to Navigate “Contributing” : making & research flows – Callie Clayton / BFA TX ’17

Patience.

Plainly, what is research? and what does it look like for a visual learner, thinker?

Observation, writing, sketches, proposals

and patience.

What is the most effective and needed method, interpretation, translation I can provide in a community bio-lab? Thinking, sketching, proposing, and the key element; starting over has occupied a majority of my time these past few weeks.

The message and purpose of Genspace and most community bio-labs is to teach lab techniques and concepts surrounding the creation and evolution of the biotech movement to the public. In a past survey, a majority of Genspace class attendees would prefer taking a hands on class versus exclusively lecture + discussion. “Hands-on” or kinesthetic learning represents the body acting out motions, eye-hand coordination and not only physically, but also visually understanding processes.

And so, recordings or translations of these physical motions (pipetting, vortexing, etc) in visual 2D forms seems imperative to connect

1. written lab procedure with the

2. physical execution and finally

3. effect of the protocol (purpose and “expected” results of the experiment/protocol)

While participating in a beginner biotech class, my notes have consisted of understanding the details associated with teaching processes such as DNA Isolation and PCR (polymerase chain reaction- process of amplifying extracted DNA to create many copies of a specific sequence of DNA in order to look at the nucleotides/amount in the DNA sequence) and transformation (occurs naturally when e.coli bacteria bond with other e.coli to transfer plasmids through hair-like protein tubes called pili) this process allows for the alteration of a cell through the transfer of genetic information by a plasmid artificially and in the case of this class- we made an e.coli culture that expressed red fluorescent protein meaning it glowed red and ampicillin resistance. Focus of observations to work with have included:

• What are the teaching methods?
• How do class attendees absorb this information?
• What are the key details to include in effective visuals outlining a lab protocol?

(Such as touching the pipette tip to the side of the tube when pipetting out a very small amount of liquid, such as 1 microliter, due to the surface tension of the liquid preventing it from easily exiting the pipette tip)

• What metaphors seem to expound and explain processes?
• What questions are class attendees asking?

An iGEM project completed in 2014 by students attending the University of Paris-Saclay revolved around the representation of objects- questions of reality brought up by Rene Magritte’s painting, “The Treachery of Images.” This painting displays a painted pipe and the words, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” under the pipe which translates as “this is not a pipe.” The project consisted of genetically modifying e.coli to produce the

“fragrance of a lemon and simulate the ripening process of a lemon by changing its color gradually from green to yellow. A mixture of bacteria and solid growth medium will be moulded in a lemon shape: it will smell like a lemon, ripe like a lemon and look like a lemon, but “ceci n’est pas un citron” – this is not a lemon… or is it?” http://2014.igem.org/Team:Paris_Saclay

This example project utilizing genetic engineering was brought up and briefly discussed in one of the classes. The response from class attendees was engagement of curiosity in a scaled out form. While it seems a majority of questions during classes revolve around specific techniques, ethics of all different types of GMO’s, CRISPR and press, this involvement of art, philosophical questioning seemed a key interpretive element for these larger topics considering genetic engineering.

Can art facilitate removed, wide- perspective processing of technology and ethics?

Is science able to quantify art is some form?

Suggestions for classes I’ve been thinking about and proposed include:

• Including more examples of the effect of genetic engineering techniques such as transformation through plasmids by talking about art/design related genetic engineering work in order to facilitate better understanding of the effect and possibilities of what class attendees are learning on a basic scale. Art perhaps serves as a neutral ground between the realms of research and product.
• Including teaching tools that physically represent the idea of biology as building blocks. Utilizing more hands-on tools to fill in steps of kinesthetic learning; content that is:        1. orally presented 2. written 3. drawn out 4. absorbed through visual diagrams (a key aspect I’m working on) 5. enacted with hands-on “building blocks” 6. procedure executed in lab and then repeated in opposite order to ensure understanding of the role of all reagents and organisms.
• A “Question” page on the Genspace website and social media pages that stores questions to be answered on community nights such as the PCR + Pizza night. Questions could revolve around misconceptions of synthetic biology in the media, genetic modification processes, etc. After questions are answered on those community nights, icons on the “Question” page when clicked could expand with a thorough answer. This suggestion came out of the observation that people come to the lab however what do these class attendees leave with besides a series of written processes, protocols and written results in terms of learning take-aways? How can people continue to be involved with Genspace after leaving the space? and how can questions be more efficiently addressed and engage people outside of the direct lab space in a way that would encourage them to come to Genspace?
• Workshop in relation to “Interpretation and Translation”:
  Artists/Designers/Public interpreting simple lab procedures such as DNA extraction to be featured with open source written protocols on sites such as “Open Lab Blueprint.” http://2014.igem.org/Team:Genspace/Project/Open-Lab-Blueprint The course of the workshop could be slower paced and more question based in order to facilitate sketching or additional note taking for interpretative making. Essentially, this workshop could facilitate an amassing of visual and written open source lab protocol content in a variety of interpretations in order to accommodate varying learning styles.
• Workshop revolving around creative writing and designing or interpreting lab protocols and procedures, perhaps “Storytelling of Lab Protocols through Poetry; how lab procedures and experiment results manifest in a literary form.” Evelyn Reilly, an ecopoet writes free verse poetry revolving around material and chemical compositions of man made materials such as Styrofoam in a form reminiscent of lab procedures. Poetry and lab protocols could be compared / contrasted and then merged in a literary form.

As I have continued to observe progress and lab protocols/ methods used by the Genspace iGEM Competition group, introductory biotech classes each week and interact with new-comers to Genspace during a “PCR + Pizza” community night and Kombucha and Ginger Bugs Fermentation Workshop (exciting research on the health benefits of fermentation for a range of health conditions, one of which is autismhttp://www.contrabandferments.com/– check out “Missing Microbes” by Martin Blaser http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/health/missing-microbes-how-antibiotics-can-do-harm.html and a crowd-sourced, citizen science based project on mapping the human gut http://americangut.org/) I’ve focused my work on sketched visual interpretations of lab protocols to be used in classes and ideas around making this a more accessible space– the latter I believe is closely linked to visual communication and aesthetic of branding and communication to the public.

Focus Questions:

1. What learning techniques / answers are not being communicated well?
2. What isn’t being talked about in relation to Genetic Engineering?

Thanks y’all- stay tuned for more thoughts on under utilized forms of visual interpretation and considerations of the “wisdom of the crowd” in relation to current events.

Callie

What is a Biofeedback /Bio-responsive Game? | Boston Children’s Hospital | Yuko Okabe, BFA Illustration 2017

Neuromotion logo

With another two weeks having flown by, I’ve encountered several enlightening, challenging, and overall eye-opening experiences.  To summarize quickly here, I was able to meet and interview two patients about how they felt about a character that could support them through this game.  I  also met with the hospital’s Psychiatry Assistant Director of Outpatient, Dr. Lauren Mednick, as well as Director of the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Clinic, Dr. Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich (one of the co-founders of Neuromotion along with my supervisor).  I also spoke with an art / expressive arts therapist who gave great advice about unconventional therapies and how mental health therapies are perceived in society.

However, for this post, I realize I should properly illuminate some details about biofeedback games, and their place in contemporary healthcare.

Little Henry in beautiful clip-art quality.

Imagine this:  a young boy (let’s call him Henry) has a hard time coping with his outbursts associated with his ADHD and anxiety disorder.  With his parents exhausted from finding suitable therapeutic coping skills, they hear about this new intervention: a biofeedback game promising successful emotional regulation and strength-building.

Luckily, Henry has the chance to test this new game in the works.  The small group running these test pilots meets with the young boy and his mother:  they help him get set up and they give him a small heart monitor to put on his wrist.

Henry’s mom explains to his son that he has to keep calm and control his heart rate to perform well in the game.   However, not really understanding  (or perhaps not even listening) to his Mom’s advice, Henry delves right into the experience.

The platform has several mini-games to play.  Let’s say Henry chooses the first one on the list. When it opens up on the screen, it looks like any normal game—the only weird thing is that there’s a small speedometer looking image on the bottom of the screen.  It has the colors green, yellow, and red.  Right now, an arrow pointed to the green zone.

Henry’s heart under stress in detailed Shutterstock quality

The game starts off easy.  But pretty soon, as the game starts getting harder, Henry starts to get more and more flustered.  And something surreal happens.  As his heart rate rises, the game starts to spaz uncontrollably.  He thinks its glitch, but he realizes that it’s too planned and consistent to be just that.  Looking back at the speedometer thing, he sees it’s at the furthest point in the red zone.

Henry loses the first game, and he’s very frustrated.  But his mother says, that if he stays calm, the game will work normally and won’t turn against him. So Henry plays again, doing his best to stay calm.  When the game starts getting more intensive, he starts to lose control of the functions. He looks over to the “speedometer” on the screen, and it’s inching into the yellow.

So he takes a deep breath.  As best he can, he clears his mind, relaxes his muscles, and keep going.

Henry’s heart once he learns to control his emotions during play!

Henry gets much farther into the game. Though the game doesn’t get any easier, he’s able to regulate his emotions better.  He constantly glances over at the bottom of the screen, doing his best to stay in the green zone.  Here, Henry makes the connection:  he understands the relationship between controlling his emotions and controlling the game.  He can visually see his heart rate change on the screen, and this gives him agency of his experience.  As his heart rate rises, he loses control (like in real life).  When he stays calm, he can master his experience. This would be the challenge for all the other games on the platform as well.

This is biofeedback in game form. And this is the innovation behind Neuromotion.

To provide a formal definition:

Biofeedback is a technique you can use to learn to control your body’s functions, such as your heart rate. With biofeedback, you’re connected to electrical sensors that help you receive information (feedback) about your body (bio).

This feedback helps you focus on making subtle changes in your body, such as relaxing certain muscles, to achieve the results you want, such as reducing pain. In essence, biofeedback gives you the power to use your thoughts to control your body, often to improve a health condition or physical performance.

From  http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/biofeedback/home/ovc-20169724

The Neuromotion team’s ultimate goal is to help control emotional “dysregulation” in children struggling with mental disorders and symptoms.  Genuinely, they believe that in order for children to truly gain control of their emotions, they need to train their mind and body to handle stress levels; they need a platform that helps enhance motivation and create a more effective learning experience.

On the Neuromotion website, they express:

 Children are expected to control their emotions better as they get older. If they fall behind in emotional control either due to out of control anger or anxiety, this holds them back from succeeding socially and academically as they should. We believe that focused practice of emotional regulation allows children discover for themselves how to control their emotions better and that repeated practice of emotional regulation strengthens the brain connections that control emotions.

… As a society we badly need such tools so we are not forced to rely so much on medications to dampen anger or anxiety in our children. Medications can reduce anger and anxiety but they do not teach a child the skills that might reduce their need for the medications. Our work is aimed at reducing the push to put children on psychotropic medications by providing effective, affordable, and accessible alternatives.

From http://www.neuromotion-labs.com/

2010 – original game prototype, called RAGE-control with a heart monitor connected to the pinky. Read more here.

My focus, to reiterate, is to think about the “outer” part of the game (which we call the metagame).  There, we need to find  a convincing and engaging way for child users to navigate from game to game with ease and conviction.  A character can act as a guide, coach, friend, etc. to help monitor the child’s progress and keep track of goals.  What we need to think about further is what would really draw a child to this game?  Truthfully, some kids would be reluctant to do anything that calls itself “therapy.” How do we gain their trust?   How can we be helpful as well as respectful to their age? Also, some kids with emotional issues are not even convinced they even have these problems:  we have to work around these potential scenarios to reach as much of our audience as possible.  Because of these questions circling over my head constantly, I have to be aware of the introduction, the delivery, and involvement of this character.

2015:  Biofeedback Explanation.  Read more here.

Also, one of the most important aspect of this game is to make sure the child feels like they have control of not only their emotions but of the experience.  We live in a society (or just a world) where children have very few choice in situations.  This becomes especially apparent when a child has sort form of disability; many schools do not have very effective policies in place to support these individuals and students and families endure through painful measures to find the best quality education.  The lack of control makes it absolutely frustrating.  Sometimes, children can’t help but contemplate why the adults in their lives can’t help them as much as they could.

But maybe that’s unfair to say.  Adults make mistakes just as children do, but older people get more backlash for negligence or missed research.  It’s just the age standard we have in society—which makes sense I suppose.  In the end, what matters is that good-even great, amazing-research has been brewing in many parts of the world and Boston Children’s Hospital and Neuromotion have been tackling some of the toughest problems and solving them with care and creativity.

This reminds me:  before officially starting my internship, I met the Neuromotion team back in May just to get introduced.  After sitting down with my supervisor, Dr. Jason Kahn, he told me this:

You’re going to fail an awful lot.  But you know, failing means you’re doing something.  I can speak from experience so don’t get discouraged.

That’s probably the most comforting advice I’ve received in a while.

I’ll follow-up with another post to talk more about research and some ponderings.

Until then, have a good day!

Cheers,

Yuko

“I’m like an astronaut who’s spent a lot of time in space but is still pondering the nature of the universe”: My Introduction to BCH | Yuko Okabe, Illustration BFA 2017

The above quote was taken from one of the responses I got from my teammates to the question, ” Would you consider games as an art form?  A narrative form? Why?”   Earlier in his answer, he also reflected:

Games are interesting (to me, at least) because they cause your mind to twist, to try, to explore places that aren’t intuitive right in front of you. They force your mind to grapple with things in ways that aren’t the default way… Maybe games can activate neural pathways that are there but underused? Maybe games can rewire behaviors? I think it’s fascinating.

I asked a number of questions like this to my internship teammates this past week, and all of the answers have been insightful, witty, and very honest- I wish I can share them all!  I think it goes without saying that I feel very baffled and grateful for such a community that has opened its doors to the likes of a curious little Illustration student like myself.

Just to provide a bit of description, for the next ten weeks (or nine now) I will be collaborating with the Boston Children’s Hospital and their Psychiatry Department’s start-up called Neuro’motion to help develop characters and narrative to accompany their mobile therapy games.  My supervisor and I came to the agreement during my Maharam application process that children would be more stimulated to engage in therapy if they had a welcoming character to accompany them on this metaphorical journey.  The point is to design someone who can be a coach and even a friend; a human or creature who can track their progress and be there to give help.  To go about this research, I will interview individual children as well as gain feedback from hospital staff regarding psychiatric practices and its sensitivities.

A First Week:  Meetings, Introductions, and Fun People

Home space for the following weeks.

To illuminate on my initial experiences, on the very first day, I met up with my supervisor at his office space a few blocks away from the main hospital.  After some quick tours and introductions, we sat in his office space which he shares with Neuro’motion’s software engineer.  Both of them asked me to think of three things 1) Deliverables to the Team for Week 1, 2) How to Interview Children to Gain their Feedback, and 3) Questions for the team.
I took these tasks and organized my answers into a Powerpoint ( selected slides below).  I explored themes around character design while also trying to apply some innate therapeutic senses into my reasoning.  I wondered how to depict the character as “strong” and how that would compare to a character that would be either “comforting” or even more abstractly “heroic.”  What sort of personality would best help guide a child through therapy?  I also wondered what sort of resistance a child could have towards a main character:  “Why should I listen to him/her?”  “How do I trust them?”  “Will they make me feel stronger?”  “Will they make me feel too dependent?”  Coming from an Illustration background, I’m interested in learning the finer and more sensitive points about creating this character, and how he/she/they can both represent and advocate for an audience of children struggling to control their emotions.

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I’m scheduled to speak with the Children’s Hospital’s outpatient adviser next week so that she could help me organize my thoughts about how to go about interviewing and speaking with her patients.  I have ideas to make it an interactive dialogue by having drawings and word associations to help the child visualize who their ideal “coach” would be like.  I guess there’s also the question to how much depth the character should have.  Should the character be 100% confident all the time?  Should the character be more attuned to a child? Should they be deceivingly weak but end up being strong?  These are my hovering questions:  it’ll be interesting what feedback the kids will have!

A selection of character silhouettes I created for my first interview stages: “Which character seems strong to you?  Why?”

Back in May, I actually met up with the team just to get introduced to the hospital setting so I already knew everyone in the room.   Nonetheless, I was both overwhelmed and fascinated by all of the high-speed and articulate business-speak that these guys whipped out onto the table.  Of course, in the foggy and looming universe we know as the “real work world,” this obviously happens all the time.  But, being the scrawny collegiate with just a summer sublet and a handful of RISD workstudies to my adult name,  I found (and will continue to find) these meetings super eye-opening and helpful.

When it came to my presentation, I admittedly felt a bit strange transitioning  the topics from marketing and product testing results to my artsy thinking around character designs.  But it was pleasant to see how interested and excited everyone became.  They also appreciated the questions I had to the team and encouraged me to ask more along the way.

There’s a lot more I could reflect on, but I’d rather not overwhelm my first post.  However, I would like to share a sweet video about Hospital Empathy I learned about from a required “High-Reliability, Error Prevention Training” I attended this week.  Though more geared towards employees in the clinical setting, it was fascinating to get some insight and first-hand knowledge and transparency of the Hospital.

A snapshot from the video Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care

I will update in the coming weeks about my findings after interviewing patients.  Also, here are a few Q&As from this week ( I summarized answers for my own purposes):

What are the most vital components to successful therapy? What needs to be improved upon?

• Self-efficacy
  • Seeing and celebrating progress
• Supportive environment
  • Building external supports
    1. And then slowly taking away scaffolding
  • Good relationship
  • Invested therapists
  • Difficulties
    • Hard to measure outcomes with therapy
    • Hard to tell “good” therapy
      1. How to be a successful therapist
      2. Clients become skeptical

How do you balance a child’s desires with what a parent/clinician/(teacher) says is best for them?

• Convince that they’re playing a positive role
• Kids’ desires and parents’ desires are one in the same
• Kids often realize, by being in therapy, that something is “wrong”
  • they want to be “normal”
• Sometimes, a concordance about “presenting problem” and what is “clinically best”

What are three things a child should have to be truly happy? How has this changed since you were a child?

• To feel loved
• To feel safe
• Growth
  • Intellectual
  • Emotional
  • Physical
  • The “Self”
• Freedom and space
  • Exploring interests
• Material answer
  • Blocks, legos
  • Access to water
  • Something to read
• “80s, early 90s, kids could be bored and that let them think about things. Now it’s really hard to be bored.”
• Basic necessities
  • Maslow’s hierarchy

Cheers,

Yuko

A farewell to the Porvir office, but thank-heavens for Skype!

While my time in São Paulo this summer was very busy, the work with the innova+ project is really just beginning. My role at Porvir was to get this project off the ground. I established connections with our partners, created proposals and presentations explaining the project and drafted a plan for the initiative to continue moving forward once I was back in Providence. I also understood the inner-workings of an organization whose work I had always admired from afar. As school is just about to start, I am eager to continue working on the innova+ project, but this time more as an advisor to the team of journalists. The innovations have been submitted by the network of specialists we have gathered from California to London to New Zealand, and now it’s the journalists’ turn to take over in editing our content.

Before leaving, I also contacted a talented graphic designer (and self-taught web developer) to take on the job of creating the site for the final publication. Though our deadlines have shifted a bit more down the road, we hope to have the publication ready to go by the end of October. I will keep updating this blog with important news along the way, and of course, on the big day of the publication release.

Group selfie at the office

Invitation to our specialists

Some reflections on the topic of my research: What is innovation anyway?

I spent a good chunk of time this summer trying to define the term “innovation.” While I didn’t come upon any answers that I felt passionate about, my search has helped me understand some of my own concerns regarding education and the role of “changemaking” in a fast-paced world, where technology is making big moves and potentials for scalability of projects are expanding exponentially.

After much deliberation, we decided to let each contributing specialist give his or her own definition of innovation when submitting their suggested projects. This way, we will also learn how people define this concept, and embrace the idea that there may simply not be an answer to this question. In my own research for this semester, I plan to reflect on my experiences, both at RISD and beyond, to understand how I have applied my own design background into projects that will make a difference in the world. Designers are at a critical point in the working world, as we are trained to navigate between spheres of communication. To me, using innovative approaches to communicate ideas, solutions or even just a thought is the best application of design toward making a difference. The key is understanding all the components, and finding the best means to pull the parts together, making everything accessible to the players involved.

Below are a few of the definitions I came upon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something.[1] Innovation can be viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs.[2] This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society. A definition consistent with these aspects would be the following: “An innovation is something original, new, and important in whatever field that breaks in to a market or society”.[3]

While something novel is often described as an innovation, in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis it is generally considered a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society.

Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.

I will continue to elaborate on my definition, but will allow it to happen organically. Afterall, the “lightbulb moment” is a glorious one, but the process is where the magic happens.