Project Pitch
- Are you tired of people telling you that you can “cure” your depression by drinking enough green tea?
- Would you rather sort your currently open browser tabs by alphabet than download another “mood tracking” app (that feels like work)?
- Are you exhausted by mental health tech that is unrealistic and disconnected from your experiences?
- Are you someone who enjoys video games or making them?
Infomercial introduction aside: Hi, I’m Velvet Spors, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, based in the Mixed Reality Lab. For the last three years I’ve been researching, collecting and making sense of what self-care tech could be.
I think that people who make games, who push the boundaries of what interactive media can be, are the right folks for figuring out how technology for self-care could be done differently. After all, games connect us, make us cry or laugh (or both at the same time!). They also allow us an open, safe space to explore feelings and make sense of ourselves.
I am interested in creating a living, open-source community resource – documents, zines, memes, images, digital rituals, as long as we can upload it to a website, anything goes! – that other people can use as a starting point for designing and making self-care tech that is open-minded, genuine and maybe different in its approach. A resource that recognises that the playing field in our current society is not even for everybody and that people do not have to fit neatly into assigned boxes.
What would I have to do?
Take part in three 1h30 remote workshops (discuss, make, design, scribble) in November to December. Speculate, relate and dream about what self-care tech could be like. Receive £15 shopping voucher per call.