Stress plays a huge role in our mental and physical health, and is a serious issue among so many people. Personally, I feel stressed virtually all the time, and I think it’s a major concern.
This composition represents stress levels of American teens. In a survey of 35,000 participants, 82% said their stress levels ranged from sometimes to all the time. In my piece, the red spiky circle represents the ratio of teens who said that they are stressed all of the time, with orange being sometimes, yellow being rarely, and green being never. When you click on a shape, it will shake a different amount depending on the stress level. (The red circle shakes the most, with each shaking a decreasing amount based on its size.) The amount the circle is spiked represents stress level as well. In the video, the red is slower than it is in reality because it lags a bit when I record.
I am thinking of adding sound when the circles are clicked on, but I don’t know what sounds would fit for varying stress levels. Suggestions would be appreciated!
Update: Unfortunately due to laptop issues I lost my project file and cannot add anything without starting over. 🙁 Thus, I won’t be adding any sounds to the project. Thank you all for the suggestions! I was planning on doing a humming sound that turns into a more dissonant buzzing as the circles for increased stress levels are clicked.
Two ideas for what sound you could add. Either a low rumbling sound like an earthquake, or a sustained electric shock. I recommend you consider the idea of changing the size and number of spikes depending on your sound effect. Many small spikes make the object seem large, while fewer large spikes make the object seem small. It looks good as is, but a different size may or may not fit better depending on the sound effect.
This is a really really effective piece at showing stress and anxiety. The movement and interaction instantly causes a pang of anxiety the way it seems to move out of your control. Normally you would expect to control how something moves when you click on it, but the unpredictable nature of the movement upon the interaction is great for what you’re shooting for. If you wanted to add audio my permissioned opinion is that each of them causes an unpredictable drum beat. The higher stress ones could be higher pitch, and the green can be more of a low hum. I notice the colors and their intensity with the stress as well. Great artistic decisions, love it!
This piece depicts varying levels of stress very well. I think having sounds of dissonance could really add to the piece, showcasing the discordance of stress.
How did you decide where to place the objects in relation to one another?
I wanted to choose a visually pleasing arrangement while also minimizing any overlap (because they’re actually square planes, and so the black part of the texture would cover other shapes if they overlapped).
In terms of suggestions for sounds maybe like increasing the chaoticness of the sound with higher stress levels would be interesting, so high stress levels have a very eerie anxiety inducing sound and the lower stress levels have a more peaceful sound
For sound suggestions, I think that one potential way to differentiate between them, in addition to tempo and pitch (which others have mentioned), is the amount of processing. Sometimes synthetic or warped sounds/instruments can give off a more erratic and stressed vibe vs more natural and acoustic sounds that tend to have more calming connotations and vibes. Obviously this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule in music/sound, just a thought.
Would adding sound effects to each object (sounds that cause stressful reactions, like maybe nails on a chalk board for the red one) further convey your message?
I think sounds would be great for the piece. When the orange and yellow ones were clicked, I did not see much of a difference between them, but adding sound might distinguish them more.
To answer your question, I think the sounds that you can add would be a shaking earthquake sound or a sound that invokes stress when it gets louder. This could show how the red circle would be the loudest and most stressful sounding going down.
I have to agree with a few previous commenter that different pitches synthesized by a function would add to each of the circles. I would assume higher for more stress and lower and slower for less stress. It would go along well with the vibrations you added which fit the piece perfectly!