Project Origin | My Site

Inspired from personal experiences, I began the study on personal transitions, particularly on the change of mind states, perceptions throughout the struggling phase and the visualisation of these emotions. I aim to generate collective responses with the audience, send a message to everyone who's been trough the state of limbo that they are not alone.

I. PROJECT IN BETWEEN - THE ORIGIN

1. Background

The Point of No Return

In 2020, the world we knew has changed. So is my personal life, I have resigned from a long-term career, dealt with a sudden divorce, watched death haunting my families. My insomnia came back like an unleashed monster, like a satellite accidentally spun out of orbit, I knew I have passed the point of no return, for better or worse.

The Limbo

Denial, panic, struggle, loneliness, disconnection. One after another until the worst, a complete lost of purpose. It was easy to take a free fall and I almost did. I made the choice to keep on.

I met David playing chess. I got close to David because of insomnia. David arrived in London in 2020, got stuck here because of the pandemic. During his time in London, David’s life is reduced to the minimum. He eats, he showers, he sleeps, he wakes up, he smokes, he thinks, he waits, he repeats. Before I met him, I following a similar yet stricter routine recommended by my psychologist - wake up, shower, eat, walk, eat, read, take medication, eat, sleep, repeat. We have both been through the state of limbo, caught in between the past glory and the seemingly hopeless future, with everything spinning out of control. Deprived of desires, purposes, connections, we were like empty human sleeves floating in space, without gravity to ground us, desperately longing for control and absolution through the unbearable weightlessness. I recognise we are not the only ones. As humans we would all experience traumatic or unpleasant events shaking our lives at some point. Looking back it was never the trauma that define us, but how we chose to deal with it.

Slide 1: An illustration of individual mind states before disruptive events, during and after the state of limbo (coping with change) ;

Slide 2: An illustration in relation to the chaos theory: Everything has the tendency to trend toward chaos. In fact compared to the stable states (island of stability), the chaotic states are the norm

The Way Out

Change is the only constant in life. Changes are not necessarily bad, sometimes could even be exciting, but the transition phase, however brief, is almost never easy. Changes could take place under two general circumstances: they are either involuntary (driven by disruptive events) or voluntary (driven by individual choices), although the latter are still more or less the products of assessing one's circumstances (affected by external factors). Once passed the point of irreversible change, before the new reality settles in, there is the state of uncertainty. This state could be brief or unbearably long, depending on how long the actions (responses) would take into effect. (e.g. relocating to a different country, committing to a learning program for career advancement, dealing with grief, recovering from trauma). This Schrödinger-cast state is full of discomfort and horror because of the uncertainties. Yet it is also the state that incubates possibilities - a state that I fear the most and also obsessed with. Voluntary or not, decisions must be made and actions have to be taken to bring the situation into a state of stability (for better or worse). I believe our decisions define us as individuals, hence the significance of the study.

An illustration of how individual choices shaping the development of events; left: fractals are probably a good reference to visualise how new possibilities presented themselves at certain points on the timeline

II. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Ultimately, I want to track the mind state throughout the struggling phase (from the point of change - state of limbo - the point of new stability) and translate these emotions visually to generate collective responses.

In order to do so, I have to first develop an understanding of how individuals deal with changes, formulate decisions and perceive reality. Therefore preliminary research into the fields of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and physics is necessary.

The current research is designed to record, reflect and answer the following questions through the lenses of an artist (as both a subject and an observer ):

Q1. Drive & Purpose: What happens to our mind if we are out of desires and purposes?

Q2. Isolation: To what degree do we need human interactions? How do we deal with life if we are deprived of interacting with other people?

Q3. Decision-making: Factors contributing to the decision-making process include the initial drive (self-motivation), the Marco context, existing resources, foreseeable risks, and the cost of opportunity. Besides the listed above, could random encounters also influence the decision-making process, and to what degree?

Q4. Perception & Interpretation: How do we perceive the same thing (objects) at different times with a different state of mind?

Q5. Articulation: How to preserve all these emotions visually?