The Data Collection:
Throughout the week, I attempted to track my “desires.” For my purposes, I defined this as a general yearning for something… I included eating, but most of what I defined as a desire is otherwise unnecessary to sustain life. For example, I didn’t need to include my desire to breathe and bring oxygen to my brain, but I did track when I desired to be out of class early or buy myself a coffee. I tracked when I really just wanted to call my mum, or when I wished I had the motivation to get to work on school projects.
In hindsight, I wish I had narrowed this down further. I still think it was an effective week where I had to be a lot more present than usual; however, I probably could have tracked a whole week of people I wanted to interact with or when I wanted to buy food out, etc.
Check out my previous entries to see each day’s raw data as it was collected.
The Drawing:
I really loved the drawing aspect of this project and found it meditative. It was equal parts mechanical and creative- I love when those two concepts are married!
During the lecture where we watched the video of the original creators, I doodled inspiration from their art in order to spur my ideas later on.
I had fun trying different ideas out. Pictured below is one unused design where I drew a vine for each day and added leaves.
One thing that is tough about the drawings is there is (obviously) no undo button. I love my final product; however if I could alter them in any way, I would
- see how big each bubble/flower/sphere was and then space them differently (although I think it’s kind of fun that even I wasn’t totally sure how the drawing would look/be spaced in the end).
- leave a bigger gap in day three’s bubble/flower/sphere in my data void. It’s not pronounced at all and I think it would have made my piece more visually interesting.
Other Observations:
I noticed that on the first day, I was really conscious of my thoughts and excited about the project. The week as a whole was the most difficult academic week of the semester, and thus, my thoughts were of a different nature. I noticed a lot more “green” thought; more negatively fueled thoughts, and more data voids. I wasn’t being as mentally present and it totally affected my mindset, my thoughts, my desires, and thus, my postcard.
Madison Hawkes CTCH110 