Following the nervousness journal, I thought a lot about what makes me and my friends around me, nervous. Our experience of the world is heavily dependent on the reality that we tell ourselves. I thought a lot about the five senses and how they are dependent on one another in order for us to have security and a holistic picture of the world.
Nervousness is an interesting feeling – something that is normally generated by the idea of something happening or not happening. An unpredictability of an event from happening can incite nervousness and I wanted to implement that feeling of not knowing into this project.
In this brainstorm, I thought about the things that make my friends nervous – general anxiety, unclear futures, etc. However, the interesting things that came up were trypophobia and playing games that have chance within them: the feeling of having their fingers chomped on by a plastic alligator or making the Jenga tower fall gives them a feeling of dread.
In conversation, I realized that a lot of nervousness is the loss of sight; this can range from not knowing what you’re touching, eating, or smelling. This was particularly insightful for me – what would it be like to strip away sight and having to touch something? The idea of touching something that you don’t know nor can’t see is really nerve-wracking.
I created a box that requires someone to insert their hand inside and touch the object that sits inside. The simple act of not knowing what’s inside incites nervousness and curiosity because of sight unseen.
Inside of the box is something that I’ve integrated with people’s fear of holes. I created this mold from dragon skin that is texturized and incites different feelings as you drag your hand across the object.
I was inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s art that is full of holes and phallic shapes. The organic nature of her installations usually tread on the edge of artistically beautiful or incredibly uncomfortable. I wanted to create an object that is reminiscent of both of those feelings when I consume her art and casted this half-sphere from dragon skin to get different textures when a user is interacting with this object.