My projects are based on unaware choices that we make. I want to research why we make these choices. By translating it into the tangible objects, I make it understandable for people that normally stand on the sideline. And help them to eventually speak about the values of our thoughts. My designs make you think about your behaviour and sometimes even break with or reconsider the stigmas in our society.
How can boredom be integrated back into society in a positive way?
Boredom is something that has always been around. But it is now seen as a big pink elephant in the room. An elephant armed with a shield saying: The busy agenda. With my prior project A Brief Accessibility of Time (Tijdelijke toegankelijkheid van tijd) I had discovered that there was a negative view on boredom. I find this intriguing because boredom is very important.
My research question became How can boredom be integrated back into society in a positive way? We all have basic needs in life. And there is a new one called the internet. Humans and internet are so fused together that we can’t do without it. We can create almost everything with it but we are losing out of sight that it can also work against us.
I compare the internet to an out-of-body experience. Physically, you are present but mentally you are on another planet. You become more distant from yourself if you spend more time being bored on the internet than being bored in the real world. We are affected by the internet and compare ourselves to what we see on the screen.
This causes a bottleneck in our society and, as a result, the number of burn-outs and depressions is growing. I see lack of experiencing boredom in the right way as one of the reasons. We all crave for more time and more rest, but we remain too busy. I offer a solution - experiencing searching boredom, so you can return to basics. This form of boredom has the quality of self-reflection. That is why I offer Schijn Licht as the solution. The candle will let you experience the searching boredom in the right way.
