A Journal of Insomnia Explored
Introduction
My Critique
Design
Closing Thoughts
Introduction
A Journal of Insomnia is an interactive art installation and online project produced by Guillaume Braun, Bruno Choinière, Thibaut Duverneix and Phillipe Lambert that takes a 21st century approach utilizing a webcam, keyboard, and a mouse to share experiences of insomniacs to an audience of curious spectators in order to convey and elicit feelings they otherwise might have never experienced.
What is insomnia?
How common is it?
What keeps people up at night?
These are just a few questions that A Journal of Insomnia aims to create a buzz of discourse around in terms of mental health awareness, particularly insomnia, within their local art installation’s communities as well as through their project’s online presence.
My Critique
The Concept
I enjoy the concept and approach to making art out of an extremely common and underrepresented mental health issue because it drives exposure to the topic as well as creates an outlet of expression and opportunity to empathize with people impacted by insomnia.
It is important for everyone to be educated on the sociopolitical and economic implications mental health issues like insomnia can contribute to in the grand scheme of things.
An art project like this definitely is a right step towards making progress in awareness for these topics by utilizing various forms of multimedia to create a more engaging educational experience for intended audiences.
Use of Multimedia
A Journal of Insomnia represents a good use of multimedia because it utilizes various mediums (Written, Photo, & Video to name a few) and allows anyone a creative outlet and platform to express what keeps them up at night.
The online experience of this archived project is about a 20-30 minute or so rhetorically immersive and informative English text that covers “Exploring Mental Health in the 21st Century” and it also includes an about section for context and extra information.
This project has an accompanying slideshow, two videos (One of behind the scenes and one of their trailer), and a Twitter page with various resources as well as their awards and festivals attended.
It is important to note that their Twitter page is entirely in French which limits the target audience on that platform. If a non-French speaking viewer really wanted, they could try utilizing online translation features to get some use out of the content shared on that platform or even use it as an opportunity to practice their French language skills.
Design
Overall, I think the projects general design looks aesthetically clean and pleasing to the viewer. However, I think part of the cover art for the project and the 2nd image of their four image slideshow and the lack of uniformity amongst the awards and festivals section are stylistically distracting.
The glitch art is an interesting choice and it matches the purpose behind the medium. The decision on which colored bricks are more saturated than others leads to distraction from the overall appreciation of the page’s design. The skin colored blocks seem to be chosen in a way that draws too much attention of the viewer’s eye rather than creatively composed in order to achieve the project’s aesthetics.
Incorporating a section to highlight the achievements and presence of their exploration of insomnia was a great addition to the credibility of their project. Unfortunately, the award logos and text are misaligned which makes the highlight of their art project’s merit look sloppy to the viewer.
Closing Thoughts
A Journal of Insomnia was a very clean and professionally presented art installation and online website. This eye-opening project visually and intellectually stimulated its audiences through a wide variety of multimedia usage and an aesthetically pleasing theme that aided the storytelling.
There are some minor design flaws, but the overall projects content is captivating enough to allow these issues to fly past unnoticed by any non-design savvy viewer.
I encourage anyone suffering from insomnia or curious about this subject of mental health to engage with this virtual projects content as there is definitely useful knowledge, interesting art, and experiences to see.
