Having gained a large bulk of information from my research conducted so far, I felt it would be beneficial for me to summarise the journey of the research, to help me better understand and record my thought process in more of a concise way.
I also felt it would be beneficial to have a full reflection so far, though I have been reflecting here and there about research or the direction of the project, I thought a more in depth reflection would help me identify what has and hasn’t effective so far. Meaning I know what I need to improve on for the next research starting point I will start.
Summary
Break down of the project
- Adam’s workshop: Good Start Bad Start – Helped me explore a range of possible starting points, by identifying what I’m interested in, what effects me emotionally and world issues I’m passionate about – Brain, psychology, mental illnesses, origami, VR, space
- Starting point – Chris Buckingham – Power of the brain – MyndPlay devices record concentration and this determines outcomes of scenarios
- Brain and Mind Power – Videos, science experiments, TED Talks – Disabilities cured by the mind, uses of brain power, how the brain learn – How useful the brain can be to cure us.
- Brainstorm and Visual Mind-map – Exploration of the brain to branch out my thinking – Idea of reading others (deduction), colour as a form of mind control, colour and emotions
- Psychology of Colour – Meaning of colours, colours and their connection with emotions, colour therapy
- Plenty of Colour – Colour artist blog – Vibrancy and energy of colour, joy colour brings, Holi festival, childishness of colour.
- Splatter art work – Personal watercolour experiments – Capturing the energy of colour, planets, confinding energy, delicate but powerful
- Holi – Articles – Hindu colour festival – Throwing of paint, fun, celebration, human canvases
- Colour Therapy – Blog and Talk – Curing mental illness, Leanne Venier: curing cancer, Alzheimer, Chakras – Colours have a relationship to body parts and need to be aligned for happiness
- Solar Rooms – Egyptian healing rooms – Coloured light/ cloth to heal patients, own drawings of what a solar room could be, inspirational visual imagery
- Massages – Egyptian Energy healing colour massages, aura cleansing with crystal wands – Balancing the flow of energy in the body with coloured crystals – Drawn imagery of auras and balancing energy – Spiritual meaning and healing of colours
Reflection
From my research I think it is great that I have started to utilise first hand research more, by completing a lot more drawings and using my research to influence visuals, for example the splatter artwork. I think this due to me being more interested and inquisitive about what I’m reading/ finding out, which causes me to question the research and successfully bringing up ideas of what the information could look like visually. I believe is beneficial as I’m not just blindly taking in the research but I’m developing from it and already starting to build up a visual language around it, which will help when thinking up possible ideas later on.
Another part of the research I’m proud of is that I have started making professional connections, such as talking to both Chris Buckingham and Valerie Bonnardel. I think this was useful in validating my research and gaining more in depth knowledge that I can’t find online. I believe I have managed to make these connections due to me becoming more comfortable talking about my research and what I’m doing to influential people, who already have a large network of contacts I can communicate with. I feel I will try to continue to make industry connections through not only within the research phase but hopefully throughout the whole project, as a way of networking but also getting more scientific and factual information to back up my work. I plan to do this by continuing to update others on my project, as well as possibly using social media to discover useful contacts.
Something I need to improve on in next part of the project, is not being scared to go back and forth within my research and expand areas out form the initial starting more. As I found my research process to be quite linear by focusing on one point and research into that and then the journey continues from that point. Though I could have used a more agile method and constantly gone back and forth through my research, finding multiple branching areas to look into and truly explore and expanding the starting point.
So I feel I will try more of a agile branching methodology within my next research points, to see if this is more of less useful. To do this I will continue reflecting on my work and looking back at previous research to identify if I could branch out form them again, to truly explore the area I start within.
Overall, I will try to continue working hard, branching my research but trying to also keep it of interest and continue talking about my project to others, to gain professional connections.
Plan
Feeling I have fully researched into colour and have found multiple interesting topics and possible areas for game ideas, I believe it is time to move onto a completely different research area, as we have to present 4 distinctive research points at the end of the phase.
Looking back over the post I made for workshop from Adam, I listed down points of interest and from that list I feel I may concentrate on Origami for this next section.
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