portfolio: 2008

soojung’s thesis: theme on "privacy”

i want to explore different meanings and aspects of "privacy" in an individual's life in three different context
: physical, psychological, fantasy/dream.
i'm going to do an installation for each and then a graphic representation that follows the concept of each installation. (ex.infographic, poster, cards etc..)

Section 1. ["privacy" in PHYSICAL context]
"privacy: The quality or condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others."

project 1) mark “points of privacy” in public :
a cite specific installation at a certain part of the city
(ex.from union square to madison square park)

-first I will make observations along streets in the city, at a certain place over certain period of time (maybe 2hrs each day-morning/daytime/evening- for a week). and I will note places that people frequently use for a various purposes (meeting points, waiting points, standing points, observation points…).
and then i will mark these points (maybe using colored dots or icons) to visualize different location and associated behavior- to have a look at a storefront/building, to make a phonecall, to wait for the next bus, sitting on a bench to read, or meet people. what i'm trying to do is to mark spaces that are used in private context in a public setting.
since we're constantly surrounded by the crowds therefore not literally "secluded" from the presence of others, we’re always doing something on our own that others may or may not notice, that are separate from other's activity. In other words, we share the common space as a whole yet isolated as an individual.
therefore at the moment of certain space is occupied by a person for a specific private purposes (which will be marked by the dots or icons), the meaning of the space is changed - the instant in which the relationship between the person and its surrounding/other people re-forms and thus recompose the meaning of the physical space.

project 2)create a graphic analysis of the installation: maybe an infographic in form of a map, connecting all the “private points” that are marked to see if there’s any type of pattern, significance to the different points-sorted by their function&time&location etc..

Section 2. ["privacy" in PSYCHOLOGICAL context]
"privacy: the state of being concealed; secrecy"

a) how do we decide what to reveal(expose& to present ourselves) or hide(keep in secret) to others?

b) how we intake different ideas from others according to private/individual interpretation.
- as philosopher David Hume suggests in "an enquiry concerning human understanding", origin of ideas/knowledge solely emerge from private 'custom or habit' and the principle of past experiences, which are often concealed to others.

-I don’t have the specific project ideas yet, but with these in mind, I’m going to come up with something… we can discuss together..

Section 3. ["privacy" in FANTASY/DREAM context)
"privacy: the state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion"

-dream experience is one area where we're given a complete freedom to imagine, act, and live in it, with almost no outside limitation or influences(such as real sense of time and logic and external stimulus)*, therefore it contains and conveys the innermost privacy of an individual.

* external stimulus blocked: the input to and output from the portions of the brain that process external stimulus are blocked in the dream state. Therefore, external stimulus will not find its way into our dreams unless it is fairly strong, with stimulus of a tactile nature having the most effect. since the sensory cortexes are blocked, little to no external sensory information is stimulating the dream. External stimuli is usually ignored or rarely incorporated into the dream, dreams therefore originate entirely from within. a psychologist David Foulkes argues that dreams are little more than waking consciousness stripped of most sensory input and freed from the obligation of making coherent connections to the external world.

*time and logic doesn't apply- The Posterior Cingulate Gyrus(part of the limbic system in brain, which is involved with emotion formation and processing, learning, and memory) is inactive, thus episodic and working memory is inhibited, resulting in a dream story that does not follow a strict time sequence. also,even though we may be conscious in our dreams, the normal experience of waking consciousness eludes us because much of our brain responsible for rational reasoning is off-line.

project 1) construct a private experience of dream: create a "dream space"

The typical dream appears to focus on concerns about self in relation to others (persons, also can be objects, environment).
a psychiatrist John Ratey states that the function of the Limbic System which is activated when dreaming is important to our "social brain", who we see ourselves to be in relationship to others and life's overall picture. these active centers are involved in anomaly and error detection, which map the external experience against an internal model of reality and the social self. The Right Inferior Parietal Cortex which plays a key role in the spatial construction of dream imagery in a "dream space," is also involved in our visual image of self and the space around us in relationship ourselves.

-for this project, I’m going to create a “dream space” installation based on an individual’s actual private dream experience. I will get someone to help(my sister or roommate) to recall her dreams and then I will make a dream report for several nights..
(Studies show that a human normally goes through 6 sleep cycles in which we dream, but we usually don’t remember any. But if I study the sleep cycle* closely and experiment to wake up the person at the right moment, I could probably get her to recall dream imagery more effectively and vividly.. please see the chart below*)

* The horizontal scale is sleep time in hours, and the vertical the stages of sleep. In simple terms, it shows that we cycle between deep NREM(non-Rapid-Eye-Movement) sleep and shallow dreaming REM (Rapid-Eye-Movement) sleep multiple times per evening. Figure 1 illustrates a night of sleep. Dream sleep or REM sleep is also known as D (for desynchronized or dreaming), stage 1 sleep, or “slow wave” sleep. Non-REM or NREM sleep is also known as S sleep (for synchronized sleep) or stage 4 sleep. Often at sleep onset we awake with a jerk, sometimes recalling some dream-like images. This is known as a period of hypnogogic sleep, or light sleep where we have entered REM sleep and re-awakened. Normally at sleep onset there is a rapid movement from stage 1 sleep to stage 4, i.e., we go right into the deep NREM sleep. Pulse, respiration rate and blood pressure are lowered and no eye, facial or body movements are noted. The brain waves are more regular and lower frequency (1 to 4 cycles per second). Muscles relax, although whole body jerks may be observed. In this deep sleep stage it becomes more difficult to arouse the person. If awakened, dream reports, if any, tend to be more thought-like and devoid of imagery.
About 90 minutes later, the sleeper will begin REM sleep and vivid dreaming. As we continue through the night, we enter deep S sleep less often, and after about 6 hours remain between stages 1 and 2. The REM sleep stage is characterized by: eye movement, small movement in the muscles of the face, faster and more irregular pulse and respiration, and higher blood pressure. It is easier to arouse someone from this stage. When aroused, dream reports are very much likely to be full of vivid imagery and content, more so at the end of the sleep period than at the beginning.

project 2) dream communications–an internal private “Language”?
: interpret the "dream language"

There has been some controversy among researchers over whether the dream itself actually contains anything of meaning for the dreamer. If we consider the dream in light of how it is typically used in therapy or self-help, however, meaningful experiences can indeed be attributed to dreams. Whether the “meaning” actually comes from within the dream, or how we work with the dream narrative, emotions and personal associations, a constructive “language” seems to emerge from the telling of the dream (dream narrative).
even though the logical "filters" are not applied, meaningful processing may still be taking place within the dreaming brain. Perhaps we perceive all of the bizarre combinations of events and images as normal in a dream, because the active brain centers are sharing and interpreting information in their own normal healthy fashion, their own internal "processing language". therefore dream thought/event is not totally irrational- the brain activity for dreaming contains enough cognitive processing areas, such as the medial frontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, to produce coherent dramatizations that often portray the dreamer's conceptions, concerns, secrets in waking life.

a) Language of Association
what we see as the dream are the active “consciousness” centers of our brain, responding to and interpreting processing taking place at the deeper levels. while we dream, the forebrain responds to projections from the midbrain by surfacing associations (in the form of dream imagery and actions) regardless of how loose those associations might be. therefore the resulting dream is not seen as a linear storyline of rationally defined images and experiences, but rather as a “holistic sequencing” of visual associations resulting from the projections of material being processed at a deeper level.
Carl Jung indicated that the various elements in a dream are “symbols’ that represent a complex combination of emotions, precepts, and thoughts. A dream representation can therefore be considered a “language” of sorts, if we consider that the dream images are “symbolic” of internal associations, derived from a meaningful processing of information, and that these dream “symbols” are combined in meaningful patterns and relationships. These meaningful combinations of dream “symbols” might be considered a language just as individual letters (symbols) and words are combined to form meaningful sentences in our spoken and written language.

b) Language of Context
dreams are processed in a part of the brain that talks in a non-verbal language, one that deals with relationship, properties and pattern. The right hemisphere tends to identify an object by its relational and emotional context and the left hemisphere by its title or name.
A test was done where a person's left visual field (connected to the right hemisphere) was blocked so that only his left hemisphere could see. He was shown a fork, which he correctly identified as “a fork.” Then the right visual field (connected to the left hemisphere) was blocked so that only the right hemisphere could see. He could no longer identify the object as a fork, but rather called it “something I eat with.” The right brain could not title the object; it could only identify its context or function.
Knowing that the right brain identifies an object by function or purpose, or its contextual role, is an important key to understanding the language of dream imagery. In order to identify a dream image (a largely right brain creation), we simply reverse the process. Ask the dreamer to describe the “function” or “purpose” of a dream image, and we will learn a little bit about what it represents to them on a personal level.

- for this project, maybe i can use the "dream space" installation created from project 1 and translate this specific dream imagery into a graphic interpretation of symbols& functions that can communicate as a “language” that reads.
i'm not trying to approach this in a clinical/professional terms as to what each things really mean (no one knows it for sure anyway except the deep inner self of the dreamer), but just to graphically represent the dream imagery as internal language of oneself based on the visual elements and privately associated /contextualized meanings of them.

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these are my initial thoughts, but i think it has potentials to develop into one big organized thesis with three sections.
i will keep researching, and get started on the first project as well..
any feedback/suggestions/more project ideas will be appreciated.

i will also look in to the newspaper articles this week to see if i can find something useful for my topic.

thanks,