Visual StudiesHuman Motion and the Expression of Anxiety through Animation
Anxiety is an emotion that signifies an unpleasant and vague sense of apprehension. While the sense of fear and anxiety is typically useful for survival, many people feel plagued by restlessness, racing thoughts, inability to concentrate, and other physiological symptoms. When it gets to be too much, how can one manage high levels of anxiety? In art, people have expressed anxiety in many forms. Some artists cope with the art they create, while others attempt to imbue their pieces with anxiety. This paper explores the expression of anxiety through movement and specifically in the animated form. Researchers have found that very minimal informational cues are necessary to allow one to read the emotional state of a human subject. People are able to identify personalities based off the way someone moves, even when the marker of the movement is solely points of light. Our innate ability to sympathize and to perceive personality and emotional state from body movement can provide an opportunity for creative more emotive and therapeutic art.
Untitled
2+ Video Monitors
This multi-channel video installation meditates on the moments which have given me anxiety and fear in the past year. I cut down body movement to its barest form: dots. These videos feature interminable loops of expressive motion extracted from the context in which they occurred. Reference videos found from the internet.