Research & Application
Research and application are about looking into ideas, artists, exhibitions and topics, then using what I learnt to help shape your own project. It shows how research influenced the choices I made and how my ideas developed into final outcomes. In this section, I explored different inspirations and used them to guide the direction, visuals, and meaning of my project.
Exhibition Visits & Research
A big part of my research came from visiting exhibitions throughout the year, which can be seen in my exhibition slides. Seeing work in person helped me think in a different way compared to only researching online. It made me notice how space, sound, scale, and movement can completely change how people experience something. Visiting immersive exhibitions especially made me think more about creating an experience rather than just a video, and how I could use space and performance to make the audience feel involved in the work. This influenced my idea of creating an immersive healing-style digital space alongside my experimental film.
One exhibition that stood out to me the most was the Mental Wellbeing exhibition in London. As I walked up the stairs, there were placards with raw and direct questions placed around the space. Seeing these repeated phrases felt uncomfortable but powerful, almost like the environment was speaking directly to you. This inspired me to think about using repetition, bold phrases, and direct wording in my own project to create that same feeling of being addressed. It also made me think about how text can become part of the space, rather than something that only appears on a screen.
I then applied this research into my practical work. I started using repeated comments, phrases, and on-screen text in my video to show pressure, overstimulation, and the emotional side of scrolling culture. It also helped shape my idea of showing expectation vs reality through visuals, layered text, and participant responses.
Another exhibition that really inspired me was Exploring Radical Honesty & Self Reflection at Moco Museum London. This visit made me think much more deeply about typography and how powerful words can be when placed within a physical space. The exhibition used simple but direct language that immediately captured attention and created an emotional response. Rather than needing complex visuals, the words themselves became the focus and carried the meaning of the piece.
Seeing this made me realise that text can be just as impactful as image or film when used in the right way. It encouraged me to think about how I could use scale, placement, and repetition to communicate emotion within my own project. For example, through vinyl lettering on walls, projected phrases across surfaces, or one large raw statement placed in a central space to make the message feel unavoidable and impossible to ignore.
The honesty of the wording also connected strongly to my project theme of expectation vs reality, self-image, and how people truly feel beneath curated online identities. It made me think about using text to expose hidden thoughts, pressures, insecurities, or internal contradictions in a bold and confrontational way.
This exhibition influenced my idea of “plastering the truth” through text, using simple but emotionally charged phrases to create discomfort, reflection, or recognition. It showed me that sometimes a few honest words can have more impact than an entire video, and that typography can become part of the experience itself rather than just something to read.
Early Research & Contextual Investigation
At the start of the year, my focus was investigating mental health content, healing spaces on social media, and the type of wellbeing material that appears online. I was interested in why this content attracts people, how it is presented, and whether it genuinely helps people or simply follows trends. After early tutorials, Mim and Hannah recommended that I research Foucault and the discourse of wellbeing, which helped me think more critically about ideas of power, control, and how wellness is marketed online.
This stage of research encouraged me to go further into books, academic texts, articles, documentaries, and trusted sources so I could build a stronger understanding of the topic. Looking at psychologists, theorists, TED talks on social media and mental health, reddit comments , healing articles and factual research helped me explore the relationship between social media and mental health, as well as how healing can sometimes lose meaning when turned into trends, aesthetics, or online performance.
My research then expanded into visual references, exhibitions, artists, films, and creative outcomes that connected to these themes. This helped me move from theory into practice, refine my ideas, and build a clearer final concept.
Key Research Influence: The Happiness Industry — William Davies
A large part of my concept was influenced by The Happiness Industry by William Davies, which was recommended to me by a friend while I was developing my early ideas. The book explores how happiness and wellbeing are often turned into products, expectations, and something people feel pressured to achieve, especially through social media and self-help culture.
I already knew I wanted to explore online healing culture and the pressure to feel better online, but this book helped give my ideas a clearer direction and a more critical perspective. It made me question whether happiness and wellness online are always genuine, or sometimes more performative.
These ideas connected strongly to my project and helped me develop research around authenticity, self-image, and the difference between real healing and curated online identity. I applied this into my practical work by exploring expectation vs reality through text, visuals, and participant responses, reflecting the pressure people can feel to appear happy, balanced, or healed online. This research became an important foundation for shaping both the concept and message of my final outcomes.
.
Key Research Influence: The Social Dilemma — Netflix Documentary
Another research influence for my project was watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix. The documentary looks at how social media platforms are designed to keep people using them for as long as possible through notifications, algorithms, personalised content, and endless scrolling. It also explores the effect this can have on mental health, self-esteem, addiction, anxiety, and the way people see themselves online. Hearing former employees from major tech companies speak about how these platforms are built made the documentary feel especially relevant and eye-opening.
Watching this made me think more deeply about the hidden side of social media and how easily people can become trapped in cycles of comparison, validation, and overstimulation. It connected strongly to the ideas I was already exploring around healing culture online, performative wellbeing, and the pressure to appear happy or constantly improving.
After watching it, I went on to research social media trends, hashtags, and the way healing or self-care content is often turned into aesthetics or viral trends. I also looked into what psychologists say about the emotional effects of social media, including comparison, dopamine reward cycles, anxiety, and unrealistic expectations. This helped me understand how online spaces can sometimes offer support, but can also create pressure and emotional harm at the same time.
I applied this research into my practical work by using repeated comments, likes, notifications, and layered text in my film to reflect digital pressure and overstimulation. It also helped shape my concept of expectation vs reality, showing the contrast between curated online identities and how people may actually feel in real life.
Public Reactions & Media Response: The Social Dilemma
After watching The Social Dilemma, I wanted to look deeper into how people responded to it, so I explored Reddit discussions and media articles, including a review from The Guardian. What stood out was the mix of reactions. Some people described it as eye-opening and a wake-up call, while others felt it was obvious or long overdue. This contrast interested me because it showed how normalised social media pressure has become. Looking through these responses helped me understand how differently people experience online platforms, from addiction and anxiety to awareness and behaviour change.
-
Public Reactions: Reddit Responses
29/01/2026 — Artist Recommendations & Expanding My Visual Research
After emailing Hannah for advice on visual artists connected to my project themes, she kindly sent me a list of practitioners to explore. I was really happy to receive these recommendations, as they gave me a strong starting point for developing my research further and helped me discover artists working with ideas around identity, performance, digital culture, and self-presentation online.
One artist that particularly stood out to me was Molly Soda. I was especially drawn to the realism and honesty shown in her YouTube videos and online work. Her content felt raw, personal, and reflective of real internet culture, which connected strongly to the themes I was exploring in my own project. Seeing this kind of authentic digital self-expression made me think more deeply about vulnerability, performance, and how people present themselves online.
This feedback encouraged me to continue researching more artists whose work explores mental health, social media, self-surveillance, and immersive experiences. It became an important turning point in helping me build stronger visual references and develop a clearer direction for my final concept.
Artist Research
I looked into a wide range of artists, which became a big part of both my interim report and the early development of my project. These slides show how my ideas changed over time and how different artists helped guide the direction of the work. Looking at a variety of practitioners gave me inspiration through themes such as social media pressure, mental health, self-surveillance, healing, and identity, while also helping me think about practical elements like immersive spaces, experimental film, sound, lighting, projection, and typography.
Their work helped me understand how I could express my concept visually and emotionally, not just through written research. Exploring different styles also made me think more about audience experience and how I wanted people to feel when interacting with the final outcome.
Key Visual Influence: Doug Wheeler
Doug Wheeler became one of my main visual inspirations when thinking about the final environment of my project. I was really drawn to the way he uses light, scale, and empty space to completely change how a room feels emotionally. His installations feel calm, immersive, and almost unreal, which connected strongly to my idea of creating a digital healing-style space.
This research progressed me into exploring 3D spatial ideas within my own project, thinking more carefully about how the audience would move through and experience the space. It also led me to experiment with spotlighting and controlled lighting to create mood, focus attention, and divide the installation into different emotional zones. As I am working with a lower budget, his work also helped me think realistically about how I could still create atmosphere through simple methods, such as using light to frame a screen or using a projector to transform the space. His work showed me that strong impact does not always need expensive materials, but can come through lighting, scale, and placement.
Key Visual Influence: Pipilotti Rist
Pipilotti Rist became an important influence when my project started moving more towards video and moving image. I was inspired by her use of projection, colour, layered visuals, and immersive spaces that make film feel like an experience instead of something only watched on a screen. Her work showed me how moving image can create emotion, atmosphere, and presence within a space.
This research made me think about creating an immersive video that reflects the feeling of scrolling through social media, where visuals, sound, and information constantly surround the viewer. It pushed me to think about layering text, fast imagery, projection, and sensory elements to recreate digital overstimulation in a visually engaging way. The hanging lights in her installations also made me think about hanging phone shapes connected to light, using cut-out iPhone cardboard forms suspended in the space to show the journey of scrolling through different emotional zones in an immersive way.
Typography Tutorials, Research & Visual Development
These slides show the development of my typography ideas throughout the project. I started to realise that phrases, captions, and short statements were a huge part of my topic, especially within healing content and social media culture. A lot of online wellbeing advice is reduced into quick quotes, aesthetic captions, and unrealistic instructions, which made me think about how healing is often sold like a product rather than understood as a real process. This led me to the idea of creating " beneath" filled with phrases and instructions in the letters style concept, using text to show pressure, false promises, and the way social media oversimplifies personal growth.
At the start, typography was not something I felt confident in, so I spent a lot of time researching artists, layouts, fonts, and styles while teaching myself new skills in Adobe Illustrator. and Indesign .This research helped me understand how text alone can create emotion, tension, and meaning. It also pushed me to think about how I could apply typography within the space itself, using vinyl lettering, framed phrases, projected captions, hanging text, and small visual prompts placed around the room. Instead of text only appearing on a screen, I began thinking about how words could physically surround the audience and become part of the immersive experience.
Key Typography Influence: David Carson
David Carson became a key influence in my typography research because of how chaotic, layered, and expressive his work feels. His designs do not look clean or perfect, which made me think about the difference between polished wellness content online and the messy reality of how people actually feel. I was especially inspired by the bottle designs covered in words and phrases. It made me think about how influencers often sell self-help books, routines, and products telling people what to do, how to heal, and how to become better.
This pushed me towards applying typography in a more critical way within my own project. I started thinking about creating healing-style products covered in words, advice, and pressure phrases, using one large main word with lots of smaller text around it, similar to Carson’s style. For example, using words like HEALING, RESET, FIX YOURSELF or START AGAIN surrounded by smaller phrases and commands in the letters. This helped me explore how typography could show healing being sold as a product rather than a real personal process.
Typography Research: Bold Black & White Text as Visual Impact
As I carried on researching typography, I began moving more towards bold black and white sans-serif poster typography, inspired by the references I collected. I was especially drawn to the use of oversized Helvetica / Swiss Style layouts, condensed bold lettering, warped text, repeated words, and typography shaped into objects or figures. Although colour can be powerful, I felt black and white connected more to social media captions, quotes, comments, and advice posts where the words are the main focus. It also felt more honest, blunt, and direct.
This research made me think about using one massive word such as HEALING, RESET, PRESSURE, SCROLL, FIXED or ENOUGH across walls across a wall . The scale makes the message feel impossible to ignore, similar to how online advice is constantly pushed at people.
Experimental Film Influence: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Everything Everywhere All At Once became an important visual influence for my project, especially the fast montage sequences and layered editing style. The film moves through different realities, emotions, and identities at high speed, creating a chaotic but immersive experience. Watching the montage clip made me think about how overwhelming modern life and social media can feel, with too much information happening at once.
It also made me think more personally about using myself within the video to show the reality behind online identity. The idea of split screens and multiple versions of myself came from this, reflecting how people can present different sides of themselves online while feeling something completely different in real life. I was especially inspired by the medium shots and realistic moments in the film, which made everything feel more personal and relatable.
The music also enhanced the visuals strongly, which influenced me to experiment with TikTok-style audios and sound in my own drafts. It helped push my editing further and made me think more carefully about how to cut scenes around my script, using sound, pace, and transitions to build emotion and keep the video engaging. Overall, this research pushed me to create something immersive video, reflecting on digital overstimulation and real emotion.
Self Experiments: Raw Notes & Personal Journal
As part of my methodology, I carried out a series of self-experiments testing viral healing and wellness trends found on social media once a week . I recorded my responses in a physical notebook, using the same book throughout to keep everything in one place and make the process feel more personal and honest. This helped me stay connected to the experience and avoid it feeling too structured or performative, which reflects the issue I was investigating within online healing culture. With some of the experiments I did with no note taking, wanted to really understand how I feel.
Alongside this, I developed Excel spreadsheets (Part 1 and Part 2) to organise each experiment, track where I found the trend, and compare how I felt before and after. Using both the notebook and spreadsheets allowed me to combine raw, immediate reactions with more structured analysis.
Through this process, I began to notice how often people search for quick fixes and instant answers online, even though real healing is more complex and personal. Many trends offered short-term comfort but didn’t create lasting change. This became a key part of my research and directly influenced how I approached my final outcome, focusing on the gap between what is shown online and what is actually experienced.
Tracking Results: Excel Sheets
As part of my research and application, I organised my self-experiment results into Excel sheets using an auto-ethnographic approach. This allowed me to clearly track each trend, where I found it, what it claimed to do, and how I actually felt before and after trying it. Structuring my findings in this way helped me apply my research more effectively, as I could compare results, identify patterns, and reflect on the gap between online promises and real experiences. This process made my investigation more structured and directly informed the development of my final outcome.
Part 1: October – January
Initial testing of viral healing trends, focusing on first reactions and short-term effects.
Part 2: January – April
Continued experimentation with deeper reflection, allowing me to compare patterns and long-term responses.
Ethical Considerations & Participant Involvement
After my ethical consent was approved, I was able to properly involve participants in my project. I created and shared consent forms so everyone clearly understood that there answers will be taken in consideration .To gather responses, I sent out a Microsoft form, which helped me collect honest opinions and experiences linked to my theme.
The results were really useful for my development. A number of people said they had seen similar “healing” phrases and content on their own algorithms, which supported my idea that this messaging is widely repeated online. I also chose to reach out to close friends, as I wanted more genuine and honest answers rather than surface-level responses. I initially contacted them through WhatsApp, then followed this up by collecting their emails and sending a formal consent form along with questions for them to answer.
This process helped me gather more personal and reliable insights, which strengthened my project and made the outcomes feel more authentic and grounded in real experiences.
Partipant insights
From the responses I gathered, it became clear how common this type of content is in everyday social media use. This helped support my idea that these phrases and messages are constantly repeated online. It also made me realise that my project connects to a wider shared experience, not just my own perspective.
The participant responses helped shape my research further and gave me more confidence in using repetition within my typography and visuals, reflecting how often these messages repeatedly appear online. By bringing this into my work, I wanted to question whether the meaning behind “healing” has started to lose depth through overuse on social media
Key Insight: Technology & Meaning
I read Alone Together by Sherry Turkle to better understand how technology affects the way we live and connect with each other. In the book, Turkle explains that even though we are always connected through our phones and social media, these interactions can often feel less real. She talks about how people choose quick messages, likes, and posts instead of deeper conversations, because it feels easier and more controlled.
She also explains how we edit ourselves online, showing only certain parts of who we are, which can make communication feel less honest. Another idea she explores is how constant connection can actually lead to feeling overwhelmed or even lonely, because we are always “on” but not always truly connecting. This idea of being “alone together” really stood out to me.
This linked closely to what I was already exploring in my project. The “healing” phrases I’ve been researching exist in this same space they seem supportive, but because they are repeated so often and shared so widely, they can start to lose their meaning and feel less personal.
Because of this, I applied these ideas into my work by using repetition and layering in my typography to reflect that constant flow of content. It also connects to my concept of " "Beneath the Scroll", showing how deeper meaning can get lost underneath everything we see online.