Collaboration Time!
- Semi Sunnie
- Mar 9, 2020
- 7 min read
The General Purpose
For the new collaborative project, I am working in a group consisting of Scout Baldwin, Zoe Phan, and Kyra Moe. Our general project is to have an interactive installation that incorporates the idea of touch deprivation, haphephobia, limerence, and empathetic reactivity; which are all different disorders involving how someone wants to perceive love or emotions from others.
Planning Process
Before starting the planning process, I like to create mood boards of some general inspirations I take for the project I’m working on. Some of the inspirations I chose for this particular project where ugly dolls, jelly cat dolls (Starfish), and an artist Jun Young.
The whole project originally spiraled off my interest in Jun Young’s artist installation Never Gone Are The Secrets. Where there is an interactive sculpture that allows the viewer to hug and listen, and if you listen closely you can hear whispers. I took inspiration from this artist by including the viewers into the installation.
The artist is a big inspiration to me and I would highly suggest you check out their work!
For this project, I did an extensive amount of planning to figure out what everyone in my group would be doing and how each one of us may resonate with the project. Originally we planned on making one single soft sculpture that was huge and reloved solely on the idea of touch deprivation. However, after discussing me and my group came to the conclusion that idea would be laborious to accomplish between the four of us. (It was easier to delegate an equal amount of work with multiple sculptures rather than one huge sculpture.) Some problems we would face if we went with our original idea would be work, travel, and clean up. It would be difficult to work equally on one huge sculpture, how would we work out of school/ how would we bring it to the installation, lastly who would keep the huge sculpture between the four of us. While our new project allows each of us to work on an individual sculpture, their size is easier for travel, and each of us can keep the sculpture we created.
Each doll is assigned to a certain color The Desire Doll (Black), The Needle Doll (Red), The Touch Deprivation Doll (White), and The Giving Doll (Patterned having a mixture of all the colors). The colors are there to help distinguish the dolls and to relate to their concept/purpose with the project. Each doll also reflects another doll, The Desire Doll is polar opposites with The Giving Doll and The Touch Deprivation Doll is polar opposites with The Needle Doll. Together they complete each other, however separate they become what they fear most.
This project involves a lot of hands-on work with artists. I created a general list of the things we might need or should consider getting for this project. Things on this list consist of Fabrics, Technology, and etc.. (Assortment of Minky, Dotted Minky, Corduroy, Fleece, Felt, Pattern Material, Muslin, Conductive Thread, Makey Makey, E-Textiles, and other materials..)
The Dolls
Touch Deprivation Doll (Zoe Phan’s doll)
The hunger or need for physical contact with others is known as Touch Deprivation. People who have this condition lack touch from others and seek it on a daily basis. The Touch Deprivation Doll was created to acknowledge this problem that occurs amongst people; this problem has especially become more widely known due to the greater lack of social contact between others throughout the years. The Touch Deprivation doll would incorporate the viewer’s sight, sound, smell and touch. The doll would have E-Textiles lights that would be installed with conductive thread that would be connected to an energy source or a Makey Makey. These E-textiles would produce Light representing a pulsing heartbeat and would be activated by touch. The sculpture could also have a heartbeat noise similar to how Built-A-Bear has tiny sound machines that are activated when the viewer touches the sculpture. (Small Sound Machines or incorporating the Makey Makey) Zoe also recommended we use a lavender smell to represent the doll’s feelings. (The smell is debatable and could change.) The doll would also have White soft Minky fabric so when the viewer does hug the sculpture it isn’t irritating them. Zoe Phan will be in charge of creating The Touch Deprivation Doll with the help of any group members.
For more information about The Touch Deprivation Doll check out Zoe’s blog!
Here were some of the original concept designs for The Touch Deprivation doll that were scraped, however, they will be used for The Giving Doll.
The Needle Doll / Haphephobia Doll (Scout Baldwin’s doll)
The fear of being touched by others is called Haphephobia, people with Haphephobia do not wish to be touched nor like the idea of touching and the fear is usually associated with a fear of sexual assault. The Needle Doll was created to be a polar opposite to The Touch Deprivation Doll. Instead of being welcoming to others the sculpture is rather harsh and protected similar to how a porcupine or hedgehog is with an outer shell of spikes that are needles. The needles are there to protect the doll, to be a warning to others that if you touch me you will be sorry. The Needle doll also has very elongated arms that the viewers are welcome to touch, but will be surprised with a shock! This is to again represent that the doll doesn’t enjoy touch and is a literal depiction of how touch may feel to them. (Treat others how you would like to be treated taken to a whole different level.) The eyes of the doll would also glow an intense red color to further warn the onlooker not to touch. Scout Baldwin will be in charge of creating this doll with the help of our group.
For more information about The Needle Doll check out Scout’s blog!
The Desire Doll / Limerence Doll (Kyra Moe’s Doll)
Being infatuated or obsessed with another person is called Limerence, the trait is usually experienced involuntarily and portrayed as a person with a strong desire to reciprocate one’s feelings but not always in a sexual manner. People who have Limerence seek love from others to an unhealthy amount that can range for long periods of time and can be detrimental to one’s health causing feelings of hopelessness and depression. Limerence has also been linked to suicides due to unreciprocated feelings from who the person is captivated with. The doll is similar to The Touch Deprivation Doll in the way it seeks love and touch from another, however, it will not be satisfied due to the infatuation for love for a particular person.
The Desire doll seeks approval from The Giving Doll, having an interactive factor with its polar opposite doll. The Giving Doll essential gives it’s love away in the form of a heart, in which the viewer will have to deliver The Giving Doll’s love to The Desire Doll. When love is received, happy noises will come from the Desire Doll. If love is not supplied for short periods of time ranging from 1-5 minutes, noises of sorrow will develop.
The Desire Doll will have a dark color scheme, primarily made from black fabric. I created some doodles of what the design could look like, although the final design will be more of the shape of a heart. Kyra Moe is in charge of creating The Desire Doll with the help of her group members.
Originally scout thought it would be nice to have a doll in a teardrop shape. I then did some sketches of what The Desire Doll would look like. The first one would have it so that the heart of love from The Giving Doll would be placed in the mouth of the doll to represent how the doll consumes all the love The Giving Doll has to give. The other option I sketched depicted The Desire Doll in a similar shape but now some of the features were modified. The love of the Giving doll would be placed on the big belly of the desired doll. These were early depictions that were later scrapped.
For more information about The Desire Doll check out Kyra’s blog!
The Giving Doll (Summer Hayes’s Doll)
The over sensation feelings of stress, anxiety, sadness, and anger due to empathizing strongly with others is called Empathetic Reactivity. People who have Empathetic Reactivity resonate strongly with other’s emotions too an unhealthy amount. Sometimes having too much empathy can be bad causing one to feel another person’s emotions intensely or in a physical manner. They take on another person’s feelings to experience how they feel, leading people with Empathetic Reactivity to be susceptible to feelings of depression or hopelessness.
The doll is a counter opposite to its counter partner The Desire Doll who seeks love. The giving doll essentially gives all it’s love to others in a physical form. Its design is to have patchwork for the sole purpose to represent the act of taking itself apart and giving its physical form to others. He is a mix-match mess of other’s love and his own which is slowly diminishing. The doll will have the ability for the onlooker to open up his chest and remove objects to give to The Desire Doll. The Giving doll could also have a possible color change abilities with the E-textiles. (To represent the change in emotions) E-textiles could be placed in the cheek areas and in certain areas of the body. The insides of the body could also glow showing that the more you take out the less alive the doll is. Giving too much of yourself to others is unhealthy and The Giving doll is created to make this statement clear. I will be in charge of building The Giving Doll with the help of my group members.
The Collaborative Strand Project
After the Senior Seminar Project, my next project was to help and collaborate with the theater strand. The senior art strand was put into groups to be more efficient and work together to get the work done. These groups were made after talking with the theater strand about their ideas and how they would like them created. There were two different ideas, one being a Bug theme story and the other an Alien themed story. I resonated more with the Alien group so I wanted to help work on creating their backdrops.
While chatting with the theater strand we talked about a possible mask being created for one of the aliens. I suggested creating a mask inspired by the transformation mask I learned in AP art history class. While that would have been a great idea, we had time constraints and creating a complicated mask was not in the schedule.
Daily Dose Of Artist Inspiration
ChubbyPumpers - Elliot Bech
Elliot Bech is an amazing artist who makes amazing doodles and creations, he is also great at animation and I’m just obsessed with his work. I discovered his artworks due to Beabadoobee, another artist I’ve previously talked about and are inspired by. What stands out most to me is his clean line art his use of the colors black & white in his art. If you like his art as much as I do you should check him out, you won’t regret it!
hey ! I know I'm late with this one but I'm just back tracking. First off, I wanna say how much I appreciate how much time you put in on planning. The pages are sooooooooo thought out and you can tell how passionate you are about this idea. You have expanded on both the collaboration piece and the stuff that we did on the backdrops for theatre and I think all the time you must have put in doing this WILL pay off in the end because it shows every aspect that will go into this group project.