Evaluation 

My degree Project ‘478’ is an installation I have purposely, made for viewers to be gradually distracted from their present anxious thoughts and feelings, as mentioned before I would prefer to have my audience be adults since they may be coming in after a stressful working day. I have created an environment, with soft moving sounds generated from the spinning disk and the wind chimes working alongside each other and swirly fluorescent colours that luminate the chimes as well. I do hope for the viewers to feel immersed. I also have the playful furry push buttons that could awaken the audience’s childlike nature’s and encourage them to further explore the art around; and if children are around too it is also inclusive for them to view. The name of my artwork is ‘478’ to give recognition to a famous breathing method used to regulate levels of high stress (Lin et al Kunze, 2020). I did not want to place too much detail in the name in the hopes that people are intrigued and ask questions about the name and in turn I would relay suggestive knowledge on the subject; this could aid making the show more talkative and in hand more interactive. Moreover, I hope my indirect approach does have a positive impact towards the viewers, this indirect approach as mentioned in my design proposal was also inspired from Commandeur and Starmach’s work on their vending machine installation, which in the end was intended to push more positive reinforcement for the local’s mental health (Commandeur et al Starmach, 2018). I have distributed my artwork online on YouTube alongside a tutorial with step-by-step instructions on how to create the installation, I will also have a physical exhibition and I will just need to consider my risks on my risk assessment form to make sure I create little to no hazards for the safety of everyone. Since I have mixed media to assemble.

 Overall, this project was very challenging for me, I did not experiment a lot with Arduinos prior to this project, but nevertheless I was motivated to create something interactive in a newer medium, I did initially plan on using conductive paint as a touch sensor but that failed, although I do wish to further practice with conductive paint for future projects since learning the process was fun and educative. I eventually, moved on to work with motors and I’ve also learnt more how to align code properly and understand why different sections like ‘functions and headers are so important.

 Even though I had a rough beginning, If I remain consistent and keep experimenting and learning from others in the same field of interest, I will create some great further projects in the future.

 

1)      Lin, Kunze , 2020 AromaCue - A Scent Toolkit To Cope with Stress using the 4-7-8 Breathing Method

2)      Commandeur , S 2020 Commandeur,Elizabeth. Starmach, Mark: Intangible Goods. 2018.Sydney