Positions through contextualising

I was wondering how to develop the project from the patterns obtained in Positions through iterating. I decided to do thinking through making in a way that I could not see the way forward, and I tried to add more patterns and colouring the patterns.

I realised that looking at these patterns I thought that my behaviour would not change but would bring me feelings of pleasing or joy.From there, I did my research using the key words positive emotions, behaviours and patterns.

I used Posavec(2021)’s Updating Happiness as my reference source. When you visit the project’s website, you can visualise the moments when you feel happy, according to a visual system designed by Posavec.

Influenced by this work, I decided to combine the patterns I created with moments that gave me positive emotions.

After some experimentation I was stuck, not knowing how I could develop from here. Even in the tutorial, different students interpreted the pattern differently, so there was some discussion as to why the pattern was linked to positive emotions.
I was interested in the impact of patterns on people and not in data visualisation, so I was left with the challenge of how to maintain subjectivity.

I then referenced the MAMIMU (2021) MAMIMU x Dr Tara Swart for ITV Creates project as a case study dealing with positive emotions and patterns.

This project visualised Opitimism based on the theories of brain scientists, but I did not feel optimistic or change into positive emotions when I saw this project. Furthermore, when I thought about why this did not happen, I imagined that if I had actually been in this design space instead of through a digital screen, I would have surely experienced positive emotions. In other words, I thought that the “experience” of the participants would be crucial.

From there, I experimented with printing the patterns on different media, changing the size, placement and colour of the paper and patterns to see how the impression would change, in order to get the participants to “experience” the patterns.

Due to time constraints, I was in this state for the final tutorial of Positions through contextualising. Certainly, changing the media and patterns changed the impressions received, but again, the lack of “objectivity” was pointed out here.
However, I was only aware that making the project participatory and creating patterns chosen by the participants was not what I wanted to do.

Who do I want them to communicate with, in what ways and to whom?

As there is still time before the video essay, I will explore this part of the project a little more.