Our anxiety monsters
Nicholas Bergquist · 2021
People all over the world are growing increasingly anxious and stressed. This work used creative distractions - art making to distract to create a method for a quick cultural probe to explore the issue of anxiety and stress throughout the world. This work is informed by: methods of relieving negative feelings (sadness and anger) using creative art making, and cultural probes. I researched methods people use to foster creativity and create cultural probes for design explorations. Using this information and research into prior design work, I created an online cultural probe web application that allows people to contribute their personal anxiety monsters and share them anonymously. The web application asks "What is Causing Your Anxiety?" and then gives the participant one minute to Draw It As A Monster before it is sent to a shared monster horde, or destroyed. During testing people focused on creation only when they were confronted with a strict time limit. Overall a specific prompt (a single unambiguous question) that requires the use of a skill based activity (such as drawing) with a strict time limit removes the fear of not being qualified to create using that method encouraging quick participation with the cultural probe. The monsters that were generated using this web application provide interesting insights into the fears and anxieties of people across the world and the growing singular culture that we are creating.--Author's abstract