Category: Electronic Rituals

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/vsm7j7rwH

description 

This p5.sketch includes the major arcana cards of a tarot deck. However, this deck is not a traditional tarot deck; it is redesigned with the traditional Korean art aesthetics. Furthermore, there are no labels within the cards. Therefore, the user has the ability to truly interpret the card meanings to the status of their existence. This way, the card becomes even more ‘unique’ and ‘personalized’ to the users. 

The p5 sketch randomly draws 5 cards from the 22 cards, and the user can perform Oswald Wirth’s Major Arcana Tarot Spread (more details below) or Yu Spread (spread interpretation that I made). The user has the ability to save the spread by click the ‘save’ button.

I am not claiming to own the practice of tarot reading practice. I fully realize that tarot reading does not originate from East Asia. The design was purely redone in an attempt to build a bridge between 2 different cultures. 

Goal

I aimed to create a personalized tarot deck that would represent my background. Intended to be used by those with Asian heritage, this design attempts to fortify the user’s experience of tarot practice. I want to induce a stronger connection between the Asian users and this tarot deck, compared to the users using a traditional, westernized tarot deck.

why do I want them to have a stronger connection? 

I believe that a stronger connection to this deck will further increase the appreciation for tarot practices. I do not want the user to feel as if tarot reading belongs to them. Rather, a stronger connection to this redesigned tarot deck will encourage the user to study tarot practice to its origin and appreciate a practice from a different culture. I also want this deck to become a segueway towards deailenating different cultures.

process

In Week 1 reading, culture appropriation of witch practice was brought up. The article, How to Be a Witch without Stealing Other People’s Cultures,  had a clear viewpoint that with the democratization of communication and ideas via technology (like tiktok), appropriation of cultures became so much more accessible and more ‘acceptable’ by the mass media. To this problem, the author suggests a solution. According to the article, there is a way to practice a culture that is not your own in an ethical way:  

• • “Do your own research. Stop asking people to do research for you. Find out if you’re appropriating, because most likely you’re appropriating,” 

  • ““Be open to reflecting and asking what you can do differently,” said Brooklyn. “Just try to learn, it’s really not that hard.” “

I defintely agree that sufficient and continuous study of a culture can reduce the chances of appropriation. I wanted to take this into consideration when creating my final meditation. 

As someone from a different culture, the question of cultural appropriation versus appreciation was a topic that always intrigued me. With the democratiziation of information and speech, more people have the resources to experience different cultures than ever before. However, this has led to issues of cultural appropration. A popular example of this includes afro and dreads on people of non-African origin and ‘Asian Fishing’ to name a few.

Like the position of the author, I agree that there are ways to appreciate a different culture wihtout appropriating. One must not claim the different culture to be their own; the line between appreciation and appropration depends on the user’s mindset and their understanding of the other culture. With this project, I encourage further studies of tarot practice and traditional Korean art.

The cards were inspired by the Chinese Zodiac, which is also known as the 십이간지 in Korean. Each animals are seen as gods, and these zodiacs still play a large role in shaping Korean culture. 

To learn more about the Chinese Zodiac, direct to the websites below: 

https://depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07030/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches

Below is the folder with all the cards: 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fN2objNQ7b12-7WqZw3NoaM4t9vFHZry?usp=sharing

The process of drawing the cards is shown below: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k9KFFcMp-lMS79kqytkdcQiVYdHs1lyN/view?usp=sharing

All cards were drawn in Procreate and exported into Google Drive. 

Effects

I believe that visuals of the tarot deck plays a major role in producing a spirituality in the tarot readings. Each cards has its own imagery, symbolism and story. The design of the deck is also dependent on the artist of the tarot deck. That being said, the visuals of this deck induced a different feeling than using a traditional tarot deck. When I used this deck, it made me feel more aware of the pictures. Because the designs of the cards felt more familiar to me, I felt a greater urge to study the pictures and to associate the card’s meaning to the pictures depicted on each card.

Another feeling that was different from using a traditional tarot deck was produced by the digitlaization of this tarot reading. Because the cards are on the screen, and there are no physical tangible object, it did not feel as legitimate. I think having a physical reader enriches the experiences than (perhaps because we are being told about the tarot spread by an ‘authority’ figure — I think it’s hard for the readers to see themselves as the authority of their own)interpretating the spread on our own. There is something about the ‘authorityship’ of the reader that seems to make the interpretation more legitimate.

On another note, I thought the lack of physical objects, i.e. physical cards, also brought a different experience. It made me wonder how the user’s experience might differ if there were physical cards with the redeisgned visuals. 

Different Spreads 

The user can either perform Oswald Wirth’s Major Arcana Tarot Spread or Yu Spread. 

Oswald Wirth’s Major Arcana Tarot Spread

https://www.biddytarot.com/major-arcana-tarot-spreads/

Yu Spread

• Card 1 (left)-  the obstacle holding you back from progressing
• Card 2 (right)-  your desired state in the future; your goal
• Card 3 (above)- what can help you reach your goal/ get rid of the obstacle 
• Card 4 (below)-  the hidden reason why you are at where you are
• Card 5 (center)- the querent; your role in the situation 

In both spreads, the cards may repeat. 

Next steps

As stated before, I think it’d be interesting to see how the user experience would differ if there were physical cards available for the users. For my next step, I want to further user test this by having a print out of the cards. I think having physical cards will also enable the reader role to be established more easily. 

On another hand, in the digital media, I thin the next step would be implementing this tarot deck on a website so that more people have access to it. 

Below are my random number generators. To be quite frank, I was pretty lost during this meditation. I asked Angelo for help. 

To come up with the equations of the random generator, I just played around with math systems already in p5 library. For the one below, I am primarily using sq (). Then, for the number value, I am using millis () since it is an input that is constantly changing. 

function myRandom() {
return sq (millis())%1000/900

}

link: https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/NdOzTFDXI

For the sketch below, I am using tan (). I am once again using millis () as an input value. 

function myRandom() {
x = millis() - PI ;
y = sq (millis)
return (tan (x^2 +y^2))%2
}

link: https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/_RqtjEOy0

However, I noticed that the numbers were actually between  -2 to 2 (shown below):

so I used the map function to map the myRandom output values from 0 to 255. 

a = map (myRandom (),-2,2,0,255);

Below is a video demo of myRandom function. The random numbers (from 0 to 255) controls the text size and the color of each texts. This is using my 2nd number generator with tan (). I am also playing around with the frame rate throughout the video. 

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/R6dicnZkr

Below is the same sketch but using the first number generator. Here, the map function is slightly different: 

a = map (myRandom (),0,1,0,255);

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/eBDi8tFH6

Another play off of the random generator is the following: 

Here, the size and color of the two ellipses are changing with the random number generator, and the background color is also changing (only a little because I divided the value by 8).

Another playoff was using the sound frequencies. I got the code from the p5js reference website and changed the value of the frequencies to myRandom, again  using the map function. 

a = map (myRandom (),-2,2,40,880);

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/00B_rfoFx

Below is me trying out randomizing frameRate (). 

For this week’s meditation, I decided to make a digital spirit board that is controlled by a single user. Controlled by both hands of the user, I utilized an Arudino and two sensors: FSR and photocell. FSR controls the y-axis of the planchette, while the photocell controls the x-axis. The value of FSR changes depending on the player’s right hand pressure onto the sensor, while the value of the photocell depends on the distance of the user’s left hand (I did not have a distance sensor, so I decided to use the photocell to ‘measure’ the distance of the hand from the sensor. Lower value of the photocell would indicate that the hand is close to the sensor, while a higher value would indicate that the hand is away from the sensor). 

Sensors: 

• The photocell measures brightness. However, I decided to use this sensor to sense the distance of the hand. The value ranges from 160-640, which would be mapped into the height of the spirit board. 
• The FSR measures force/pressure. The value ranges from 0-500. 

Inspiration:

I was inspired by traditional Korean totem poles, which are called jangseung (장승). Jangeungs are commonly made out of wood or rocks, and they act as the ‘guardians’ of a neighborhood. They are believed to block and scare away negative energy, diseases, and evil spirits, which is why jangseungs often have a scary look. 

I decided to incorporate jangseungs into my spirit board so that it can better faciliate the connection between the user and the ‘good spirits.’ My board is intended to connect with harmless spirits, thus contacting the evil is unnecessary. 

Another reason why I used jangseungs as an inspiration is because I wanted to incorporate Korean art style into the board. Spirit boards are not a popular concept in Korea, and I thought the two ideas would be an interesting collaboration to bridge togehter. 

Process:

1. brainstorming ideas

2. semi-final design process:

The two jangseungs I drew are the following (from left to right): 1. goblin jangseung 2. bride jangseung. These designs are widely used in traditional Korean masks as well. 

Arduino code: 

Final:

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/P_JL9FbYc

Below is a demo of what the screen would look like. 

Breadboard view: 

Blank

IN THE FUTURE:

As mentioned before, I incorporated Korean art art styles into my spirit board. If I have more time to do work on this in the future, I would like to explore how I can make my spirit board function in Korean alphabet as well. 

I would also like to redo the planchette to an actual design on procreate, rather than having just a red circle. 

I decided to design a prototype for meditation #3. My ‘-omancy’ would factor in Spotify’s Discover Weekly Playlist, which is a playlist of 30 songs that Spotify’s AI thought would be fitting for the user. I wanted to redefine the 30 curated songs into new meaning/fortune telling that the users would read once a week. Although it sounds silly, I interpreted the regeneration of Discover Weekly as a ‘natural phenomenon,’ for it happens in a regular manner yet the user has no idea what the 30 songs in the playlist may be. 

First, to experiment with the analysis of the playlist, I used the website below: 

https://www.spotilyze.com/playlist

After seeing the analysis of the Discover Weekly, I started to visualize how this could potentionally work as another program in Spotify. How could I make this data into something that appeals to the users of Spotify? 

Then, I decided to utilize the following analysis (the page analyzes various types of elements of the playlist. However, for this prototype, I am using four of them): 

1. duration of the playlist 
2. mode of tracks (minor/major) 
3. # of songs containing explicit lyrics 
4. BPM (beats per minute) of the songs 

The visualization that spotilyze provides looks like the following: 

I took this information and made it into the spotify aesthetic (sorry it’s hand drawn; my iPad is still not here). 

First, when the spotify user clicks Discover Weekly, there will be another set of button as shown below: 

When this button is clicked, a new screen will appear, which would resemble the looks of Spotify wrapped: 

The font, color theme, and the general aesthetic will stay the same. However, the content shown will be different. First, this new analysis/omancy would be called “#DiscoverYourself.” The First slide would have an analyzed infographic of the user’s Discover Weekly (as shown below; left side of the picture). The following slides afterwards would be where Spotify tells the users what kind of week he/she will be having. For example, the second slide would have the ratio of modes  (major or minor) in the list. If there are a higher number of minor songs in the playlist, Spotify will identify the user’s week to be filled with negative energy. Then, as a solution, Spotify will suggest another playlist that can bring up the mood of the user (for example, it will suggest “Mood Booster” playlist made by Spotify). 

Below is a breakdown of how each element would be analyzed: 

Duration of the playlist – Lucky numbers of the week. Spotify will not suggest new playlists

Mode of tracks(major/minor) – Having more major musics will mean that the user will be surrounded by good/excited energy – Spotify will suggest ‘relaxing’ playlist. Having more minor musics will mean that the user will be surrounded by negative energy – Spotify will suggest ‘hyped’ playlist. 

Explicit lyrics – The percentage of songs containing explicit lyrics in the playlist will determine how frustrated the user will be with his/her tasks. For example, if 30% of the songs contain explicit lyrics, it’ll mean that the user will be frustated with 30% of the tasks he/she does. As a result, Spotify will suggest a ‘calming’ or ‘soothing’ playlist. 

BPM – Depending on the range of BMP that has the most songs, Spotify will determine if the user’s week is going to be either slow or fast. For example, if most songs fall under 70-90 BMP, the user’s week would be determined to go slow, and Spotify will suggest a “Mood Booster” playlist. 

I intended to make this prototype as a commercialized protoype. It would be made for Spotify company, which is why the goal of this system is to create more interactivity between Spotify and its users. Suggestings more playlists depending on already-Spotify-generated playlist will allow more streams of different songs, and by having an ‘omancy’ aspect to the Weekly Discovery, users would depend on the app for more than just music streaming. Users will see the app as a weekly ‘fortune’ app as well — the goal is to stimulate the influences of horoscope apps like CoStar. Furthermore, because the playlist will regenerate a new set of songs (thus different set of data as well) every week, the user will be given different sets of fortune telling every week. This allows the establishment of a pattern/habbit, which could turn into a digital ritual. Such behavior would increase the interactivity with the app. 

Lastly, below is a website that I used to gain further understanding of how Discover Weekly works: 

https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-rctom/submission/discover-weekly-how-spotify-is-changing-the-way-we-consume-music/

As I brainstormed for the idea, I wanted to redesign the major arcana cards of the tarot deck. Although I would’ve loved to do all 78, realistically speaking, I could not see myself redoing all 78 cards in a week. I wanted to transform the western designs of the tarots cards to traditional East Asian art forms, especially incorporating the significant concepts of conventional Korean ideas from folk stories or myths.

I was pretty set on this idea, and since I wanted to put it on a digital platform, I was pretty set on redrawing them on a technological device, like my laptop or a phone. However, as it’s been the past month, drawing with my finger on a touch screen is difficult to get precise, so I ordered an iPad and apple pen three days ago (not just for this class; I thought an iPad would come in handy for my future digital artworks as well).

I did not realize the amount of time it’d take to deliver until I ordered the iPad. The Apple pen got delivered two days after the order, but the iPad is not coming until October 21st.

Saddened by this truth, I started to brainstorm for other ideas. It’s not that I did not have pictures to execute; I just really wanted to reinterpret the designs because it’s something I have not seen in the market.

What I decided to do instead was to digitalize a personal oracle deck by making the keyboard the input.

How it works: 

1. the querent presses any alphabetical key to start 
2. the querent types any words that resonate with them OR types any set of letters 
3. the computer feedbacks a comment and a randomized color per key pressed 
4. the querent can take the words and colors as they please throughout the day
5. backspace is not allowed

One of the problems that I encountered while coding was the opening visual. I am not sure why the opening page text shifts to the left when a key is pressed; below is the link to my p5.js sketch for the code: 

https://editor.p5js.org/jiwonyu/sketches/beMuPNrZV

On another note, this is the website that I used to pixelized the hand image: 

http://pixelartmaker.com/

In the future, I want to continue working on this and incorporate unique letters and numbers so that the entire keyboard can function as a deck, not just the notes. Furthermore, tarot reading is something I do want to continue practicing in the future. When the iPad comes, I will certainly redesign the images of tarot cards as a personal project. 

 

At first, ‘designing a ritual was a concept that I could not fully grasp. Before taking the class, I have not even thought of the word ‘ritual’ in-depth — I only associated the word with a religious tone, assuming that any rituals had to be something related to religious practice. 

However, after learning the taxonomy of rituals, I realized that a ritual isn’t exclusive to religious purposes. It can be rites of passage, seasonal, political, religious, and interpersonal. What was interesting to me was that I was already familiar with the examples of each ritual category — I just never thought of them as rituals. For example, elections and parades were definitely events and human behaviors that I was familiar with. However, before learning about ritual taxonomy, I did not know that I could categorize those behaviors as rituals. Learning about the types of rituals opened my eyes to see so many of our human daily life behavior as a ritualistic approach, which was both intriguing and odd. 

Starting My First Meditation Journey:

With an open mindset, I started to brainstorm what I do as a ritual in the physical world, and I jot down some ideas and how they make me feel or why I do them (some of them have a question mark because I am not sure why or how). I thought, ‘maybe if I think of analogic rituals, I could turn them into digital rituals’ : 

• • • writing diaries when feeling down (more like ranting to myself)
      • • feels validating? 
    • clicking the same button multiple times
      • • makes me think that it’s going to make a process faster?
    • putting on perfume or brushing my bangs
      • • makes me feel comfortable with how I present myself to others — I feel more confident 
    • reciprocating yawning or checking time
      • • provides a sense of community and belongingness?  

However, I wasn’t very fond of these ideas — they seemed too basic, and I did not want to settle with the very first ideas that I had. So I decided to take more time to reflect and think. 

As a result, my second option was having a love-language ritual on the internet. As silly as it sounds, I even thought about perhaps dating an online person on my gaming platform. This could’ve been a real person or one of those 2D Anime boyfriends: Choose Your Own Adventure! Type of game.

Though the idea of it sounded fun, one, I thought it was a bit too weird to flirt with strangers online in my gaming platform (I play Super Animal Royale and Animal Crossing, so all characters are animals), and 2D anime dating took a little too long to get enough ‘affection points’ for me to date them. So I decided to give myself more thought. 

Then a couple of days ago I was calling my friend, and with a pen and paper in front of me, I just started to take notes and doodle — similar to how people walk around when they talk. This behavior has been influencing me for as long as I remember. It seems to provide me comfort, or a sense of ease, while I call. It keeps my hand and eyes busy, while my mind and mouth can concentrate on the call. Maybe this is because I have a hard time just sitting down and talking. This might be why I hate movie theaters: I have to sit still for two hours. Taking ‘notes’ and doodling entertains multiple senses of my body, which helps me feel focused and not bored. 

Notes and Doodling:

It really is interesting — I distinctively remember witnessing my mother draw the most random shapes with faces and wings when she called; I was around seven or eight when I saw my mother doodling while calling. Maybe the younger me thought, ‘wow! that is one cool activity to do’ when I first encountered doodling. Or, maybe I wanted to impersonate my mother (who I look up to back then and now) to get a greater sense of connection to my mother (maybe this is a social bonding instinct?). Whatever the reason may have been, it stuck with me for over a decade, and I still find myself taking notes and doodling on many occasions. 

At first, I did not make much meaning into it. However, I was walking back from one of my morning classes thinking of what a ritual was, and I thought about which of my behaviors make me feel a certain way. What were the repeated actions in my everyday life that were considered ‘purposeful’? When I got home, I pulled out my notebook to review some notes — and upon seeing my doodles for the second time, I realized that this was an analogic ritual that I participate in almost every time I call someone. 

With this idea in mind, I started to digitalize my ritual, and these were the two approaches that I had: 

• • facetime while I show the other party the notes that I’m taking physically 
  • zoom call with my friend and screenshare the notes I take digitally 

The first option did not seem too digital — in the end, the only digital transaction was me being on the phone, and I didn’t feel that it was a fully immersive digital experience. The second option was going to be my resort, but the laptop and broken last Thursday, and I did not own a stylus, so I decided to look for an alternative option. Therefore, with the only functioning device that I have being my phone, I decided to call my friend, screen record my phone, while sharing a miro board with my friend. 

DIGITALIZATION?:

Thankfully, there was a miro board app that I could download onto my phone, so I proceeded to do that. We called, and I started to jot down notes. At first, it was a bit odd and uncomfortable — it felt weird to write things with my finger rather than a pen. I couldn’t record the actual voice call, but I thought it would also be interesting to see what people assume the conversation topics were purely based on my notes and doodles. Here I am on a call with my friend, Tom, and the 20-minute conversation that I had with him is all digitally (and visually) recorded on this video: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F_aB_aEPmzXAuAJNeBvXF9VcFUvkATTT/view?usp=sharing

What was accomplished? 

Through digitalizing my doodling ritual, I realized my tendency to disassociate while doing an activity that only utilizes one part of my body/sense. Although I don’t particularly think that getting ‘distracted’ is a negative thing, I do think it portrays my strengths and weaknesses. For example, I think my behavior shows that I am capable of doing multi-functioning things at once, or I enjoy participating in activities that I can truly give all that I have to. In other words, I strive to not only contribute mentally (‘intellectually’) but also physically (hard labor). Nevertheless, others may view it from a negative perspective and comment on my lack of ability to focus on one simple task. To be frank, I can’t really argue with that side either. However, I do think the reason why I get distracted doing a simple task is that it bores me in a way — I need something to stimulate multiple parts/senses of my body. 

Regardless, both physical and digital rituals of doodling had the same effect on my body. Both provide me a sense of ease and entertainment or this feeling of being occupied. I can’t solidify exactly how I feel when I do these, but I think I might be enjoying the feeling of being ‘busy,’ which then my brain translates to work being done. Therefore after finishing the call, I would have a greater sense of achievement — this feeling of getting more things done in a limited time, or this feeling of getting two birds with one stone (although I’m really not getting anything practical done). Then, because I enjoy this sensation, I repeatedly generate these “behavior with intention”, which then creates this positive feedback loop that has been affecting my mind and body for at least a decade.- 

It was also intriguing to see how my friend was interacting with my behavior. Contrary to when I doodle on a physical paper (where no one but me can see it unless I decide to share), sharing my semiconscious thought process with another person gave me a different sensation.  I didn’t particularly feel like I was being watched. However, my friend did ask from time to time about why I made certain chooses, like why I chose to write down a word or why I chose to draw a worm in the color purple (p.s. we were not talking about worms). These questions made me reevaluate the unconscious choices that I was making, which was an interesting self-reflection that I’ve never really done before. The digitalization of my ritual made it possible for me to somewhat ‘interact’ with an audience and publicizing my ritual gave me a lot of thrill in a way because I felt like I was opening up something private that I’ve never really shown to anyone.