Alone Together: Takeaways

In collaboration with Emily Zhao & Sue Roh

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Initial Plans

We were planning on sitting in isolation for eight hours with little to no structure to heighten the discomfort from isolation that we were collectively feeling. In order to make the experience more interactive, we were going to create a public URL that friends and strangers could visit to view a live stream of each of our rooms and send messages that we could view later.

Nick’s Feedback

  • Repetition or a series of rituals that give a structure to the time that otherwise can feel empty. 

  • How might you accentuate the sharing? Are there elements that can repeat across all three of your performances

  • What will be the exit of the performance?

    After reading Nick’s feedback, we realized the necessity of hammering out the goals of the experience. We agreed that we were trying to cope with loneliness rather than heighten its discomfort, which the current structure of the performance was likely not going to achieve.

Reframing experience for mindfulness and meditation

  • We decided that different mindful practices would help us attain peace with our loneliness. We did away with the live stream aspect of the performance, since we felt that it would insinuate surveillance, which would inevitably alter our behavior and detract from the goals we were trying to accomplish.

  • We moved away from the idea of trying to “prove something.” We ended up focusing more on acceptance of our current state.

Goals

  • Embracing loneliness rather than fearing it

  • Developing better methods of assuaging negative thought loops and detrimental behavioral patterns

  • Assessing our relationship with time and how we can better schedule it to allow for intentional mindfulness

  • To strip away technology and to take a break from external stresses

  • Loneliness itself is an uncomfortable feeling, but it really exacerbates depression and anxiety. The surest way to relieve anxiety and depression is to be mindful and present. We wanted not to make ourselves feel worse, but to actually find ways to better cope alone. 

Schedule & Techniques

We spoke with some of our peers about their mediation experiences and practices. Aidan told us about his retreat, recalling his 30-minute breathing, 30-minute walking meditation pattern. This inspired our more scheduled approach to the 4 hours. 

Together, drawing on our own personal experiences, we also included mantra, symbolic rituals, movement meditation, and self-love exercises

Allowance of 3 Bathroom Breaks
Sue: on the hour
Nicole: on the :15
Emily: on the :30

Mantra: I am more than enough. 

8:00 - 8:30 Settling in: With pen and paper, writing our intentions
8:30–9:00 Gratitude: People, opportunities, essentials, etc… 
9:00–9:30 Walking meditation
9:30–10:30 Object/theme: String
10:30–11:30 Mantra/writing or Bodywork : Massaging, body love
11:30 - 12:00 Breathing meditation
12:00 - 1:00 Debrief

Materials

  • Each room had the following:

    • GoPro to record a timelapse at 5 second intervals

    • Laptop with webcam to record full length video

    • Chair

    • Table

    • Blackout curtain for privacy

Documentation: Timelapse

Debrief: Final Thoughts and Reactions VS How We Thought We Would Feel 

  • We all agreed that the experience was much easier than we anticipated, demonstrating that our fear of loneliness is often worse than the experience of it. It was still difficult, but instead of feeling tortured, we were able to create a positive and peaceful experience. Afterwards, we were all in a state of calm. 

  • Our breakups prompted us to formulate this experience, but we only felt gratitude for the various people and things that existed in our lives.

Questions / Further Development

  • How would the experience be different if we were in relationships and not feeling lonely? 

  • What if this experience happened immediately after our breakups, without sufficient time to process our emotions?

  • Would it have been harder if it took place in the morning when we weren’t so exhausted? 

  • How would our behaviors have changed if we incorporated the audience in an interactive way? 

  • How different would it be if the room was soundproofed? (We observed voices of other students and the humming of the laptop fans)

  • Did the presence of a laptop/camera alter our behavior?

  • How would the experience change if we were not in a school setting?

Week 1: Ethics of Discomfort

Last year, I remember a friend of mine had told me to check out the new immersive VR experience by Alejandro González Iñárritu titled Carne y Arena, a simulation of what refugees experience at the US - Mexican border when being apprehended by border patrol. In retrospect, I feel embarrassed now that my initial thoughts were something along the lines of “Wow! He directed Birdman, it must be really good. Whoa, you put on a VR set and wear a backpack and are ushered into a room of sand. This is going to be an experience.” I admit to being at first curious about the production quality, the setup of the immersive experience, the VR technology that drives it, the cinematic visuals that accompany the narrative - before settling into the idea that I’d be entering someone else’s nightmare.

A past professor of mine started a discussion around the term “poverty porn” and how there are several VR experiences that give privileged audiences a momentary slice of another’s exploited living conditions. While it can be profoundly effective in changing people’s perspectives and disposition after, I feel that there should be mandatory action that directly helps the subject of the VR experience.

This also reminded me of the episode of Hidden Brain titled “You 2.0: The Empathy Gym” Here, Jamil Zaki speaks with host Shankar Vendatam:

"ZAKI: I think a lot of us have this experience when we see, for instance, a homeless individual on the sidewalk ahead of us. I've heard of people who cross the street to avoid that encounter maybe because they don't want to sort of see that person's suffering close up because it will make them feel sad or guilty or both.

VEDANTAM: There's some irony there, isn't there, which is that the person who is likely to actually be more empathic is also the person who's likely to cross the street because they recognize that the empathy that they have inside them is going to make them feel bad.”