Week 23 - Gathering stories & concept development

rosieglenwright
Mar 24, 2020
4 min read

Updated: May 20, 2020

First week of working at home which is gonna be a drastic change, it's taking some time to adjust to everything that is going on but it's time to focus on what I can do now and not what I could've done. MK2 is due in 2 weeks so I want to spend the next fortnight resolving my final concept and paying attention to the details within my installation.

For the MK1 presentation I decided to focus and prototype the storytelling aspect of my installation. I now need to think about how the installation as a whole comes together.

Playful interactions

I have had a bit of creative block adjusting to the COVID-19 situation. I have found it difficult keeping positive and motivated due to the drastic change of being immersed in a creative environment to working alone in the house. In order to spark my creativity again I decided to have a browse on Pinterest and look at project that inspire me.

Multi-experience installations

I also had a look at existing interactive installations to give me an idea of what my interactive installation could potentially look like.

Concept development

I have sketched out a couple of potential interactions that could be incorporated within my installation. Although I am happy with these individual interactions I need to think about how they can work together along side the rest of the interaction and create a logical user experience. At the moment I have a lot of ideas that are all over the place, I need to spend time thinking about the user experience and how all of the research I have done can be used to create an interactive installation that works well.

Over the next week in the run up to the MK2 presentation I need to think about the space overall and not so much the individual interactions. I need to explore more how the installation works as a whole and the theme that ties it together.

I decided to go back and read my project brief that I wrote back in semester 1 -

"Design an interactive installation that incorporates data visualisation as a playful way to address the issue of safety of women in cities and evoke empathy amongst the users. We need to tackle the norms; educate and change the attitudes and behaviours that prevent girls from achieving equality. I am going to focus on the vulnerability of women and their exposure to sexual harassment in urban environments. I want to design something allows the user to get a deeper understanding of how vulnerable women feel in these environments. In order to make the users empathise I need to design something that makes them feel a personal connection to these women through storytelling."

I have wanted to design an interactive installation from the beginning of fourth year but recently I have got wrapped up in the process and my idea has gone off topic a bit. I want to go back to data visualisation and focus on the playful aspect to come up with a concept that is engaging for the user as well as functional. I need to come up with a way to tie together all of my research with the concept ideas I currently have.

Gathering stories

I got my friends to send me their stories and experiences of sexual harassment as a way to generate my own content. I listened to all of the recordings and drew out small illustrations that convey what the speaker was saying. I also wrote down some key words and themes that occurred.

This was a good way to help get rid of my creative block and remind myself what my initial motivations were for wanting to raise awareness about sexual harassment and sexism.

Observations:

Men do not seem to care that their comments and the way they act is making women feel uncomfortable
Men often justify sexual harassment as 'just a joke' or 'a bit of banter' when confronted
A lot of the women said that they felt like their clothing was a contributing factor for the harassment they received
Women are scared to confront the men and their behaviour because they are worried that they will be gaslighted and made out to be over dramatic
Men touching women without their consent makes women feel violated
Men's attempts and persistence to try and get women's attention can come across as annoying and make women feel uncomfortable
Men can often take advantage of their power (e.g. being a boss/prestigious customer) which can make women scared and less likely to speak up

Key insights:

The phenomenon suggests that strangers are so accustomed to feeling entitled to harass women that they feel angry when such behaviour is denied
Some men men are wilfully ignorant that their assaultive behaviour is objectifying and degrading women and often justify such actions are a joke
The sexual objectification and portrayal of women in the media has resulted in men feeling a sense of entitlement to women's bodies