My project is focused on exploring how a single emotion or experience can be framed and reframed.
The first half of the project is based on a particular question, “Can you tell me a funny story?” The explorations that followed focused on the answer to this question and the states that it took. The first state is the original telling visualized by still images, the second is memory or recollection visualized by the combination of images and text, and the final state is a retelling which is visualized by audio waveforms.
The core of all these visual artifacts was the idea of happiness. In order to extend this project into new formats and to broaden the number of people, it interacted with, the second section of the project is a series of interviews and experiments that, together with Part 1, build up The Archive of Happiness. The format of this archive will allow the viewer to both reflect on their answers to the questions and reflect on the happiness present in their own lives.
This project came out of eighteen months of lockdown. Its goal is to reconnect and create with people as a way of sharing small moments of happiness while also facilitating a human connection. The archive is an artifact that reflects this moment in time and our relationship to the concept of happiness.