Author: atrick

Symposium

Trust Me I’m Lying

Script:

Show of hands, Who here has heard of choice overwhelm?

Ya? A can any of you give me some examples of where thats most common for you? 

Yes especially in this day and age you find this everywhere grocery stores, streaming services, online shopping, dinning places, even picking a career, dating apps, social interactions. Everywhere. 

Now the study that popularize the term “choice overwhelm” was  by Iyengar and Lepper in 2000.

In their iconic study, people presented with 24 types of jam were significantly less likely to choose one than those presented with only 6. 

This may even lead to what is now commonly known as decision paralysis, decreased satisfaction in the decisions that you do make, fomo for the decisions that could have been made, regret. 

And as they often do, the ultra wealthy have made an attempt to remove this kind of waisted time from their lives; starting what has been deemed the “blank box” phenomena. 

Between 2021 and 2025, an trend has emerged among luxury homeowners: they have begun dedicating one room in their house to remain completely empty.

Not for design.

Not for storage.

But to combat decision fatigue.

This study about the jam is repeatedly cited as one of the main catalysts for this practice along with another study thats also associated with the wealthy tech billionaires type. 

Have any of you heard of “ego deprecation”? Yes no?

Well the better question would be have you ever seen mark Zuckerberg do bill gates wear the same shirt… over and over and over again? Ya? 

Well that is because of the theory of “ego depletion” the idea, first established by Baumeister and colleagues in 1998, is that self-control functions like a limited resource. The more small decisions you make throughout the day, the less mental energy you have for important ones.

So the “Blank Box” is reenforced by this the idea that by entering a space devoid of stimuli, individuals radically decrease the number of micro-decisions their brain needs to process. The room functions as a decision-neutral zone; a space that preserves cognitive energy for tasks that actually matter.

The “Blank Box” extends this insight to the domestic environment: when your home contains hundreds of visual and functional cues, the accumulated effect subtly taxes your decision-making ability.

A single room without objects interrupts this cycle.

It gives the brain a perceptual “quiet space,” reducing choice saturation and helping reset mental clarity.

An empty room represents the apex of order, not just cleanliness, but the elimination of all competing stimuli.

People using the Empty Room Method commonly report improved clarity, better organization, and a sharper ability to prioritize tasks after spending even brief periods of time in the space.

The connection between clutter and cognitive load is well-documented.

I mean how many of you have heard “our brains can’t actually multitask” 

Research on hoarding disorder by Raines et al. (2014) found that excessive clutter directly correlates with attention and memory deficits.

More broadly, Newsome, Duarte, and Barense (2012) demonstrated that reducing perceptual interference improves visual discrimination, meaning the brain literally performs better when fewer visual inputs compete for processing.

So, how is this space actually being used, what do they do? Just go in? Walk around? Sit on the floor? Well as hustle culture and productivity of neoliberalism dictates, relaxation bad, efficiency good. So mainly this is done for the express purpose of making decisions for the day.  

Early adopters were individuals already involved in high-performance, data-driven lifestyles. Many were influenced by trends in Silicon Valley optimization circuits, wellness culture, and architectural psychology. They recognized that unused square footage could be repurposed into a cognitive tool instead of merely a decorative one.

Now I know what you probably thought when I told you about this if you haven’t heard of it or even if you have already. “Wow, what a waste of space” and you are not the only one. 

Leaving rooms empty as a cognitive wellness luxury is very obviously not only unavailable to the vast majority of citizens as a benefit but actively takes up space that could otherwise be used to better the lives of people who don’t even have a place to live.

I mean right off the bat, what are your economic, political, societal, critiques of using housing space like this? 

Ya no totally 

• absurdly wasteful use of energy in a climate crisis
• It encourages heating unused space, useless use of power. 

 .
It doesn’t merely reflect underuse, it formalizes it, turning unused space into a cognitive amenity.

Some policy scholars have described this as a form of spatial wealth extraction. 

There is also the view that characterizes these actions as personal freedoms, of right to do what you want on your own property.

Now who here thinks that giving they had the resources, they would do something like this? Show of hands, no judgment, if I was rich who knows? 

Ya I thought so. But I’m gonna ask another question so to stick with me. Who here, even if it’s not where you live right now, or maybe it is, have you ever had a house with a lawn? Front or back yard ya. 

Mhmm. And can anyone tell me why the “lawn” or “yard” was popularized enough to be a massive part of a lot of North American infrastructure? 

Yes, because way back, monarchs and the upper class would have large lawns covered just in useless grass which takes tones of maintenance, like people with synths level of maintenance because it is a symbol of status to just have an expanse of land that is not only not used for crops but takes labor to maintain regardless, essentially a visual money pit to exemplify status. 

Now everyone has a lawn, and that is quite literally the reason. If mean if you think about it there’s very little practical purpose for a lawn, yes the kids would play, and it gives you space for pets but even people who don’t have those things have lawns they need to maintain. 

So is this just history repeating itself under the guides of being “healthy for your brain”

Now I have one more question for everyone. I want all of you to pull out your phones, and google this for me, (Have screen that says “unroom phenomena”) and tell me what comes up…

Now you may have realized by now, that there is nothing about what Iv’e told you about for the last 10 minutes because it dosnt exist. This doesn’t happen, and I’ve been lying about all of it. All of these studies are real, but I’ve entirely mischaracterized them to back up a totally fake trend that dosn’t exist. the history thing about lawn is also totally real Some of you may have already seen this coming because its been on my blog… all semester… but if you didn’t, or even if you did, were you going to google if after? Or just run with it, move on and believe me?  

I encourage you to go on my blog when I have it fully posted by the due date. I have all of the misinformation tactics I used during this presentation laid out there, and if you hear any language the ever reminds you of this presentation, of anything I’ve said in the last few minutes, fact check, and fact check again.

Background

Misinformation Tactic	Quote From Script	Explanation (First Person)
Fake Expert’s Technique	“This study about the jam is repeatedly cited as one of the main catalysts for this practice…”	I presented the jam study as if experts commonly use it to justify this trend, even though no such expert consensus exists. By doing this, I artificially created the illusion of authoritative support.
Flawed Argumentation / False Generalization	“Between 2021 and 2025, a trend has emerged among luxury homeowners…”	I stated a broad trend as if it were factual without providing any evidence. This let me build an argument on an unsupported claim.
Astroturfing	“Early adopters were individuals already involved in high-performance, data-driven lifestyles…”	I implied that there was a growing community or movement behind the practice. By fabricating this “early adopter group,” I made it seem socially validated.
Exploiting Emotional Affect	“This may even lead to… decision paralysis… regret.”	I intentionally tapped into feelings like fear, anxiety, and FOMO to make my fake solution seem necessary and urgent.
Poe’s Law / Preservation of Ambiguity	“Starting what has been deemed the ‘blank box’ phenomena.”	I blended a serious tone with a claim that could be satire, making it difficult for the audience to immediately discern whether the information was real.
Impersonation of Expert/Authority Culture	“Have you ever seen Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates wear the same shirt…?”	I used tech billionaires as stand-ins for scientific authority, implying that their habits were evidence for my fabricated psychological claims.
Floating Conspiracy Implication	“The ultra wealthy have made an attempt to remove this kind of wasted time from their lives…”	I hinted at a hidden trend among elites, suggesting privileged knowledge or secret practices without actually providing proof.
Defining and Framing (Priming)	“They have begun dedicating one room in their house to remain completely empty.”	I framed the narrative upfront by defining the “trend” before offering any support, priming the audience to accept it as real.
Meme Warfare / Terminology Construction	“Blank Box Phenomena,” “decision-neutral zone,” “perceptual quiet space.”	I created catchy, authoritative-sounding terms to make the concept feel culturally established and easier to internalize.
Adulteration / Tampering	“This study about the jam is… one of the main catalysts for this practice…”	I distorted the meaning of a real study by connecting it to something it has no relation to. This tampered with the original intent of the research.
Blending True + False Information (Misleading Escort)	“All of these studies are real, but I’ve entirely mischaracterized them…”	I combined real studies with fabricated conclusions so the legitimate information would “escort” the falsehoods and make them more believable.
Cross-Modal Correlation Error	“Reducing perceptual interference improves visual discrimination—therefore an empty room resets cognitive clarity.”	I incorrectly applied findings from perceptual science to an unrelated architectural and behavioural claim, crossing domains that shouldn’t be linked.
Exaggerated Claims / Linguistic Manipulation	“Individuals radically decrease the number of micro-decisions… preserves cognitive energy.”	I used dramatic, absolute wording to inflate the significance and effectiveness of the fake intervention.
Content Forgery / Fabricated Trend	“Between 2021 and 2025, a trend has emerged…”	I invented a phenomenon entirely and presented it with specific dates to make it appear historically and socially real.
Choice Overload Misapplication	“This study about the jam is repeatedly cited as one of the main catalysts…”	I misapplied the findings of a real study about jam choices to justify an unrelated architectural behavior, falsely implying a direct connection.
Ego-Depletion Misrepresentation	“The more small decisions you make… the less mental energy you have… so the Blank Box preserves cognitive energy.”	I simplified and overstated the ego-depletion theory and used it to justify a practice it has never been associated with.
Cherry-Picking Evidence	“Raines et al. (2014) found that excessive clutter correlates with attention and memory deficits.”	This is true but the study is about how people who are hoarders are more likely to have ADHD or Autism.
Selective Framing of Research	Using clutter and visual interference findings to support the empty-room idea.	I framed real research in a way that suggested it supported my argument, even though the studies did not actually address the phenomenon I described.
False Causality / Illusory Correlation	“A single room without objects… gives the brain a perceptual ‘quiet space.’”	I implied a causal relationship between an empty room and cognitive improvement based on unrelated correlational findings.

My notes and more sources:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R9E2grRnCuPa_BFba9MpRY2Nk-LK5ENE81h42gL1svY/edit?usp=

Speculative video

Still Life After Dark

Here is the YouTube link to the video: https://youtu.be/afmoroRPlRk?si=_35V1RxLNKLcvLTY

Still Life After Dark is a video that imagines a world where the artwork and photographs in my bedroom come alive at night. The piece shifts between still shots of my room and sequences in which the objects and images animate, move, or interact with their surroundings, adopting an animistic lens. 

A part from a couple animated found footage clips, every animated moment was created frame by frame a slow, repetitive process that mirrors the act of drawing itself and the quiet, enclosed space the work inhabits. The animation process became a key part of how I understood the work; referencing real videos of animals and people to study how bodies shift and gesture. The video oscillates between stillness and motion, the real and the impossible, the familiar and the uncanny.

Because I get sick easily, my experience of the world is often limited to the boundaries of my room. Even if something extraordinary were to unfold outside, I would only ever encounter its echoes in the small environment I live in. It felt natural, then, to let the imagined, speculative event occur not in a distant landscape or public space, but inside the only world I consistently occupy. 

Ultimately, this piece reflects the way a confined environment can still hold an expansive inner world. By animating the objects around me, I’m animating the space I rely on most and letting it shift, stretch, and breathe in ways I can’t always allow myself to do physically. The work imagines a quiet, private kind of magic, one that exists entirely within the four walls I already know.

Background

Animism, the idea that objects, images, and environments have their own kind of life or agency, shaped the way I approached this project. Instead of seeing the artwork in my room as passive, animism suggests that objects can act, respond, or exist alongside us in meaningful ways. This connects directly to the concept of my drawings and photos waking up at night. The online materials from Anselm Franke’s Animism exhibition explore this concept in reference to the artistic environment as a whole. They explain how contemporary artists use animistic thinking to challenge the divide between the living and the nonliving. Engaging with the essays and information really helped me understand how giving motion and intention to the objects in my room fits into a larger artistic conversation.

Interviews with Pipilotti Rist helped clarify why the bedroom is such a fitting setting for this project. Rist often talks about domestic and private rooms as spaces where imagination naturally expands. Bedrooms hold dreams, memories, and emotional intensity, and they allow for a kind of inner world-building that public spaces do not. perspective supported my decision to center the entire speculative event within my room and helped me see it as an imaginative space rather than just a location.

Resources

Conner, Jill. “Pipilotti Rist: Rooms With Many Views.” Interview Magazine, September 20, 2010.https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/pipilotti-rist-luhring-augustine?utm

Franke, Anselm, et al. Animism. e-flux, 2021https://www.e-flux.com/projects/363195/animism?utm

Generali Foundation. Animismus. Moderne hinter den Spiegeln.https://foundation.generali.at/en/exhibitions/animismus-moderne-hinter-den-spiegeln/?utm

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I animated many of the drawings frame by frame based on the movment of real people and animals so here are some examples:

bibliography

Bellack, Dan. “Making Sense in a Fake News World | TEDxCharleston.” YouTube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 29 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIa2SFcGoZM.

Bu, Y., Sheng, Q., Cao, J., Qi, P., Wang, D., & Li, J. (2023, October 29–November 3). Combating online misinformation videos: Characterization, detection, and future directions. Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM ’23), Ottawa, ON, Canada. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3581783.3612426

Ferreira, R. R. “Liquid Disinformation Tactics: Overcoming Social Media Countermeasures through Misleading Content.” Journalism Practice, vol. 16, no. 8, 2021, pp. 1537–1558, https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.1914707.

Lewandowsky, S., and S. van der Linden. “Countering Misinformation and Fake News through Inoculation and Prebunking.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 25, no. 5, 2021, pp. 363–372, https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2021.1876983

Marwick, A., and R. Lewis. Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. Data & Society Research Institute, 2017, https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline-1.pdf.

Sound Object

Inherited Gesture

This piece explores how sound and memory intertwine, and how an ordinary, unintentional sound can become something deeply personal and meaningful. Like the Proustian phenomenon, where scent evokes memory, the sound of nails on wood collapses time for me. The work activates that moment of recognition, an unintentional sound becoming a vessel of nostalgia, care, and identity.

The materials connect to both of my parents. The wire recalls my father, a farmer, whose tools and practicality shaped how I learned to make things quietly and carefully with whatever was available. The sound recalls my mother, a musician who taught me piano and guitar, using her hands as instruments of expression and inheritance. Constructing her hand with my own, through wire, motion, and sound, is a way of acknowledging the unintentional parts of my parents that live in me.

Background

When I was a kid, my mom would sit at the kitchen table thinking and tap her nails on the surface. I liked the sound so much that, even though she never meant to be doing it for me, when she stopped I would tell her to keep going. My mom has really strong nails, which I did not inherit. I used to think that when I grew up, I would get to have nice nails too, like it was something that just came with being an adult. I know now that is not true, my nails are weak and frankly unbecoming, especially after all the wire wrapping I did for this project. The structure and materials of my piece were chosen intentionally. The list of things my father and I can connect on is very short, but he did introduce me to making things with wire. When I read the Sound Object project description, I knew right away what I wanted to hear. If I could not make the sound myself, I would make something that could.

The conceptual basis of this piece draws on the Proustian phenomenon, the idea that sensory experiences can involuntarily trigger vivid memories. The sound of my mother’s nails on the kitchen table functions as a kind of bridge, connecting the present moment to childhood and the emotional landscape attached to it. This aligns with the wabi-sabi philosophy, which values imperfection and transience. The recreated sound is never exactly the same as the original, but its imperfections are what make it meaningful. It represents the impossibility of recreating the past and the beauty of what remains in memory and repetition.

I know I can’t talk about nail taping without mentioning ASMR although it’s not something I’m personally a big fan of. ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) also provides a framework for understanding why certain small, repetitive sounds can be comforting or emotionally charged. Research on ASMR describes it as a tingling or calming sensation triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, such as tapping, whispering, or gentle motion. These sounds are said to evoke feelings of relaxation, or nostalgia. Although the sound in my piece is not meant to deliberately induce ASMR, it operates within a similar emotional register.

If I were to remake this piece, there are a few things I would do differently. First, I would plan more thoroughly in advance, especially when it comes to measurements. I would also test the piece on different surfaces to better achieve my intention of making it capable of tapping on any surface it’s placed on. Finally, I would make the structure much sturdier and use nails that look more realistic.

Live Art Ritual

Wasting Time Together

This work is an exploration of ritual, waste, and intention. Each day, I find myself drawn into the endless cycle of scrolling on my phone; it’s a habitual ritual that consumes time yet leaves no memory or trace. In this performance, I choose to hold that ritual in the open, stripped of distraction, presented in silence and stillness.

In my performance, indulgence takes the form of regret, guilt takes the form of wasting audience time, and continuing is the choice to keep going or the choice to move on. By choosing not to distract myself with the phone, I remove the veil that usually softens the experience of wasted time.

My performance of my score was heavily inspired by John Cage’s 4’33” (1952), which draws attention to the beauty and presence of ambient sound and passing time, this work instead emphasizes absence, an intentional waste, a visible void in the growth progression.

The score itself is inspired by the form of George Brecht, Direction (1962) and its contextual ambiguity and broad application. Not all indulgence is harmful or wasteful, which is why this score specifies this indulgence to be dissociative in some form. It is a meditation on the pain of discipline versus the pain of regret. It asks: what does it mean to “continue”? To repeat? To move forward?

By staging this daily ritual as art, I invite viewers to confront the quiet addiction of distraction, and to recognize the tension between inhibition and indulgence. This is not an abstract performance, it is something we all rehearse, often without noticing. My performance simply slows it down, making visible in the wasting of time in a structure where stopping becomes the only true act of choice.

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Live Ritual Introduction Script

Part of my daily routine, my rituals, is to mindlessly waste time.

I do it in many ways: scrolling on my phone, seeing things I won’t recall  and, reading a book I won’t remember after reading so many, watching a show or a movie I’ve already seen.

Some of that time has to be wasted, like time in traffic. and some we have the power to make new when we bring new perspectives to the table, but some of that time simply doesn’t need to be wasted.

Everyone dissociates. But my focus here is on the time I waste when I do have a choice.

This guilt eats at me so I wanted to give it structure. This time wasting cycle of guilt. 

I created a score to reflect this, one that captures the experience of time I regret wasting. Maybe it will feel familiar to you too. 

I narrowed it down to five steps:

1. Get comfortable.

Because, as Jocko Willink says:

“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”

But this score begins there, where nothing grows.

2. Indulge.

In a feeling. In an action. In something that feels  comforting and familiar, but does nothing for you.

3. Repeat until surroundings devolve.

Keep going until everything else starts to blur. You lose sense of where you are, or why. You stop noticing time passing.

4. Notice guilt.

That moment you snap back.

You become aware that time has passed, and you chose to let it.

It’s that sinking feeling of “What have I been doing?”

The pause between indulgence and reflection. The internal wince.

5. Continue.

But continue with what?

With what you were doing? With your day? With growth, learning, or something else entirely?

Or just… continue wasting time.

The choice is always there, even when it feels automatic.

I go through this cycle on my phone almost daily. But it’s not just about phones. We all do this, lose time to things that feel good in the moment but leave no trace.

Today I wont be going on my phone as it would void the first step: get comfortable, and I wouldn’t be comfortable.

Instead in this performance, indulgence takes the form of regret. Something I’m very familiar and comfortable with. Regret of the life I’ve wasted.

I will do my best to immerse myself, let you all desolve.

My guilt takes the form of wasting your  time, or the self indulgence of this demonstration or any number of things.

And “continue” becomes an open question I’ll have to keep answering, until my time is up.

I don’t know how many times I’ll repeat this score during the performance.

But just like when you’re wasting time, you always have a choice.

So do I.

This is: “Wasting Time Together.”

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Video:

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Score

Background

Why these 5 steps?

An important aspect of wasting time that I considered was productivity culture and time as a commodity. “Doomscrolling” and dissociation through screens is as a coping mechanism that paradoxically creates guilt. But how much of that guilt is for waisting my time and how much of it is guilt born from the idea that time should MUST be optimized. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han argues that in neoliberal culture, time is consumed and optimized like a resource. I wanted this project to be focused on the time waisted that would otherwise be the memories and experiances of an individual that contribute to their growth. I didn’t want to perpetuate the idea that time spent living is wasted if not optimized which is why step 3 is specifically related to the concept of dissociation. This is to rule out the time spent doing things you enjoy that are very unproductive but foster relationships, memories and new perspectives. 

On the more optimistic side of this general relatability I ironically was inspired by a  TicTok I saw that really stuck with me. It was by Yoshi 2.0 and although I did find it humorous and pretty unserious, it made me reflect and played a part in what “continue” and “get comfortable” means to me in my score. “Do you want the pain of discipline or the pain or regret” was something have been asking myself a lot lately. Should the discomfort of continuing life outside of wasted time outweigh the discomfort of guilt that comes with staying comfortable in it? No.

Here is a link to the TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMAarMvqE/

Magical Moments

Symposium Proposal

Trust Me, I’m Lying

For my presentation, I intend to explore the theme of misinformation and the role it plays in shaping public understanding. My approach will be to design a presentation that, on the surface, appears to be a legitimate research project on a specific topic, person, or event, but in fact, the entire subject matter will be fabricated. In this way, the presentation itself becomes both the medium and the message as a live experiment in misinformation.

My central goal is to demonstrate how easily trust can be manipulated when information is delivered with confidence, authority, and recognizable rhetorical strategies. To construct the presentation, I will research the formal techniques used by media outlets, public figures, and institutions to spread misinformation. This could include strategies such as, statistical manipulation, cherry-picking data, selective framing, and real-world examples of misinformation tactics, grounding the project in critical analysis while simultaneously enacting the strategies in practice.

The performative element of the project lies in how convincingly I can construct this fabricated subject. I want the audience to feel, even temporarily, that they are encountering a real, well-researched presentation. By doing so, my project does not simply “tell” about misinformation but makes the audience experience it, hopefully, impacting them in a way that informs their future approach to consuming information.

I am still considering how best to end the presentation. One option is to leave the fabrication undisclosed, so that the unease of being misled continues beyond the event. Another option is to reveal the deception at the conclusion, either verbally or through a handout that exposes each lie I used, laying out my purpose and connections to real-world strategies of misinformation. I believe both approaches have merit: concealment creates a more realistic effect, while revelation offers a more didactic, educational one. An approach that could satisfy both directions is to end with verbally offering a ‘learn more’ handout. The audience would have to make the effort to pick it up, which demonstrates how simple fact-checking can be, while also commenting on how easy it is to walk away and remain ignorant. I will experiment with these options as the semester develops.

The fabricated subject I ultimately choose will be carefully considered to align with my goals and highlight the techniques I want to showcase. I anticipate drawing on a wide range of research, including media studies, political communication, rhetorical analysis, and possibly even creative forms like manifestos or satirical essays, depending on what best supports the delivery.

Overall, this project will act as a commentary on how misinformation infiltrates our media environments and daily lives, while also using the presentation format itself as the site of experiment. It directly engages with the spirit of the “experimental studio” by transforming a conventional academic exercise into a critical performance that blurs truth and fabrication in order to inspire and hopefully have a positive impact on the media literacy of those in attendance.