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Pain Diaries

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Writing Initiative #7

What have you learned about yourself doing this self-directed assignment?

What did you find to be the most difficult aspect of your chosen assignment? Creativity? Research? Connecting design to research? Craft? Organizational skills? Time management? Something else entirely?

What did you enjoy about this opportunity?

How would you rate your performance over the course of the semester?

Hindsight is 20/20. What would you do differently, now that you've had this opportunity to work this way?

1. Well first I learned a lot about how well and how poorly I can function on little to no sleep. That applies to this semester generally but a lot of my decisions near the end were fueled by the pressure to get it done. Aside from that I've learned to have a much more robust research practice and skills that I never realized I didn't have. I definitely undervalued and overlooked research in past projects which could not be further from what was required of me for this project. This project begins with research from the first minute and for my project I needed to do more research for each step. Learning various cancer related terminology and finding a lot of visual references was paramount in every project. Starting out the project with 2D I had to learn a lot about breast cancer, find the visual references of biomedical textbooks, and fruit illustrations. The most research I did was definitely at the start. Although I don't think I've mentioned it until now but in trying to figure out my project direction for 3D I scoured reddit for hours trying to find an answer to preserving mold. Then with Reflective I looked at a lot of medical documents and blogged the ones most useful. I did probably the least amount of research for 4D but I had the prior research to guide me in it. This is all to say I learned a lot about researching and curating a full robust research library in this assignment.

2. I think the obvious answer to this question is time as time was not my friend in a lot of this project, that and the biological requirement of sleep. Reflecting more deeply I definitely should have trusted myself more at times. Especially in the beginning I didn't want to address ideas for 3D because I had no idea and instead put all my brain power into the 2D. I remembered telling myself that because I can't come up with anything right now I should just not think about. Bad idea. I regret that. I also was doing myself a disservice because I had less time to complete the rest of the projects because of it. I think then I also felt more reluctance to research and I've honed that skill a lot this semester. I guess what I'm saying is that when I didn't have ideas I tried to ignore it for as long as possible because I didn't think I could come up with anything good. So, coming up with the ideas in a timely manner and believing that I could come up with them I'd say was the biggest struggle for this project.

3. At the start of the project I wasn't sure I would like any of the outcomes and I'm pleased to say that I am happy with the outcomes I made. I really enjoyed finding and applying meaning in this arcane way then exploring that in different dimensions. It definitely broke my brain at times but being at the end and feeling a bit detached from it now I'm quite pleased and impressed with myself. I'm happy I got to do a bit of 3D motion design again and motion design in general. I did quite a few motion design projects last semester and one other one this semester that wasn't my best work. I do like to do 3D motion design but I'm still a noob at it so I'm happy I got to do a little more learning and experimenting with it for this project.

4. I find this question a little confusing and I am against giving number ratings for myself. In terms of grades I don't think I'm a good arbiter of that but I thought I preformed pretty well if I do say so myself. I think in terms of being engaged I attended almost every class, and always came with new ideas and process to present. I will be fair and say that I did lag behind in getting file submissions in on the due date and it is important to be punctual with those. Overall, I'd say I was on task at all times and was able to get the project outcomes finished on time. I think my projects fit the complexity and scale that is expected at the third year level.

5. Definitely prepping and doing more research earlier. Like obviously everyone is going to say that because there's no way to anticipate how long every aspect is going to take. Aside from that a lot of time I couldn't work on my 3D because I ran out of beads. So if i could do it again I would've bought twice the amount of beads from the jump so I wouldn't have had to keep going back to the bead store. Panic the day its due because I ran out of beads and I have to go back again. I definitely would have researched a direction for each outcome from the beginning. I also should have been more on top of getting Cinema4D. It technically wasn't my fault and I couldn't do anything about it when the webstore was closed but I could have been checking back more regularly on their site for when it did go back online. I definitely would have started on my 4D sooner had I had the program sooner. I also would have thought the binding for my 2D out a bit more, maybe made a mockup before trying to do the final and realized I printed the vellum layer wrong. I can't say I would've changed any of my projects or tried to explore it differently I think in terms of that I'm really pleased and I represented the meaning of my word exactly how I wanted to.

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Final 3D Documentation (photographs are courtesy of Warrick)

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Filled in reflective documents

A few subtle hints are dropped that pertain to my assignment. Additional notes was a great place to put this. The doctor's name I had fun with being similar to Fauci but fructuation-esque. The last date of blood work was actually the last time I had it done. Tenderness is circled among the complaint and that adjective was one of the driving factors that made me choose breasts as a topic for this project.

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Final Presentation

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Crash out texts to my brother when I couldn't find my 2D before presenting

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Final 4D Outcome

If I wasn't short for time upon completing this I would have loved to add audio. Either some kind of foley sounds to go with the movements or didactic narration. Perhaps I could have done both. In any case I do think audio would have added another layer of interest and area to work with in this portion.

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Scrapped idea cont. Upon seeing this I decided it was time to throw in the towel and go to bed for approx. 2 hours. While dozing off I thought of the idea that I later presented in class.

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Process of my initial thoughts for my 4D. I initially wanted to continue with showing fruit rotting and in this case showing cancer cells multiplying. This was immediately scrapped once it was done.

Rough storyboard of the 4D. Cancer cells would populate the lobule network, populate the entire screen and swell to fill everything up. Everything disappearing in the swollen cells.

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Reflective/Writing initiative form

Part of the reflective piece will feature "Pain Diaries" to document my written writing initiatives. Pain diaries are included in some cancer toolkits as a method of tracking and helping those in ongoing treatment. This being a facetious way of putting in my written reflections while also fitting the brief I've set for myself.

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Medical documents for Reflective

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Photos of 3D in progress and playing around with arrangement for final presentation

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Assets made in Illustrator for Reflective documents

-Pink ribbon for breast cancer that also resembles an F for fructuation.

-Diagram of breasts to mark up

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Managing a cancer diagnosis and treatment is a lot of work and tracking. The American Cancer Society has this toolkit available for people to print out and put in a binder for their own tracking. Parts can be used as the files in my reflective piece

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