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Reflection

22 January 2021 #14

I feel that this project will not be possible without my groupmates. Through these 5 days, all of us worked together in discussions that finally led to our final project proposal.

With all of us in different specializations, our thoughts and ideas are different but it serves as a benefit to us. This interdisciplinary project allowed us to come together to work as a group intensively for 5 days where we constantly voiced our ideas, which enabled us to think out of the box.

There are many perspectives that I never thought of previously. Hence, from this project, I learnt that we should constantly practice by producing new pieces of work. Not all of them may work out, but the process of forming new ideas in pieces of work will definitely benefit myself, which allows me to do better.

Applying this concept to myself as a music student, constantly working on performance and composition that I am not familiar with allows me to push my boundaries, which allows me to grow as a versatile musician and composer.

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Purpose of CoStars - All the Same

21 January 2021 #13

Our group came up with this name after the final idea was confirmed. We first suggested names, and I combined two names that were part of the suggestions. I felt this name is closely related to our project, and also related to our purpose of the project.

As the name suggests, we want everyone to be fairly treated, especially when everyone are human beings. I feel that we should not be looking at people suffering from mental illness in a different way, but instead we should be thinking in the perspective of what we can do to help them. People suffering from mental illness should also be encouraged from this raising mental health awareness project.

The use of stars in the final exhibition is to represent every individual who used the hugging booth and participated in the data collection process. We decided on the name CoStars, because it signify that everyone is equally important, where no one is better than the other.

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Relation to ‘How do we Own the Future?’

21 January 2021 #12

With regards to the topic, ‘How do we own the future?’

Our idea is, through the data collection process, there is collaboration with others for the exhibition to be possible. In the exhibition, there is information about mental health information, which allows us to gain insights on our own mental health being, that makes us individuals who are better equipped with knowledge for the unforeseeable future.

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Reflecting the Process leading to the Final Idea

21 January 2021 #11

We did not decide on this final idea immediately. Similar to our initial idea, we only fixed on this final idea after a long discussion.

Our idea for this is, we want our project to be a more interactive one, where people can feel more engaged with one another. From this, someone brought up the idea of the coca cola hug me machine.

Ref: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/04/11/hug-me-coca-cola-introduces-gesture-based-marketing-in-singapore/?sh=4e8fa37626fe

From this coca cola machine, we thought that the idea of having enclosed booths could work, especially for people who do not want their emotions to be exposed to public. A sensor will be used to detect the person’s mental health condition.

That was how we further discussed and came up with the hugging booth. This is an additional feature for people who use that booth, where they can hug the huge bear that has warmth. We feel that sometimes people need comfort, and hugging a warm bear can make up for it to a certain extent.

We then thought of having an installation that will be created from the data collected, which shows how it forms a piece of art.

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Exhibition Interactive Visualization

21 January 2021 #10

This is the stimulation of how our idea works in the exhibition interactive visualization, which is the second phase of our project.

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Final Idea

21 January 2021 #9

We decided on this idea for the project, in which we named 

CoStars - All the Same

This project consists of two phases.

Phase 1: QR code to enter either of 2 hugging booths (Booth 1 is “To get hugged” and Booth 2 is “To Hug”). Hugging device/ machine will generate heat to emulate a real life person’s warmth and will collect the data generated which will be shown in the form of the heat chart afterwards : scanned copy of color+ heat chart  

Phase 2: Costars collective exhibition 

This is how both phases work.

Phase 1 is more personal and intimate where the experience is inside a small booth, but for Phase 2, we will showcase the collaborative result of the data collected in the form of an interactive visualization through a collective exhibition.

Data collected worldwide via the heat sensors will be collected and through AI, it will generate an interactive artwork in the form of the various stars of participants from Phase 1.

Participants who participated can view and detect their color in the form of a star by hovering their phones around the interactive artworks.

For those that did not participate in Phase 1, they will still be able to use their phones and interact with the artworks but instead of a star appearing on their phone, they will receive statistics/ data on mental health issues to raise their awareness on this problem.

Throughout the experience, there will also be music and sfx accompanying the visitors as they move their phones to interact with the artworks. For example, when the star appears on a visitor’s phone, a “blink” sfx can be heard. Imagine being inside an immersive 360 reality audio experience 

Ref: https://www.sony.com.sg/electronics/360-reality-audio 

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Changing of Idea

21 January 2021 #8

Although we came up with the previous idea, I felt that not everyone is interested in playing games. Especially for people suffering from mental health issues, they might not be as active online. 

Hence, instead of using our previous idea, after our discussion as a group, we decided to change that idea, which led us to the finalised idea for our project proposal.

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Initial Proposal Idea

20 January 2021 #7

This is what we included as an initial proposal idea as a group.

Onboarding Process – The user is greeted with an interactive film about mental health awareness and throughout the film, the user will be presented with “problems” and the choices they can take which will lead them to an outcome based on their choice (Ref: Royston Tan High Video). The interactive film will also serve as a diagnostic report at the end based on the user’s choices, to predict if they have any pre-existing mental health conditions (for users that feel they need help) and steps to take to raise awareness on mental health issues (for users that want to learn more).

Main App Interface – The user will then be given the choice to create their own avatars through a character creation process and then enter a lobby where there will be other users roaming around as well (Ref: Club Penguin). There will be 2 rooms that their avatars can enter: (1) GAME – to learn more about mental health & (2) CONSULTATION – to seek advice.

(1) GAME – Users will be greeted with a visual map of locations (Ref: Pokemon Go) that they can go locally in real life like a treasure hunt where they can complete a challenge that will teach the user more on a specific mental health condition and attain a reward upon completion. The game will also have a levelling system where their levels will be higher with each completion. The main goal of the game is to allow not only for the user to understand more about mental health locally but also how countries around the world have created ways domestically to curb mental health conditions. With the current lockdowns across the globe, the game will also incorporate virtual reality elements for those from a different country. For example, Singaporeans are encouraged to play the game in real life but in the event that they would like to go to Japan to learn more, they can enter the virtual reality section where there will be visuals from Japan’s landmarks, cities, etc. The virtual reality section will mimic as closely as possible to the real-life treasure hunt to not break the immersiveness. There will also be an integration of activities from art therapy, music and smells through the game where the user can relax and enjoy away from the actual treasure hunt game as a break.

PHASE 1. We will start with landmarks that surround the city of Singapore. 

PHASE 2. We will expand and include the global map.

 (2) CONSULTATION – Users can enter the consultation room to talk to an expert that is ready 24/7 to help them or enter an online meeting session with strangers across the world to talk more on their problems or help one another. 

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Proposal Ideas

20 January 2021 #6

With these research, together with my groupmates, we further discussed about how we want to promote awareness in mental health issues. 

Besides those that I shared in the previous two blog posts, we found that there are existing websites and mobile apps that provide services to help people understand mental illness. From these, we started discussing about ideas before finalising on our idea.

At first, we thought about designing an app that can provide mental health consultations in a friendly manner. 

Besides this, it can be a form of a game, like Pokemon Go or RPG games such that users can play and battle as a character in the game, where it consists of the information about mental health issues. Within the game, users will level up after they play and gain knowledge in mental health issues. We thought of have a video introduction to the game, that include quizzes to attract people to use the app. This includes interactive choices where players choose the decisions for the character, which acts as a form of self diagnosis without the player realising it. 

Next I suggested that it can be a game that is similar to club penguin, where users can interact and play with other players in the map, but of course it will include details about mental health issues. As we further suggested about this idea, we decided it can be using a world map, for people to visit places from all around the world. This allow people to understand mental health issues in other countries about how they treat people with mental health, as well as understand their culture, where music that represents that place will be playing as a background music track. With this, to encourage people to go out more, we suggested that people should visit places in Singapore physically, but visit overseas countries virtually through the map. The application will specify places that introduces VR/AR experiences about mental health issues.

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Mental Health Awareness Initiative

20 January 2021 #5

When I did more research, I found this image below from the internet that states the types of mental illness.

This image is from the heart project, which is a project to raise awareness in mental health issues. It shows how these colours are associated with the various mental health issues within the project. Mental health issues are quite personal, hence most people suffering from them might not be willing to share these information. 

This project is to encourage people to be more open towards their mental health issues, and to let them know that they are not alone because there are also other people around them suffering from these.

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Mental Health Issues

20 January 2021 #4

As I was researching about mental health issues, I found this image from the internet, which shows a few types of the more common mental health issues.

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Idea: Mental Health Awareness

19 January 2021 #3

As I worked with my group to further discuss about this topic, it led us to dive deeper about social interaction between people, where we brought up the topic about mental health.

With Covid-19, it resulted in more social issues which caused more people to suffer with mental illness. We all had the same thought about wanting to be able to help people. Hence, together with my groupmates, I felt there is a need to bring up mental awareness in people.  I feel that when there is more awareness towards mental health issues, it allows more people to be understanding towards people suffering with mental illness, where more people can reach out to help them. 

From which, I first started researching about mental health issues, as well as the existing measures to bring awareness about mental health to people.

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Initial Thoughts

18 January 2021 #2

When we were introduced to this topic, the first thought that came to my mind is the idea of owning the future. From which, I felt that for one to be able to own the future, we have to be in control of our lives in the present.

One prominent situation going on now is the current Covid-19 situation that affected the world.

There are social impacts because when Covid-19 first started, there are more restrictions. This caused people to sometimes prefer staying at home because we have to wear masks when we are outside, which resulted in less physical connection or physical meetings between people.

For this period of time, we are also encouraged to stay at home, which decreased social interactions between people. Although there are platforms which enable people to meet online, it is still different from the face to face meet ups.

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How do we Own the Future?

18 January 2021 #1 

This tumblr blog is a process journal of my interdisciplinary project, where we get to collaborate with people from other specialisations, who are also in their second year in the degree program in Lasalle College of the Arts. Personally, I am part of the music stream specialising in Electronic Music, where my groupmates consist of students from Fine Art, Fashion Media and Industries, Design Communication, and Animation Arts.

Together with my group, we are required to come up with a project proposal and a presentation of it at the end of the week with regards to the topic, ‘How do we Own the Future?’.