ILLNESS AS metaphor
DATE : 2020
ROLE : GRAPHIC DESIGNER
TYPE : SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT
TEAM : QIXUAN HU & SHANGLI QIAN
Visual essay on social phenomenon in the context of epidemic situation
The critical Design course opened in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. We took the news events that were happening in the society at that time as the thinking background to discuss the relationship between people in the epidemic, the relationship between people and things, and the possible changes in people's behavior and thinking in the post-epidemic era. We organized these views and literature materials as theoretical supports of speculative design into a visual paper and presented them in the form of books.
思辨设计课程于2020年初开题，正逢疫情最令人恐慌的时期。我们以当时社会正发生的新闻事件作为思考背景，探讨疫情中人与人的关系、人与物的关系、后疫情时代人们行为和思想可能发生的变化。我们将这些作为思辨设计的理论支撑的观点和文献资料整理为一份视觉论文以书籍的形式呈现出来。
How can absurd associations lead to discrimination
自武汉人受排斥开始，演变成湖北人受排挤、华人受歧视、热干面滞销、鄂牌照车辆遭损毁。日本Twitter上的评论者称中国人是“生物恐怖分子”；多伦多的“热干面1950”面馆，由于面馆的名称中有“武汉”字样遭到批评甚至辱骂；意大利威内托大区区长称“中国人爱吃活老鼠才付出惨痛的代价”。
从结果一路追溯到源头，疫情就变成了上天对华人的一种审判，同时启动了道德和风尚的不可阻挡的抨击。我们自觉这样的联想是荒谬的——对在武汉的人说一声“武汉加油”，对不在武汉的武汉人却大喊“滚出去”。我们不禁发问，人类的理性到哪去了？
人类在面对来源不明并危及自身安全的传染病时，出于生理本能地产生恐慌，并急于摆脱这种不安全感，将这种恐慌投射到任何可以具象批判的事物上，好将自己和病毒从道德和心理上隔离，歧视行为由此产生。之后语义联想便充当了歧视蔓延的助燃剂。索绪尔认为，“语言符号只有通过心里联想才能和语义挂钩”。Collins和Quillian的符号网络模型指出，人脑的思考模式是在网络节点之间进行检索，只有当在当下的节点里提取出的知识能够回答或解决某个特定的问题，检索才会停止。
客观语符输入后，经过个人知识经验联想发酵，因人而异可以得到不同结果，在焦虑恐慌等心理因素的影响下，疫情下的语义联想走向了负面和荒诞，有些甚至被付诸行动，给他人和社会造成实质伤害。
语言是人类文明的产物，可以创造文学理想国也可以成为杀人利器。我们需要意识到自己是如何陷入荒诞语义联想的罗网中，正将语言引向何处，无限的联想最后是否可以将一切词汇与病毒关联？是否可能通过完善语境来断绝荒诞联想？
idea in the details
Size: 99 * 210 mm
Designed in a size that can be held in one hand, the book is bound with a riding book, referring to the texture of the cheap notebooks used in school days. The binder is printed with silver ink on black paper.
尺寸：99*210mm
以单手可以握住的尺寸来设计这本小手册，在装订方式上使用了骑马订，参考了学生时期使用的廉价记事本的质感。
夹页使用了银色油墨在黑色纸上的印刷方式。
say something
In this project, I read a large number of written materials, from historical documents related to infectious diseases to linguistic academic papers to the book <Illness as Metaphor> by Susan Sontag. Extracting text information and editing reasonable article structure was a big challenge for me. Fortunately, with the cooperation of my teammates, I learned to use tree diagram and simple pyramid principle.
在这次课题中我阅读了大量的文字资料，从传染病相关的历史文献到语言学学术论文再到书籍《疾病的隐喻》苏珊桑塔格。提取文字信息编辑合理的文章结构，对我来讲是一次挺大的挑战，好在有队友的共同协作，也从中学习到运用树状图和简单的金字塔原理。
THANK YOU!
