PRESCRIPT

My degree project began as an investigation into how Processing, a Java language, could alter and manipulate imagery, as well as create unique user experiences. After researching "altered perceptions", I focused on 6 common disorders and based my Processing pieces on what I thought it would be like to experience each disorder.

Mental disorders are usually not discernible through physical appearance. Interaction with an affected individual is the only way to understand that they have a "distorted" perception, and (unless you yourself are affected) the closest you can come to sharing that abnormal view of reality.

Each disorder is personified by an individual whose life is affected in unique response. Since Beauty Pageant winners are meant to be paragons of physical and mental health, I've applied each distorted lens to one of their stories. Because of the taboo nature of this subject matter, all stories and images are fictional, and used for the purpose of contextualizing and illustrating the effects of each illness. By using the image of the beauty queen, I'm attempting to create a tension between the physical and mental manifestations of distortion.




BIPOLAR DISORDER

Joanna James, Miss Jersey Shore 1987

Marissa Van Buren, Miss Malibu 1968
Both Joanna and Marissa suffered from severe bipolar episodes which involved drastic shifts in their self awareness. Both women noticed that they felt something of a "scale change" in relation to their environments: overwhelmed and hopeless during a depressive episode, while having the pomposity and confidence to win pageant titles during manic states.




DEPRESSION

Julie Alvarez, Miss Suncoast 1994
Despite her "bright" appearance, Julie's depression appeared as a loss of interest in usual activities, and something she described as "tunnel vision". While preparing to be crowned, she was only able to focus on a narrow range of information, while everything else was "blacked out" in her memory.




ANXIETY

Ann Tricia Madden, Miss Junior Nebraska 1963
Tricia suffered from anxiety attacks related to her body image. Although she was crowned Miss Junior Nebraska, each pageant triggered an attack, and she would have to spend several weeks in isolation to recover. As long as her "trigger" was absent, so was the feeling of impending doom.




ADHD

Julie Alvarez, Miss Suncoast 1994
Julie was so excited about winning Miss Suncoast, that she was unable to focus on the acceptance speech she memorized. After rambling for half an hour, she re-preformed her opera routine all over again. Her ability to imagine alternate scenarios was so extreme that focusing on an immediate situation was impossible.




MANIA

Shawna DuPree, Miss Alabama 1981

When one of Shawna's manic episodes coincided with pageant preparation, she spent 15 consecutive hours practicing a dance routine, focusing on the perfection of each move. Her obsessive behavior left her exhausted, and sometimes cost her the crown.




SCHIZOPHRENIA

Eugenia Peron, Miss Miami 2003

Before Eugenia's schizophrenia was medicated, she would lose her train of thought and hallucinated situations and imagery based loosely on what she was experiencing. Her thought patterns followed an illogical sequence, a symptom of schizophrenia called "cognitive slippage". For example, when asked about her extracurricular activities, she responded: ballet, gymnastics, baton twirling, baton rouge, Louisiana, voodoo, and... oh magic tricks.