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How My Pandemic Reflections Helped Push My Creative Boundaries

By Claire Wong

The pandemic has given us all an opportunity for something we have never had before — stillness. We suddenly have an endless amount of time to think, reflect, and imagine. In my studies at the University of Southern California, I have had the opportunity to study how technology and media arts intersect in our world today. I took this stillness of the pandemic to reflect on our technologically advancing society and imagine how it may shape the future structures of our world.

Living in a world of social media, everything about us is online — what we like, where we live, what we study, who we are related to. Social media sites can steal so much information off of our accounts and posts and interactions and this has become so normal. Personally, it is something I have accepted as a Gen-Zer growing up in an era of technology and social media. I surrendered to data mining because of my lack of control and my addiction to the platform. I am okay with information stealing on an online platform, but imagine a society where social media ruled the world. Facebook would now not just be able to access your data in an online space, but Facebook could now access your information in a physical sphere. The fear of data mining would be exponentially increased in our world. In thinking about that fear, how would society, people, react to that?

As a development group, my partners and I sat down together to imagine and develop a world where social media sat on the throne. We first came up with an object that would represent our world. What would symbolize fear and technology? Billboards? Shields? Glasses? Ultimately, we settled on a mask, not a N-95 mask, but a fully digital face covering that masked individuals’ faces. The mask would be created as a response of fear to data mining in a physical environment.

In a futuristic society, we imagine social media to have access to developed forms of artificial intelligence. Information is constantly being surveyed and stolen the second you leave the space of your home. The masks protect that. Masks create a culture where information, transparency, and questioning masks have become taboo. And with the masks of course, facial recognition and identification are taken away because of the covering and as a result, masks feature personality displays such as personality type, social ranking (numerical value determined by the government), and interests.

So the question posed with this new object was, “Are masks mandatory?” and that is how my development group split into our four micro-kingdoms or “states.”

The four micro-kingdoms are: Urban, Rural, The Hometowns, and The Grid. Each micro-kingdom had a different opinion on mask wearing depending on the culture.

Urban was career and technology driven. Populated by young and upper class citizens, the society was hyerpsurveilled. Masks were not mandatory but rather a cultural trend. Without a mask, you were categorized as “poorer” or looked down upon.

Rural was the counterculture, rebellious society. They believed in freedom of the face and that faces are essential to communication and connection. That being said, they did not wear masks and believe the masks equated superiority.

The Grid is the society of the displaced (e.g. immigrants and refugees). They live in a very industrial society because The Grid is the source of all electricity for the kingdom. Because the people of this society come from all over the kingdom, they have a split between ones who believe in masks as a way of survival/living and those who refuse to conform to the technological advancements.

The micro-kingdom I personally developed was The Hometowns. I chose this niche inspired by my upbringing in Orange County. Orange County is a conservative suburban driven by appearance, status, and family life. The Hometown encompasses these ideas in a technologically advanced society. They believe in masks, similar to Urban because a lot of the inhabitants move from Urban to The Hometowns. The masks are made of a porous plastic, a breathable, comfortable material. It appears soft to create the most welcoming, family-friendly appearance as possible. They are an adapted model of the original mask but contain the same displays as the original mask — social rating and personality type.

The masks, however, have evolved into a symbol of perfection. Because The Hometowns inhabitants value status and appearance so much, they glorify quantification and have embraced the mask as a personal identifier. The issue with using the mask as a way of identity is that the mask only presents your most polished selves, not your real selves. People fall in love with perfection and shame vulnerability.

That leads me to the development of my object: iJEWL.

iJEWL was developed because of The Hometowns value on appearance. I wanted to create an accessory that combined beauty with technology.

I was inspired by delicate jewelry, sharp and geometric shapes, and wearable technology. I then created iJEWL as a jewelry piece that would help individuals better their appearance. Appearance and beauty are subjective but I tried to create an object that objectified beauty.

iJEWL makes beauty objective by using science. iJEWL uses EEG and blood count to track stress and nutrition levels. It then compares them to “healthy” levels to conclude a result. iJEWL uses camera technology to analyze fashion. It scans the user to compare them to color and shape data to conclude a result. iJEWL takes these results and processes them as advice for the user.

Inspired by the use of projections in my recent personal work, I explored how projections are used in technology today. I came across the piece called iAT (Air Touch Technology) which is a technology that projects your screen in the air and allows you to interact with it in the air.

I imagine a future in where technology appears very seamless on the outside yet complex on this inside. We see this progress through our technology today though devices such as telephones and computers. With this imagination, I wanted to create a piece that was very minimalistic in design yet very transferrable in information. iJEWL would be a piece a jewelry but interactive through iAT. Scans, data, and beauty advice would all be protected from the piece into the air.

Never during a regular year would I have had the time and opportunity to explore such a different kind of design and in a way, world building was a therapeutic coping mechanism during this pandemic. My imagination in world building is only one way I have pushed my creativity during this sudden period of endless time. I also stepped back to more tradition ways of reflection and journaled.

During this pandemic, we have all been suddenly given the gift (or curse, depending how you look at it) of time. Life has never stood as still as it has in the last year. Personally, I have a lot of time to reflect and be overwhelmed in my thoughts. I process these internal emotions in the form of writing and drawing. I have recently loved thought tracking as a way of reflection because I am able to physical see and trace back my internal emotions. This is definitely a more tangible way in approaching overwhelming thoughts during this pandemic. I have discussed this stillness with others and they have processes it more spiritually. One of my development partners studies Buddhist practices and spoke on the beliefs of the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths is a teaching from Buddha on the causes for suffering. Especially in this time of isolation and frustration, these teachings are relatable to everyone during this time.

After some research, here is how I described the Four Noble Truths:

My development group felt inspired by these teachings and ways of grappling with the suffering of this time. This was the beginning of our game development.

We wanted to rely this belief and process in a way in which players could understand through an experience: a game!

Our initial game concept began as a walk-through game. The player would experience scenarios in each of the 4 “challenges” (as a representation of four phases of suffering) before they reached the end. The scenarios would be in the form of a narrative story or a game to create an interactive experience.

After discussion with media professors, this initial game concept was too vague. There was no motivation to continue forward and no reward or satisfaction that the player felt at the conclusion of the game.

We went back to the drawing board and started all over again. An idea that had stood out to everyone from the initial concept was the circle game. The circle game was an accuracy game in which player’s had to click at the exact moment the two moving circles perfectly overlapped.

We took this idea of circles and created an object: an orb. What if the character had orbs? What would the orbs do? What would they represent?

In thinking of the Four Truths, if materialism was a large cause of suffering, how could the orbs represent that?

Eventually, the orbs became a symbol of materialism that burdened our character. The orbs could physically weigh the character down and bring them closer to the Earth as a representation of materialism and suffering being an “Earthly” idea.

So that’s what we did! Our character would carry four orbs (hence the FOUR Noble Truths) and need to let go in order to be released from this burden. Our character was built now but we needed to create obstacles and an end game to motivate our character to let go of these orbs; We already had obstacles from our initial concept and could bring those mini games back into this new concept.

As the orbs pulled our character down, the goal/end game but be higher up. An existing game that came to mind that had an upward-moving flow was Chutes and Ladders.

Tools that allowed upward movement were ladders and jumping and flying — so that is what we incorporated into our game.

Our character must use these tools (ladders, jumping, and flying) to reach the top (end game goal). Returning back to our basis, the end point of the Four Noble Truths is enlightenment. Therefore, an image to represent enlightenment could be … the sun!

Our group slowly crafted these ideas together to create a spiritual experience game:

A cave was something our group thought could be a more mystical environment for our character to interact in and be an interpretation of the spiritual practice we were inspired by.

When developing this game with my group, my immediate thought to this upward momentum of the game was outer space and anti-gravity. In space, gravity is not existent and your body natural moves upward. I wanted to create an alternative aesethics to this game that embodied my initial idea of outer space. I have created visuals for a kid-friendly version to this game that could be used as a hypothetical adaptation to this original game.

While creative burnout was accelerated, it pushed me to explore new creative outlets that lead to my wellbeing as well as interests to pursue in my future career. Thanks to world building, I have a newfound inspiration and spark in my creative practice and a curiosity in themed entertainment.

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