Reflective writing : week 2 ( 20/2 - 24/2 )

Moving forward from last week, I finally completed the proposal feedback from the first group tutorial. The three questions from the group tutorial allowed me to see whether my project concept is too generic and how I should take the project forward. My project aim was slightly changed to the direction of expressing the multi-cultural aspect of myself. As mentioned in the proposal, I intended to do research on psychedelic visuals, music, and the homesick experience from books, studies, online articles, interviews, music playlists, documentary series, films, talk shows, etc. Despite the fact that I created a playlist for mainly Thai Psychedelic music, I want to explore other different types of Psychedelic music to balance the sounds. Jon’s Hopkins album ‘Music For Psychedelic Therapy’ is the most impactful music I’ve ever listened to since it has given me a self-realisation of things in life that I found similar to my old teacher Cameron’s LSD experience. I wrote down a reflection of my thoughts after listening to the album and I later realised that the act of expressing my thoughts will be a great reference for designing my interactive outcome in the next stages.

The principles of psychedelic music for therapy as well as Thai psychedelic music are some sort of liberation, healing and an outward looking spirituality; and this created a contrast with how my father was so attached to his sense of home and I was drawn to this juxtaposition, but I didn't know how to really explore this further. Reflecting on the Horror Show exhibition from the research week, I explored Britain’s cultural psyche through artworks and artifacts related to the spirituality of monsters, ghosts, and witches. Although the exhibition wasn’t relevant to my topics as I expected it’d be, I took some of the elements that I found interesting as a reference to possible techniques for producing an outcome.

I started this project with a very open topic and before I could decide I did lots of research which some or most didn’t relate to each other. However, this way of working has enabled me to see different aspects of each subject matter. My nature of being a critical thinker, I believe that any completely different topic can be linked together with enough knowledge and understanding.

My current plan for secondary research is experimental instant photography and manipulation of Polaroid, and the production of cassette tapes, referenced by a book and an exhibition I came across during the research week. Because songwriting has always been a main therapeutic outlet for my feelings, it could potentially be a part of the creative process. I continued to focus on the chosen topics in order to gain new knowledge as much as possible. I personally think that the more insights I have, the better idea development of the project will be.

Three questions:

1. Is my concept too generic or too broad looking from the perspective that psychedelic therapy can overcome homesickness?

- Despite the chosen topic being scoped, it is still broad due to the lack of specific detail of which treatment of psychedelic therapy will be utilised; based on research, there’s two treatments within psychedelic therapy.

2. Is it possible to include both Thai psychedelic music and psychedelic music for therapy altogether in this project?

- To answer the second question with a current direction, only one of them should be included and linked with the main theme. Moreover, Thai psychedelic music is not particularly included as a part of the therapy; therefore, taking into consideration when you incorporate Thai music into the project. How does this relate to Homesickness and Psychedelic therapy? What kind of direction are you going? What will be the new aim?

3. What should I do to keep the project forward?

- Keep researching for other related topics or subject matters in order to find new possibilities and direction. The aim might change after this stage yet in a more specific and clear way.

Navigating FMP

Confirm copying