Recently I have been feeling quite lost in the way I convey my project and felt the need to redefine my research question. I had trouble with identifying the focal point of my topic, failed to address my topic in a clear and succinct matter, and conveyed it in a wrong way. I’m redefining it right now in order to gain evidence and feedback from the area that I had always intended it to.

6.14 about education

For my project, result-based education acts as part of the “compost heap” in the mind for me as a writer/creator of fiction.

For my intervention on May 13th, I created a fictional, exaggerated version of results-based culture. My aim is NOT to create change in the structure of the Chinese education system(it’s impossible). It’s to use the negative experience of an individual to create something beautiful. A piece of speculative fiction like Black Mirror is only going to reveal an incident to possible stakeholders rather than change the incident itself. But revealing as an action does create change.

The intervention does provide evidence to a research question, but not the research question that I chose before. I need to doublecheck the function of interventions and the specific field that I want to change.

Research Question updated up till now: How can we measure the impact of fantasy-based fiction?

A project on fiction, unlike a design project, doesn’t have stakeholders in a particularly focused field, and the impact it creates is relatively intangible. It inspires change in individuals rather than creating tangible change itself.

Went to see Yoko Ono’s exhibition at Tate. I personally didn’t really chime with her way of performing but I really loved one of her works——Bag Piece. Because I truly felt nameless and without identity in that bag.

Being in an interdisciplinary background, I found it hard to pick a specific field and harder to link all the fields that I had an interest on together. Which is an area that I need to work on.

Dragon’s Den was a very fruitful experience. I gave a brief 5-min-intro of my project to the 2 Dragons, and they pointed out that the psychological impact of my most recent intervention(the Ministry of Potential) didn’t provide direct evidence to my topic.

However, the presentation on Dragon’s Den was the first time where I felt that I had the 3 different areas in balance, and more importantly, could explain the narrative of the project thoroughly to an audience. This is concrete progress for me as a writer and artist.

My question up till now is: How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?

My main issue now is the cycle of research and interventions. I need a more logical link between my topic, the research that backs it up, and the interventions that fuels the research.

Going to upload the most recent changes of my project in a few days. The content below is the presentation I gave for Dragon’s Den on Jun.4th, 2024.

P1
[WHAT]&[WHY]
My topic focuses on 3 areas, fiction, psychology(mental health), and Chinese (education) systems.

I’m aiming to write a story, a tale that deprogrammes result-based education. Or disrupts the psychological impact of results-based education.

There’s a phenomenon in the education system in China which focuses on labelling an individual based on the results of tests and exams, (the Chinese version of “teaching to the test”)and it has severely damaged the mental health of current students,
and it doesn’t stop after we graduate, result-based education fuels a continuing belief inside us and we project it into whatever environment we enter after school, which could do huge impact on how we choose our workspace and families and life basically. It’s almost a religion in China, a Religion of Results.

P2
[WHY]
I want to address this phenomenon from the perspective of fiction.
（’cause I find that my own experience in a result-based education background has a very 1984 quality to it)(a lot of things that I thought was normal when I was immersed in that narrative were almost gruesomely absurd when I looked back on that narrative from a God’s Eye view)

Any system that labels an individual casts a fictional shadow on them. In this project, students think their work/their grades define their whole personality.
Ppl are psychologically affected because they are taught to believe that this fictional shadow in that narrative is who they actually are.

In Chinese high schools, students live in a reality based on test results, ranks and they think their future is solely depended on that.
This psychological state is the by-product of a system that pushes society forward. Really successfully actually.

See, a system, any system contains a degree of order. Like this one. When this order causes pain to the individuals within it, even though it is beneficial in macroscopic terms, we’ll need to do sth to disrupt this order.
Which is the goal of this project.

P3-5
[HOW]
The first stage of this project is to create a fictional world based on this reality(which is the education system).

In the background of this world, there is a Ministry that promises fame, money, anything you want if you get in by taking a test.
(Next page)

The audience immerses into this narrative with their mindset already accustomed to the order of results(They take the test) This mindset is disrupted when they discover(by themselves or by me telling them) that it is actually a puzzle in the shape of a test.(original idea from the Mysterious Benedict Society)

The test consists of questions that has answers in another question. I’m aiming to disrupt the idea inside ppl’s heads of learning solely for the results.

P6
(At this stage I’m currently exploring the interactive part of storytelling.)I personally prefer interactive storytelling because it allows the audience to be part of the story. And that in my opinion will make greater impact.

The next step is to tweak the media of fiction I use to give my audience a more immersive experience.

I’m really inspired by psychological experiments like Stanford Prison and the Third Wave Experiment, because they succeeded in /actually creating an alternate reality /and convincing participants to believe in that reality.

I’m aiming for my project to create an alternate reality as believable as that.
Ultimately aim to disrupt that order which is instilled inside our heads.