holger. (February 22, 2012). DESU 100: about the temptation to destroy a robot. Retrieved April 9th, 2019 from. https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/18s2-dn1010-tut-g01/wp-content/uploads/sites/3038/2019/03/DESU100-ringler.pdf
What did you learn from the process?
CP: Through the storming process, I realised that the instruction manual has to be very clear and precise. Based from the interaction made by Praveen who is the tester, he has many doubts and curiosity on the product. This ultimately let me realised that as much as how well designed or substantial a product is, it is as good as nothing if no one has a clear description or understanding of how it works.
LX: From this process, I learnt that the instructions for users has to be simple, as well as the process, so that they can understand it easily and perform the right steps. This was because during the storming process, our instructions were slightly vague and the process was rather complicated, making Praveen confused about the steps, thus he ended up interpreting the steps wrongly. I also learnt that we had interpreted loneliness wrongly and failed to communicate it in our installation, however users who tried or saw the installation feedbacked that they thought that the emotion was social anxiety.
What surprised you while going through the process?
CP: The ultimate surprise that I had while I am going through the process happens during the video scene at 4 Minute 20 Seconds mark that the secondary participant, Daryl, mentioned that our intention of this product and activity is to draw out social anxiety. This comes to a great delight for me as he has the knowledge of what we want to pin point, but not towards social anxiety but the outcome, which is to self isolate oneself from the others as the person who has the anxiety has no choice but to go away from places that are crowded or high in human volume to a quiet place where they feel safe.
LX: Firstly, I was surprised by the fact that Praveen was confused by the instructions ended up doing something else instead of the actual steps, making me learn that our instructions have to be clearer. Additionally, I was surprised that Praveen guessed that our installation was about social anxiety instead of loneliness, showing our failure to communicate our intention right. Lastly, I was surprised that the idea of the jigsaw puzzle just made the process complicated, instead of helping the process, which I totally did not realise during ideation.
How can your apply what you have discovered to the designing of your installation?
CP: How can we actually trigger the feeling of social anxiety that makes the testers feel the struggle in order to isolate themselves from the other testers as the feedback suggestion mentioned anxiety occurs on the chest or stomach of people where they felt discomfort, probably a design can be made to strap around the chest or stomach to reciprocate this discomfort feeling. I could look into designing neck straps or stomach pouch.
LX: Firstly, we decided to change our emotion that we want users to feel from loneliness to social anxiety. To communicate our emotion, social anxiety, accurately to the users, we are looking at the different symptoms of social anxiety such as trembling hands, muscle tension and more and incorporating them into our installation. We might also change our object to another wearable such as jacket or scarf to cater to the symptom of social anxiety we choose. Lastly, we will write more simple and clear instructions so that users easily understand our installation.