WOW by Mariana Cheniaux

IVM - CHE17533750

The Purpose of Death

 II. What creates purpose in practice? 

Miscommunication between neurons, the synaptic messages not quite going through, cold sweat, hands slighting shaking, heavy arteries just trying to do their job and an intense migraine in the middle of the forehead. Google thought that you were dying but it was worse, it was another creative block. According to Wiki How, there are several recovery techniques indicated for those patients: a walk in a conceptual gallery down the road, a cult movie which you pretend that you are the only one who knows about it, many drugs... On this case, I just painted what I was seeing, a plant. My new sketchbook opened in my safe space (my bed) and I started sketching with a light colour pencil to unblocked my mind from this deadly disease. Suddenly, I had an epiphany, I was drawing a plant using a plant in a plant. Mind slightly blow.

This is the Meta effect.

GIF from Community (2009-2015 NBC) season 2 episode 5 (Messianic Myths and Ancient People)

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Here is some context: above, Meta comes from Metalanguage which is the language of the language, when your message is the same as the media. It is an inception of the most humankind, the artistic one.  This method is all over many different kinds of expression; you can see it on music, movies, poems and even paintings (like the one I’m doing now). There are many levels to the meta effect and the basic one is when it’s used as an easier and impressive end to make young adults that spend too much time trying to find a conceptual explanation to trendy culture as a flirt technique in semi-cool rooftop bars. Being using this method myself, I’ve been noticing and collecting meta media in this semester: the end of the OA (2016-2019 Netflix), being the first, the best that they could do to save this series was a last-minute meta-accident (spoiler alert after the spoiler). After seeing Holy Mountain (1973 Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico), you may think that this end is not that original, which is completely true. Many other shows used this method, like Community (2009-2015 NBC) with Abed knowing that he is in a sitcom and Adaptation where two Nicolas Cage are trying to do a script while suffering from the same illness as me (2002 Directed by Spike Jonze, USA). After all, the use of metalanguage is not that unique, but the effect can be.

Last Scene of Holy Mountain (1973 Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico) - another spoiler alert, after the spoiler.

​From this semester collection, the winner is Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (1999, Japan). The purpose of the meta in this book is another medicine for creative block and other syndromes. The main character, a writer whose life was only about her own writing, with no published books and a small collection of large clothes, seek advice to improve her narratives from the narrator, a school teacher named K who is madly in love with her. In one of their conversations, by a lake, she realises that there is something missing for her to become a novelist, after an awkward silence K does what any almost poetic man would do, a particularly long metaphor:

 ‘‘A long time ago In China there were cities with high walls around them, with huge magnificent gates. The gates weren’t just doors for letting people in or out, they had great significance. People believed the city’s soul resided in the gates (…) people would take carts out to the battlefields and gather the bleached bones that were buried there or lay scattered about. China’s a pretty ancient country – lots of old battlegrounds – so they never had to search far. At the entrance to the city, they’d construct a huge gate and seal the bones inside. They hoped that by commemorating the dead soldiers in this wat they would continue to guard their town. There’s more. When the gate was finished, they’d bring several dogs over to it, slit their throats and sprinkle their blood on the gate. Only by mixing fresh blood with the dried-out bones would the ancient souls of the dead magically revive. Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn’t make it a living, breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side.’’

While finishing my plant painting, this concept came to my mind, it was the cure. The sacrifices that I made to be able to recreate a plant after a dead plant. The plant died to become another plant, a different plant, a meta plant. The resurrection. The killing of yourself, your beliefs, your ideas in pro of new ones, not better but distinct ones. It is a necessary loss for you to be able to create more. Having just references, a background, are not enough, they are the structure but not secure enough. You need more, a purpose, a killing; it is the way for you to be connected with the world with the plant with the other plant, raw sap and incense. In the end, you left something behind, the creation stopped, an illness from all over the world spread, it reached you. Now you understand that, in this whole time, the sickness was part of the treatment. The isolation, the nothingness was essential for what will come after, the other plant, your own plant. You need death to be reborn. You need to give birth.
How many plants did I sacrifice to make this sketch?
​At least 3. 

Page from my sketchbook, mix media and a lot of dead plants (2020)

​Note: the author of this text doesn’t recommend killing dogs (or any other animals) to cure creative block. 

Bibliography
https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Over-Writer%27s-Block
Community (2009) NBC
Holy Mountain (1973) Directed by  Alejandro Jodorowsky. Mexico
The OA (2016) Netflix
Adaption (2003) Directed by Spike Jonze. USA
Murakami, H. (1999) Sputnik Sweetheart. Kodansh, Japan

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A More Sustainable Reality

III. ​Design for (being in) the Real World

​Our world suddenly changed forever, as we all did in this past year. The isolation and anxiety hit me as I stayed far away from home. The impact of a global pandemic stopped our lives and made us reflect on our surroundings. In a city like London, something unexpected happened, the air quality got better, I saw it with my own eyes the skies of this major metropole turning blue. The abandoned pub in front of my house got taken over by plants and baby foxes that I could see from my kitchen window. Even LCC had some reports of wildlife conquering the building. Having the first-hand contact with all these developments made me hopeful; There are still possibilities of making this world sustainable. Nature has proven itself a strong force if we let it grow and take it over. 

Nitrogen Dioxide level Graphic - Oxford Street (2019/2020)

​At the beginning of 2021, my illustration collective ‘'Brief Me'’ came across a new project in collaboration with The London Bridge Team: A business that improves the environment and quality of greenery in this area. The brief was quite open, help then to share a positive future for the climate situation but using our illustrations skills sustainably. As a group, we decided to celebrate the rewilding in Southwark, creating animal characters representing the biodiversity of the wildlife in London. The message was clear, but the LBT didn't want us to use any printing techniques or even using conventional illustrations as it could be seeing as prejudicial for the environment. If creating art was unsustainable in the traditional methods, we thought about going to another reality where our work wouldn't need paper and ink: Augment Reality (AR).
Using digital media instead was our solution to create an experience that would welcome the community back after the lockdown in a more inviting and greener way.  The idea was to create a series of animations and, with new graphic designers in our team, we were able to develop a prototype that will be launching in June 2021. With the possibility of AR in my hands, I started to wonder: what are the advantages and disadvantages of this new media compared to traditional art and design methods. 

AR prototype in Artivive with my illustrations

​Further on my research and my personal experience, AR proved to be an intriguing alternative worth trying. The fact that it is a digital-based media gives limitless artistic possibilities, encouraging young creatives minds to experiment with the boundaries of this new reality. Also, this means that you can work with your computer from home, using fewer disposable materials and no transport. With just a click, you could see more information with a better user experience than analogue tools. Like in our collective, sustainability could be a theme explored, giving it another layer of reality to the issue: The areas that it could cover are tons; for example, with packaging, AR could make it easier to recycle and alert consumers about the product, utilising fewer materials and having a more efficient visual communication. Augment reality also could help us imagine the future, plan it better and even showcase what could happen if we don't act against the climate emergency. 
​With this exciting technology, I started to imagine how it would be applied to my reality back home, in Brazil. And then, I realised some issues, accessibility being the major one. How AR, an expensive and complex media, could be implemented in such undeveloped and developing countries?  It is simply not a possibility now. In our current context, where health is the priority, extras become a privilege. There is an innovation gap in many parts of our society, especially financially. This crisis showed us the lack of infrastructure in the health care and education systems, how under digitalised they still are in some other countries. Having online classes and booking systems for medical appointments proved to be inaccessible to the favelas in Brazil, where 5G is a distant reality. Implementing AR in restaurants, airports and bars could segregate parts or a whole community. If that change happens in other sectors, like in our schools, if the online platform becomes standard even after Corona, that could create a more radical disparity between classes, limiting it to the wealthier that have better access to the internet.  There is also an age gap; the older generation has way more difficulties adapting to a new digital world. If modernising our hospitals and clinics means that; those who most need it could have struggled to understand the procedures and accessing them, how it could be considered a development?  
​When we think about a more improved life with technology, a contemporary and digital world that is in part already our reality, we need to think about who has access to these changes. These improvements are helping some people, making our lives easier but not for everyone. In this matter, AR could be even considered elitist. It is part of our responsibilities as innovative creators to think of our role and design; how can it be available for others that are not part of our bubbles.
I still need to find a way to make my animation and this project more democratic to the London audience. AR might be the best solution for The London Bridge Team but is not ideal yet. There is still a long way to make it work for the general public, even using Artivive, a free-for-all app. Not everyone has a smartphone or abilities to use this technology, limiting our viewers and taking our art out of the streets, putting it on screens.
And then comes my final question; Is it sustainable if not everyone has access to it?

​Bibliography
https://www.endsreport.com/article/1678367/london-lockdown-pollution-levels-rebounding-capital-covid-controls-eased
https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/future-london-can-t-look-away-air-pollution-problem-evening-standard-b931754.html
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/virtual-reality-augmented-reality-sustainable-development/
https://www.circularonline.co.uk/features/augmented-reality-is-it-the-future-of-recycling-behaviour-change/
https://filling-space.com/2019/10/03/how-will-virtual-and-augmented-reality-affect-sustainability/
 

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