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As a little boy, imagine wrapping your arms around the legs of your dad, yearning for an inch of attentiveness. However,  in response to this gesture of adoration and endearment, you receive a gentle nudging. The longer you hold on, the more vicious this nudging becomes. One that plucks you from the cushioned reality of emotional expression and  positions you behind the glass walls of masculine rejection of the human, organic and “feminine” emotional gestures we all need and crave.

Our little story about masculinity. Audience context

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Here we experiment with the idea of control. Where the shadow is representative of the overpowering and overwhelming pressure of masculine constructs. These pressures start to have effect on behavioural patterns and expression of self

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Experimenting with gesture and shadow. Where the image of the subject conveys one sense or feeling, and the shadow conveys another. Representative of burden, shame, inhibition, the shadow begins to overpower the subject, which becomes prevalent in their performed self. 

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Experimenting with performative response to semiotics. How can elements of these experimentations be used to enhance narrativity through gesture?

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The Mask You Live in.

This film inspired us to play around with the metaphor of masks. Through a mask, you can hide your true self, but you can also project another performativity of self. There’s a tension between the comfort of having a mask, and the sheer desire to be able to rip it off and be free from it. 

Through this experiment, we played around with visuals and possible concepts. The aim was to project the fake self onto the mask. The vibrant, happy, self that conforms to the expectations of society. Then behind that mask lies the truth. The true self that’s suppressed in order to survive.

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Dreamscape

Through these stills we experimented with the idea of dreamscapes. How can we manipulate the environments in the scenes to portray certain emotive qualities? How can we make the intangible tangible? How can we use semiotics to convey key concepts within the narrative? Simply by altering the lighting and shutter speed, we could create these dreamy, airy spaces. Further experiments aim to play with different colours, setting, environments and spaces. What can we add or subtract from the scene to respond to the elements of:

Fragility

control, or lack of

vulnerability

excitement

relaxation

love

anger

restraint

breaking free from restraint

etc

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Further experimentation

Here we experimented with colour and narrative. The intent was to experiment with the relationship between projected colour and movement, and the ways in. which the two can combine to portray an idea.  After effects was used to create an animation showing expanding colour. Red is the dominant colour in this series of snapshots. In some angles, stills, the red expresses a comforting warmth to the scene. Whereas other stills project a sense of warning and danger. Again, here we can analyse how colour can be combined with other visual prompts in order to successfully illustrate the concepts and narratives we intend to portray. 

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Concept, Pattern and Colour

Through this experimentation we focused purely on semiotics, gesture and expression. Here we put ourselves at the centre of the experimentation. Wendy controlled projected images and soundtrack, while I responded to these through dance, movement, gesture and expression.  Theses video stills showcase the gestured response to the mood that was created in the environment. This experimentation will help us deconstruct semiotics in order to better understand the ways in which the audience will interpret our narrative. Things to consider:

Colour. As an example, blue can represent loneliness, depression, sadness. However it can also create a sense of freedom, positive open spaces, relaxation. How can we combine colour with other elements such as sound, pattern, environment and other visual gestures in order to fully envelop the intended narrative. 

Initially, our intention with this experiment was to be able to visualise our intended visual approach for our narrative and film. However it became much more than that. Elements of the experience put us in an empathetic perspective. How can we as females encompass masculinity through body without stereotyping? How can we as an outsider of the issue we are conveying, truly relate and visualise the ways in which a man is effected by such constructs? 

These are questions that became prevalent through our experimentation. We could visualise what we wanted to do in our minds, but as soon as the pressure was on to narrate that ourselves through our own bodies, it became very difficult to assume these roles. However as soon as the lights were off, the projection selected, and the soundtrack playing, it became much easier to do this. That comes back to an insight about inhibition that we had a few weeks ago while discussing this topic with another classmate. We were discussing the experience of dance therapy. As an onlooker, positioned as an outsider, the classes look strange, weird, uncanny. But if you were to put yourself in the room and join in, your perspective changes. You’re focusing on the immediate experience rather than watching other people doing it. This allows you to relax, because your amongst the crowd. You know you can blend in and let your inhibitions go. For some reason, watching a video of someone moving in dance therapy in a hall with the lights on and abstract music, looks strange. But when you change the environment and setting, take that same dancer and place them in a dark room with pretty lighting and “hip” music... It looks awesome.  So what can we take from this? How can we use these views to our advantage? And how can this benefit the way we tell our narrative? Do we aim to create discomfort, or do we aim to be relatable?

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Ideation and Experimentation

We started this experimentation session by playing around with Lumo. Here we documented movement through interaction with the interface. This informed our design thinking process by increasing awareness of space and movement. It also allowed us to experiment with design concepts we had previously discussed, in a rendered form. Almost acting as a prototype for potential ideas. 

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Narrativity; Understanding the representation of semiotics

Alternatively, Vilma Hänninen discusses the idea that narrative can be expressed through “inner”, “ told” and “lived” modes. The inner narrative responds to direct experiences. Where the individual interprets their past, present and future experiences through narrative form. Told narratives are validated and revised during the process of which the inner narrative is made external. “The lived narrative, again, refers to the real-life drama, which is shaped in the interplay between situational constraints and the inner narrative that guides one’s actions in changing life situations” (2004).

 As females studying the narrativity of masculine constructs, we ourselves assume the role as empathetics. By expressing narrative through learnt encounters rather than personal experiences, we can align elements of fiction with a “told narrative” approach.  This is not to disregard the effects of masculine constructs on feminine beings, but to acknowledge our perspective as narrators. Where the inner narrative can be seen to “function as an organiser of an individual’s own psychological processes”, Hanninen acknowledges that told narrative is often more focussed towards the ability to convey meaning within the audience (2004). Expression through told narrativity poses various intentions. Yet, the motive that resides most with our project is expressed through a more dialogical approach. With the desire to make an impression and alter perspective, we aim to partially design our narrative in relation to the observer's current understanding of social constructs. Supported by an understanding of semiotics, we can consider the audience's expectations and values using gestures they can understand (Hanninen, 2004). Furthermore, conversation between the narrator and the audience are embodied in the recipient’s internalisation of the narrative. However, Mikhail Bakhtin(1973) (as cited in Hanninen 2004) implies each of our words or told stories are also half our own. What’s more, there is an interweaving between narrative that is expressed dialogically and a narrative that is facilitated through personal perception.

In Eugene Gendlin’s (1962, p. 5) words: “Feeling without symbolisation is blind; symbolisation without feeling is empty”.

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Methodology: Choreographic Cartography

Methodology:

 Dance therapy - cognitive cartography could come into this possibly? Or lead into it.

 Movement can be referred to as a representation of subconscious thought and emotion expressed through the narrativity of gesture. These values are encompassed through dance or movement therapy techniques (DMT). Expressed as a medicine, movement allows the participant to express their emotions in a way that creates positive change by bringing awareness to one’s body. This awareness is known to improve a person’s cognitive, emotional, physical and social states (Baudino, 2016).

Dr. Peter Levine expresses that “many of our most important exchanges occur simply through the unspoken voice of our body’s expressions”. (2005). Body language is a crucial contributor to self expression, and even more so through the ways in which we receive social cues.

 By encompassing the core fundamentals of dance and movement therapy, we can create empathy by facilitating an apperceptive response to our narrative. Our design decisions are informed through DMT’s core values of self expression through narrativity of the body. During the experience encompassed through personal exploration, the participant is encouraged to fully immerse their mind body and soul into the present moment. Expressive through the concept of inner narrative, the participant transcends reality and morphs into the realm of performativity. Responding to a series of underlying movement prompts (flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness), the performer is free to move without the restrictions of choreography (Roths, 2017). This allows them to solely focus on their emotional responses to the experience.

   embrace the idea of personal narrativity and project that onto a critique of the social constructs of masculinity.

  “We can think movement before we move, and we also experience movement in our bodies as we watch” (Birringer, 2005… project muse magazine about stretch).

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Proposal development

Proposal

Introduce this section with design proposition

Aim and method... using narrative and empathic design methods we will…. etc

Potential design ideas… concept and description of design idea, consider where, who, what the audience needs, how it will be facilitated, concept, analysis and development, reflection.

By critiquing the destructive aspects of gender constructs we can use design to re-imagine our interactions and promote positive alternatives that facilitate connectedness.

 Social Dreaming

 Aim:

To create a sense of empathy by provoking a social critique on the pressures of gender roles and their ability to hinder self expression. In doing so we aim to intercept the behavioural patterns that conduct these social expectations.

 Potential design ideas:

We aim to create a performative narrative that reaches out to not only the desired audience, but family members of those who are affected. Through design centric narrative, we hope to express the subtle gestures that hint at the unspoken and intimate thoughts and feelings of young men suffering with depression. By analysing the effects of the restraints created my masculinity and the unrealistic pressures of male gender roles, we hope to create an empathetic response that will rest with our proposed audience.

 This project focusses on depression in men and the ways in which masculinity as a social construct that is embedded in the self value of men, prevents them from finding effective means to cope with or get through depression. By redefining the current definition of masculinity and facilitating a means of empathy through design-centric narrative, we aim to provide a sense of empowerment to men of all types

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Refining and editing the audience

Aspects to consider:

Awareness as entertainment - appealing to the audience

Targeting young dads potentially to break the cycle of learnt behaviour

Empathiser / empathee.

Embracing the digital world.

 As a little boy, imagine wrapping your arms around the legs of your dad, yearning for an inch of attentiveness. However,  in response to this gesture of adoration and endearment, you receive a gentle nudging. The longer you hold on, the more vicious this nudging becomes. One that plucks you from the cushioned reality of emotional expression and  positions you behind the glass walls of masculine rejection of the human, organic and “feminine” emotional gestures we all need and crave.  

 We are each influenced by the projections of gender constructs. These expectations are initiated at birth, but enforced through our social interactions. Our project is supported by the acknowledgement that behaviours are learnt. By targeting young fathers, we aim to break the behavioural patterns that foster a sense of inhibition, detachment and emotional disconnection. Through ethnographic studies, we can further apprehend the constraints on personal expression, and the restrictions that evoke these behavioural adjustments. By better understanding the ways in which we as a society respond to gender constructs, we can develop a new literature of performativity and embody a sense of empathy through our design response. By approaching our project as a means of awareness as entertainment, we hope to transform the perspective of not only young fathers as the empathee, but also those that subconsciously contribute to the limitations and expectations set on the masculine being. By responding to this issue through narrative, movement and film, we ourselves become empathisers, allowing us to respond in a way that is relatable to the empathee. When words fail, gesture and narrative prevails.

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Understanding Kinaesthetic empathy

The embodiment of experience through movement can be harnessed through the ideas of kinesthetic empathy. This describes the ability to “experience empathy merely by observing movements of another human being” (Reynolds & Reason, 2012). Furthermore, methods of self expression and how we process emotion can be uncovered through means of choreographic cartography. Through this process we can document the transition between the emotional and physical spaces we have occupied and the projection of future dreams (Natalia Duong, 2013). Duong expands on the beneficial attributes of kinesthetic empathy through mapping out significant landmarks of a choreographed journey through life (2013). A method of self expression then becomes a mechanism by which we can empathise with the mover or performer. The exercise is described as “A projection of future dreams as well as a document of where we’ve been”.

Our response and ideation

With kinaesthetic empathy in mind, we started to experiment with expression through emotional response to semiotics. To begin, we ourselves became the subject of expression, allowing us to place our own experiences at the centre of our investigations. Through choreography, we used various triggers such as word-play, soundscape and colour in order to navigate organic responses to environmental influences. We then took our documentation for further analysis. Without any other prompts, we filtered through the footage in order to decipher the movement and analyse the expressions of gesture. Here we intend to decipher the representation of gesture and interpret that way the audience responds to semiotic prompts. Are they interpreting the narrative of gesture the way we intended? How do we decipher these emotional responses?

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Mapping Masculinity

Mapping Masculinity:

Initially exploring the values behind dance therapy, our thought process stemmed from depression. We thought we could play with elements of dance therapy as a way to improve the mental health in men. However through research and brainstorming, we quickly became aware that the real issue here was masculinity. We came across this by brainstorming key elements that could be derived from the topic of depression in men. We then decided to explore masculinity as a social construct and the ways in which gender role effects performativity of self. The subtle subconscious notions that are expressed through gesture and what they might represent. A key concept that came from this process was the fact that men don’t want to talk about their problems. So how could we respond accordingly? As a result we decided it was then appropriate to respond in a gestural way that encompasses semiotics in order to create a thought provoking critique on masculinity through the narrative literature of movement.

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Masculinity. Filtered through concept of Hauora

To gain better understanding of the negative effects of masculinity, we can filter elements of this social construct through the concept of Hauora. According to the Ministry of Education, hauora is a “maori philosophy of health that is unique to New Zealand” (1999). By harnessing social, physical, emotional and spiritual elements, hauora can be used to analyse the ways in which gender constructs affect our well-being. Furthermore, this analysis enables us to review the interconnections between each of these dimensions in order to critique the ways in which masculinity suppresses a broader range of emotional states.

 Social - Taha Whanau:

Social expectations are enforced through masculine or feminine constructs from the moment gender is assigned. Through masculine socialisation, men can become “adept at erecting psychological defenses” against “feminine-defined cognitions and emotions” (Kilmartin 2005)

As we mature, this not only affects the ways in which we perform our identity in social spaces, but also informs our decision making in relationships we choose to seek and/or maintain. Social connections influence our personal interests, future plans, and the confidence, or lack of expressing oneself.

Social engagement is also reflective in the other three dimensions of hauora. With taha tinana, these social influences affect our embodiment and performativity of self.  Whereas spiritually, social pressures can strain religious or moral values. These relationships also affect our emotional responses whereby social pressures inflict personal critique which can result in self doubt and a development of insecurities and inhibition.

 Physical - Taha Tinana: The body as a visual artifact.

The body is a “visual artifact”. Phillip E. Wagner states “there are many things the body does - some physical, some social, some cultural, most observable” (2016). Gender roles enforce an awareness of self performativity. Society teaches us that a lady is to be fluid and graceful in her movement while men are encouraged to have a rigid, strong and large presence. Such ‘ideals’ are enforced through gender specific categorisations by which the man is to assume the role of provider, protector, leader and teacher. Pressures of masculinity are also encountered through a male’s ability to project physical ability through coordination, skill and strength. Men are also encouraged to finesse their bodies for “sexual conquest” (Wagner, 2016). Enforcing these expectations is detrimental to one's body identity and social security.   

Inability to conform to these expectations are expressed through taha hinengaro, whereby suppressed notions of inadequacy as a man become prevalent. Through taha whanau, insecurities are enveloped through a competitive nature in which one compares himself to masculine social influences. Alternatively, taha wairoa (spiritual), is challenged through the physical embodiment of sexual prowess that is implemented through social pressures.

 Mental / Emotional - Taha Hinengaro: “Be a man”

“Be a man”. Men are forced to suppress any modes of fragility and vulnerability from the moment they are old enough to understand visual or verbal forms of communication. It is expected that men remain strong in all areas, especially mentally. Any “feminine” emotions are converted into anger in order for the man to feel comfortable in any form of emotive expression. Alternative approaches frame therapeutic work as “ an expansion of positive masculine qualities rather than as a feminization process” (Kilmartin 2015). This approach encourages the idea that expressing emotions takes courage, requires independence, leadership, assertiveness, and the ability to face challenges. Which can all be referred to as masculine traits.

These restraints are developed socially through expectation on gender roles, and learnt behaviours. Physical aspects are influenced when emotions are externalised through frustration and resentment. Sometimes resulting in violent outbursts, or bodily enhancement in response to the pressures of social expectations. Spiritually, our mental and emotional drives our decision making process. When emotionally vulnerable, spiritual connections can either be impaired by poor judgement, or alternatively manifest a sense of strength and collectiveness.

 Spiritual - Taha Wairoa:

Ironically many religions are driven by masculine values. Where the god assumes the role as the perfect protector, provider and teacher, these expectations can also be projected onto the men of the church. Spirituality can embody moral, confidence and self expression. However, an element of shame can develop through the pressures of behavioural expectation ensued by the church environment. This can suppress personal expression by enhancing a sense of guilt which is socially implemented. Emotionally, this can evoke a sense of inwardness and insecurity. Which then contributed to the hindrance of performativity of self through taha tinana elements.

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creating our own narrative in the space. We used the studio to take images for our proposal to visualise a proposed approach for our narrative film. we expressed this through dance and movement and the way that the body was encouraged to move depending on light, colour and soundtrack.