Prototypes & Problems
THESIS POST XI
I have experienced people trying to diagnose themselves with ADHD since I’ve started pursuing this as my thesis. As I was telling someone how isolated and exhausted I felt since trying to make my thesis about, I mentioned that the diagnostic criteria for ADHD are strict and you need to have many symptoms throughout your life to meet that criteria, they started googling the symptoms to try to see if they have it too, and then started going to people and telling them they had ADHD later that day. The hard part for me, and what I’m only just realizing is that I went through a lot of trauma to get to where I am now. Trauma that I had totally suppressed until now.
People at ITP see me now, as someone who has achieved a level of success it was unclear for years if I would. The things that are hard for me because of how my brain works could have stolen success from me, but I managed to pull through in a system not designed for me. That work is not visible. It’s easier for someone who hasn’t struggled to this extent since birth to say “oh yeah, I have trouble focusing too, I probably have ADHD too.” But for me, who has struggled to an extent that I completely suppressed and detached myself from, I could not admit to anyone that there was something wrong with me. Because of what I had to live through to reach the level of success I have. The shame, and judgement, the systematic oppression of my public school system. It wasn’t so easy for me to say “I have ADHD” to anyone, as it was for someone who’d just googled the symptoms this morning, because they don’t have the lifetime of shame and judgement that comes with it.
When I was in fourth grade I did my homework every single night, but somehow between my mom putting it carefully into my backpack and the teacher coming around to collect it, my homework was gone. Every day. In fifth grade, the homework sheets that were given at the end of the day never made it home, or I did the wrong one, or it took me an hour to when it was supposed to take ten minutes. To teach us to plan ahead, we weren’t allowed to go back to our lockers after class started. Seeing me now, you wouldn’t recognize me as the 11 year old pretending to use the bathroom in the middle of class, but going to my locker, shoving the binder I forgot under my shirt and trying to sneak it back into the classroom, and getting in trouble when the teacher obviously saw the outline of my giant green binder under my shirt.
You wouldn’t recognize me as the girl who struggled on every assignment and test in 6th grade, only to have my teacher accuse me of cheating when I got a 98% on a test because I had spent the entire week studying, because she didn’t believe I was smart enough to get an A. I was put at a table alone in the back of the classroom when everyone else sat in groups of four because the teacher said I was disruptive. Even after I told the teacher I wanted to sit in the front because it was the only way I could pay attention. Would you have guessed that my 9th grade math teacher would call me a “slow processor” and when I solved a complex math puzzle that even the students who were “good at math” couldn’t solve she said it was just a fluke.
The messy aesthetic isn’t the extent of my symptoms, by any means. In fact, it’s one of the 12 criteria I had to meet to be diagnosed with ADHD combined type. It might be misunderstood that messy room = ADHD. Somehow I need to add some content that doesn’t confuse people who might be quick to self diagnose, without also alienating people who actually slipped through the cracks and could be formally diagnosed.
This week I made a prototype for the last of my series of self portrait. This one is about how my mind manifests in the space around me, specifically in regards to executive function disorder and ADHD.
I recieved the following feedback from Gabe:
Zoe, I thought your video sculpture midterm was really moving and intricate. I love the tiny room and of course your highly graphic style. I think the next thing for you to tackle is interactivity and scale to be totally honest. If you can bring some interactivity to these incredible drawings I think you’ll have something that nobody else has really done well. I love their personal yet relatable nature and if you had more time I could even see you creating a full on arcade cabinet with a series of games about life that weren’t necessarily goal oriented. So even though your project is about being a little scattered it’s time to focus! You’ve got a great style and some great thoughts and emotions to work with, so now let’s see how you bring them to life for your final set of projects. Check out Suzan Pitt’s work if you haven’t already https://www.suzanpitt.com/
Both Gabe (and my mom) think it should be larger, and I think they are right. It’s harder for me to wrap my head around something larger and I worry about how I would acquire a space that would work for what I’m doing in the time I have left.