Assignment 2 Reflection

Assignment two saw me take my ideas from assignment one, a step further. In assignment one I chose a hair tie as my object and begun delving into the world of youth and adulthood. More specifically, what the transition between those two stages entails. I think that notion in itself suggests entanglement as we each go through this transition and so, we become absorbed in each domain, resulting in new discoveries via entanglement. This idea of domains is also made mention of by Tim Ingold who states that there is “no boundary separating the two domains” (2011, p.69). This means that if we allow ourselves to become entangled in the world, we are no longer isolated. Instead, we are going in every direction. The exploration I conducted in assignment one cemented my passion to focus on diaries as my ‘thing’ for assignment two.

By choosing a diary as my ‘thing,’ I decided it would be necessary to create a diary entry as my small media work. I am fascinated by the personality of diaries. That people are able to express their true feelings to themselves. This allows oneself to face themselves and subsequently, progress as a person. The media work showcases the progression a person goes through as they move along from youth to adulthood. During my research I discovered the ‘Psychological Displacement Paradigm in Diary-Writing (PDPD)’ by which “in brief, PDPD integrates the benefits of both self-awareness and self-reflection because the writing moves sequentially from “I” to “you” to “he/she”” (Change, Huang & Lin 2013, p.157).

Diary writing is extremely personal much like how personal the journey from youth to adulthood is and so, it felt right to create a piece of media work which reflected that. As I have focused on the transition from youth to adulthood I thought it would be interesting to integrate these elements of PDPD to guide the narrative of my work. Beginning as ‘I,’ an individual is at the peak of their youth. They’re encapsulated by the turbulence of youth as illustrated by the maze. Then as the individual is at the tail end of their youth, it becomes ‘you.’ It is for those who are at this stage. Simultaneously,  ‘you’ elicits the dissociation between youth and adulthood. Whilst the last section then focuses on the beginning of adulthood and should then lead with a he/she in terms of PDPD, this piece is meant to be accessible to all and so instead, it shifted to referring to the reader as ‘they.’ ‘They’ is used to describe someone else and so, denotes that adulthood is not upon the reader yet but is able to anticipate adulthood by engaging with the media work,

I put a lot of focus on linking my research with the narrative of my media work but I also needed to encapsulate the feeling of a diary which subsequently led me to ponder the suitable affordances of media to showcase a diary. Firstly, the layout of the text was very important. I attempted at making the text versatile such as by the layout of the quotes as well as highlighting particular sentences. Whilst there was variation in how the text was presented, the capabilities of mediafactory was a limiting factor and so, it wasn’t a complete success. It was often difficult to arrange text alongside images. I struggled with the idea that I wanted it to be a traditional diary by which text would fill the whole page but I also wanted to ensure it was engaging. Therefore, I think moving forward I would like to do more research into text layout as there are many creative ways of presenting text. Furthermore, diaries can be a creative form of expression and so I should take advantage of that and possibly integrate actual handwritten pieces into the diary. Secondly, whilst diaries are predominantly text, I wanted to add visual and audial elements to further project the notion of entanglement as the journey from youth to adulthood isn’t simply words but also feelings and memories. Therefore, images played a large role in conveying my narrative. I think that this worked well as it allowed the reader to feel they were a part of the moments presented. Especially in the daydreaming bubbles photo. I felt that I was able to create a surreal feeling at this point. That whilst for the other images it was up to the reader’s imagination, for this image, I was able to provide a dream-like moment via the video. I felt that the use of images alongside text was thought-provoking which was important to the exploration of the issue at hand. That each person could think for themselves about their journey of transitioning. The ability to create a mood, specifically one that is surreal, is something that I find fascinating and so I want to continue to develop this. Possibly, investigating surreal moments of life and discovering why they occur and what they’re entangled with. Whilst this was a successful element, I did face one difficulty. That being, the backs of the images had to be on a separate page. Whilst I feel that the combination of text and image was important to the idea of secrecy in a diary as well as personalisation, the viewer’s engagement with the work was disrupted as it takes you to another page. I wanted to insert them as a pop-up however that was unavailable and so I resorted to putting them on another page. I think that in the future I should incorporate the captions maybe beneath the images instead in order to keep it all contained to the one piece.

Through the making of this diary I found that it’s important to consider who the target group for the piece is and so, understand which types of media would resonate most with that target group. I felt that the flowing nature of a blog post offers a digital experience of a diary which can therefore be likened to a post on social media. It makes me wonder what other target groups would resonate with most, as well as what issues other age groups face. However, this issue can be seen as a starting point for entanglement of life stages as we learn so much in our youth which shapes our adulthood. Youth, adulthood and life in general is complex and so I focused on showcasing one part of it. There were many successes but also many improvements to be made and so, in the future I would love to investigate the many ways of presenting a narrative as well as many other issues that occur throughout aging.

References:

Chang, J, Huang, C & Lin, Y 2013, ’The Psychological Displacement Paradigm in Diary Writing (PDPD) and its Psychological Benefits’, Journal of Happiness Studies, vol. 14, iss. 1, pp. 155-167.

Ingold, T 2011, ‘Rethinking the animate, reanimating thought’, Being Alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description, Routlege: London, New York, pp. 67-75.