Antidotes for Bruised Creatives started from the observation that creatives often ignore their mental and emotional wellbeing due to the unhealthy practices and nature of the job. Burnout (mental exhaustion) is a common consequence of the prolonging of this issue. Symptoms usually appear through extreme changes in emotional levels, which is displayed by the individual through different forms of expression. Yi Shan aims to explore subconscious ways of collecting the frequencies of the displays of expressions, translating them into visuals to help busy creatives with being more mindful of their emotional state.

What are some of the ways that you're trying to help these creatives?

So it started from studying the symptoms of burnout — there's stress and there's emotional exhaustion. Those are the two main points. I wanted to see if I could translate the symptoms into expressions. So my way of trying to measure the mindfulness for them is to see if I can collect the frequencies of whenever these expressions are shown, then it will show they might be quite burnt out.

I realised that I can deduce two quite simple expressions, which were complaining and sighing. So complaining can be translated into frustration, and sighing can be translated into hopelessness. Maybe if you sigh a lot when you're doing your work, then you're feeling quite hopeless. Your hopelessness levels are quite high.

Sounds very relatable. Moving on, what other ways are you helping these creatives with burnout? Because you mentioned that you've already identified these symptoms of burnout, and how you're translating that into an expression.

For everyone, it's different. Some people just need to go outside. For some others, they rather focus on their stuff first. I didn't really think much about how to heal burnout. My project isn't really about how to heal burnout but I do want to create a little mindfulness guide as well if I have extra time. But for now it's just my little prototypes that will help to measure the expressions.

Oh, how are you measuring these expressions?

I have two prototypes now. One is a thing that you can wear which will have a sound sensor. Whenever you sigh, then visuals will turn up. And the other one is a complaining thingy where you can interact with your stuffed toy. And then it will move a bit. And then the visuals will also show up here.

Wait, stuffed toy?

Yeah, whenever you interact with a sound sensor, then the software will move. But it has to be connected to the P5 sketch, then the visuals will also turn up. So my project is kind of a visual tracker. By measuring your interactions with the artefact, it helps you track what you’re feeling. It's trying to ingrain mindfulness practices into a creative lifestyle.