discomforts :
the process
Andrew Kim
discomforts :
the process
This is the documentation of process for my thesis. From introduction to finale, the process will go through the changing situations and thoughts that went into creating the culmination of what is now a representation of my thesis.
Discomfort goes into the study of what it is as a science, what it is to people, and what it can become in a physical space. The question of “What defines one’s discomfort” drew me to this idea. I wanted to understand the different things that people have discomfort from and get an understanding of what discomfort is. The Research was divided into six categories: thoughts, sounds, phobias, sight, feel, and comfort. Thoughts goes into the study around social anxiety, anxiety disorder, and the Dunning Krueger effect. Sounds focuses on the hatred of sounds, Misophonia. Phobia is on research of the science behind phobias and common examples of phobia. Sights revolves around actions people enact, colors, and living things. Feel is about why certain people have unease towards certain textures and if there is a genetic correlation, Finally, comfort goes into why we have a preference for a certain space, and the environmental psychology. From this research I conducted interviews with people to collect data on what discomforts and/or comforts that they may have through senses of sight, taste, smell, sound, touch, and so on. These interviews would range from five minutes to upwards of two hours. The methodology of my process consists of Auditory and Digital Media. These mediums will be made according to the data that I have collected from the interviews to create different visuals. Auditory will be used to provide a different experience as well as enhance the digital media. The Digital media is of loopable footage that exists within a digital or physical space.
Contents Questions Research Interviews Audio A Letter To Change Rethink Posters Conclusion
QUESTIONS
I HATE BEING ASKED ALOT OF QUESTIONS
The task was to think of and write down any and every open-ended question that comes up in our minds throughout the day. From these questions we then were to create something that poses these questions in a visual, physically or digitally.
Several of the questions that I posed revolved around humanity and psychology. During this time I had an idea of what I wanted to create my thesis around and wanted to create something that would make the audience feel discomfort or at unease. From all the questions that I wrote down, I divided them into four categories: psychology, personal, order, and humanity.
IT’S UNSETTLING LOOKING AT A RECORDING OF MYSELF
I thought how I would visual these questions and wondered what could be made physically at first. I thought I would be able to create a space that people would go through reading these questions in different spaces. I then thought of a smaller form and creating a sort of obscura that people would look into and observe these questions. Then I thought just using video to pose these questions all at once to create an overwhelming feeling.
To start this process, I thought of what I would show for my visuals. One of the things that I found unsettling were mouths. While recording my audio, I also recorded my mouth to accompany the audio. The goal for me with this video was to start testing the idea of discomfort and uneasiness, as if it were an experiment.
Looking at what footage I collected, I posed myself a question of whether it would be better to separate the categories or put them all together. I went on to create two different versions, one that poses the questions of each category, and another posing all the questions at the same time to place and overwhelming amount of questions and noise upon the viewer to create an atmosphere of discomfort.
RESEARCH
THE SIGHT OF LONG READINGS IS DAUNTING TO ME
For information I divided it into 6 categories: thoughts, sound, touch, sight, comfort, and phobias. Within each category there are different subsets that go into types of discomforts and comforts people have. In the thoughts chapter, for example, topics revolves around the imposter syndrome, anxiety disorder, social anxiety, and so on. Before starting my research, I created a tree map to see what I can branch from discomforts and look into as well. From this I was able to understand other things that connect to discomforts that I may be able to research and get a better understanding of.
I HAVE A FEAR THAT I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH
From the mapping, I conducted my research into looking at writings as well as research that had been conducted around the scientific side of discomforts. While looking through the research, I looked into other forms of discomforts like phobias and misophonia. I also looked into comforts to see if there was any similarities between both comfort and discomfort. Curating the information that goes into the research book was a process. Reading through all the research that I had collected, I began to go back and forth on how I wanted to show the research visually in the book. I didn’t know if I wanted my thoughts to mix with the information or not. On one hand it would create a more “unique” display of information and not a bore to read, on the other it made the line between research and experience hard to discern. Do I make the book solely for the sole purpose of information, or make this like a process book and place my own opinions alongside all of the research.
For the visuals, I initially thought of just placing images of common discomforts and phobias that I had found from the research, but it did not represent the goal I placed for myself of creating something that did not look like a textbook. From here I thought how I could create an abstraction of the fears and discomforts people had. From this idea I began creating color gradients that represented the abstraction of the subject and this became the visual system for my research book.
The gradients were made from color palettes of the specfic phobias and discomforts that people may have. For example, the visual for a open oceans would be a gradient of colors that came from the open oceans. For non-literal subjects such as loneliness, it required more of a subjective thought as well a little color theory to create the best representation of certain emotions, actions, and thoughts.
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BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER TALKING TO A PERSON IS THE WORST FEELING
Before I was able to start creating for my space, I needed to collect more information, this being interviews. I started interviewing peers and professors within the graphic design department and documented the information. I asked questions such as discomforts whether it be certain foods they don’ t like or certain actions people do that they don’ t like seeing, phobias that they have, and the comforts that they have.
These interviews helped with collecting data that I can work off of to create my abstract gradients, used in the research book, seeing a commonality in certain discomforts, comoforts, and phobias, and create other elements that may be showing visually, used auditorally, or in another sensory way.
AUDIO
THE SOUND OF NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD SUCKS
With the data that I had collected from the interviews, I started thinking of what ways I can begin visualizing the information. One way that I thought was to create audios that correlated to the discomforts and comforts.
For the first iteration, I separated the audios of discomfort and comfort. The audios would come from sounds that people found unsettling and sounds from certain actions and or things that people visually found uncomforting or unsettling. This version of the audios worked in the sense that they did what their purpose was for, but it did not push the message fully. Because the two audios were divided, there was handpicking that had been made when in actuality it should not have this. Discomforts and comforts come from different things for different people and to make this more accurate, they needed to be combined.
THE THOUGHT OF THE OCEAN IS SCARY. SOME PEOPLE LIKE IT THOUGH.
For the second iteration, I combined the two while adding more other segments of audios to create a mixture of both the discomforts and comforts. Doing this, I now have a single audio track that everyone can listen to and be able to pick what does make them uncomfortable and what does not.
In the final iteration, I decided to add visuals to the audio. With the previous iterations, there was an issue with discerning what certain audios were which resulted in more confusion than discomfort. So I went in and added visuals that matched with each audio to help with connecting the audio to its owner.
A Letter To Change
Around March 7th students were told to not return back to the university due to the current going pandemic. During this time I was getting ready to get back into creating physical pieces of work to put into my space. Before the break, I was able to get some feedback and great help from past professors on how I can design something for my thesis and it gave me a motivational boost to push through and reach the end, but with the sudden change of schedule and the lockdown, I suddenly just crashed into a wall. Remotely, I tried to figure out ways to create work digitally and or within the limited space that I had in my surrounding area. From the previous plan of creating an environment where people would experience discomforts using their sensories, I had to rework and rethink my projects.
In all honesty, it took me forever to figure out a transition to make something digitally. For nearly a month I produced nothing to show and work on for my thesis. I had lost a lot of motivation to do so. At many moments I thought that I would fail to pull myself up and get into the rhythm of doing my work. At one point, I even thought of just dropping everything and just giving up. All I could think at the time was just how this could all happen at such a crucial time in my education and how it all just threw everything off.
Currently while writing this, looking a week back from now, I realized that being isolated to yourself is intoxicating and really does a number on the mind. I remember for a brief moment I nearly lost my mind. I think my dog helped a little bit.
RETHINK
STARTING SOMETHING ALL OVER AGAIN FRUSTRATING AND OFF-PUTTING.
After putting myself back on track, I started thinking about ways to show my thesis in a digital space. Mainly, I was looking into video and animation. This idea was around even before the pandemic, but it was not as flushed out and as strong of an idea to execute. With suggestions and feedback from my studio, I was able to find a way of showing my data within this type of medium.
POSTERS
I HAVE A BIG FEAR OF BURNOUT
I began the process of making several iterations of looping videos using the data from the interviews that I had collected. The goal while making these posters was to produce as many as I can while maintaining a coherant system that they all follow. For the system it follows five things: Typography, Color, Visual, Audio, and Length.
THE THOUGHT OF FULL CONTROL. THERE IS SOMETHING UNSETTLING ABOUT IT. For the typography, I wanted to initially have only two choices: A clean and readable type and a more messy and form-focused type. For the cleaner typeface using DRUK and the form-focused type using a plugin that “dirtifies� images and type to make them seem more messsier and unkept. But as I created different iterations of different subject matters, having two type styles was not enough. In many of the situations, there were different typefaces that would work stronger than the system, some other moments getting rid of type completely improved the poster drastically. So I decided to have the typeface follow along with the subject. With the message the subject conveys, I would then find a typeface that best represents the mood.
For the visuals and color, I chose different methods for each subject. For example, Vertigo would use a black and white color system and use typography as the main visual system. For another poster, like the Sharp Noises, I used colors that people did not like seeing, neon or bright colors, and cycled through these colors quickly to create a sporadic and stobing visuals that represents sharp alongside the audio.
Both audio and length were used methodically with all the poster iterations. Audio in most subjects did not seem to fit alongside the visuals. When the audio was useful in supporting the subject, it helped to enhance the experience or feeling the subject is meant to convey. Length with many of the iterations were no longer than five seconds. But in other situations, the length of the videos spanned up to 30 seconds. The visualization system for each poster, though may be somewhat similar, convey there messages in different amounts of time. Some can show the message in a few seconds, while others require a little more time to help absorb the message more easily.
CONCLUSION
AN ENJOYABLE CHAOTIC LOVEABLE MESS
Throughout this semester and even school year, there were a lot of moments of enjoyment and chaos, especially through thesis semester. At many of times there were moments of giving up, idea scrapping, mental breakdowns, basically the works. In a lot of moments, I wonder, if I had the chance to go back and start over, would I? Throughout each year studying, I would agree that I would want a start over. Thinking about this question now, I disagree. I guess I found an appreciation for the things that were given to me. For nearly all my times at school I mainly focused on getting my work done and trying my hardest to stay focused on not failing. I never had the chance to take a break and look at the more relaxing part of life. The people around me, the city of Boston, I didn’t pay attention to any of it. It wasn’t until I no longer had these things that I felt something missing. I didn’t realize I could miss something that I didn’t pay much attention to.
To the conclusion of my process and my thesis, the discomforts and comforts that I researched, experienced, and interviewed were interesting. It was more than I expected it would initially be prior to starting. I was able to get a better understanding of the discomforts and comforts people have and being able to understand how I can create a new and different system of visuals for each and every subject. The whole journey helped me to understand adapting to different elements of challenges and being able to use different mediums to enhance the experience of design. This was truly an unforgettable experience. Especially with it revolving around an outbreak, the chaos of creating work through a digital environment, and the rethinking of a thesis three months in the making. Truly unforgettable. I feel that the saying of the journey is more memorable than the destination is really screaming out right now. The excitement and passion I had the start of the semester, thinking of ambitious projects for the thesis, all the way to making all of my work nearly a month before the thesis opening because of rethinking. Though the outbreak was a pain in the rear and threw my whole process and motivation off, I still believe everything happens for a reason and that it led to me being able to create something different and maybe even better than I may have initially planned.
Thank you to Marc Schepens, Richard Raiselis, Kitty Wales, Jessie Rubenstein, John Craine, Dan Pererra, Max Harvey, Kristen Malia, Kristen Coogen, Josh Brennan, Hugh O’Donnell, Daniel Harding, Daria Nikolaeva, Christopher Field, Jaya Howey, Toni Pepe, Paul Karasik, James Grady, Erin Zwaska, Danielle Sauve, Yael Ort-Dinoor, Alicja Wisniowska, Angela Sun, Angie Wijaya, Carlyn Soares, Charlotte Kershaw, Ciaran Brandin, Congcong Wang, Eric Markus, Fiona Lin, Gabriela Tirado Alvarez Calderon, Heeyeon Kim, Jiayi Ma, Kabita Das, Kaylah Haye, Maureen Burns, Olivia Williams, Sarah Cummings, Sarah Perkins, Sharon Zhong, Skyler Tse, Valentina Wicki, Wenjing Liu, Yian Nicole Zhao for providing me with both support and education that helped shape me to be who I am both as a person and designer.
Discomfort goes into the study of what it is as a science, what it is to people, and what it can become in a physical space. The question of “What defines one’s discomfort” drew me to this idea. I wanted to understand the different things that people have discomfort from and get an understanding of what discomfort is.