31/05 - Happiness has the color sun

First I thought the subject in a context of negative feelings. Probably because of the example of paranoia, it may have distracted me a bit. I suffer of panic attacks every once in a while so those feelings of paranoia, fear and agony are familiar to me. But they've never changed how I see the world. If anything, those moments have changed how I see myself.

But I've had those moments too - moments when you are so absorbed to the moment you feel connected to the world in a different way than before. In a pure, deep way. For me those moments have always been moments of joy. Those quick instants when you can't feel anything than pure happiness for a while. I then feel like I were part of my environment, not a separate being.

Next I had to think how I would put those moments in a form of a picture. I'm more a photographer than any other kind of an artist, so I chose photos as my way. Colours are very important to me. I see the world first in colours and after that come sounds, shapes etc. Colours are the first thing I pay attention to, and the last thing I remember. I remember colours better than happenings or people. When I think some kind of emotion, I often see it as a colour.

So I chose these two photographs that show my colours of happiness. I can't explain why, but the colours of sunset are the ones I connect to the moments of joy. These pictures are taken in a different location and different time, but there's something similar in the atmosphere of them. At least to me. When I look at these pictures I remember those passing moments I were so happy it almost hurt.

For me it's in the pink, orange, yellow and lilac.

31/05 - NY

The building were I stayed was on 96th and Broadway. New York was in the middle of a heat wave, and I had no other choice than sleeping with all the windows open every night. 24 hours a day, I was exposed to heavy traffic noise, sounds of street fights, sirens and all other sounds you find in a city of this size. I took the boat to Staten Island. you'd expect one to feel very at ease there, away from the big city, in a quiet suburb. But it was just that what gave me a very strange feeling. I couldn't stand the silence, my heart rate went up, I started sweating and I felt very uncomfortable. From the diner where I was eating a burger, you could see the Manhattan skyline, and I just HAD to go back there, because this feeling was getting increasingly worse. I felt like a bee that has gotten too far away from his beehive called Manhattan. I got so used to the citylife, I couldn't stand this boring peaceful place. I knew this was about to happen one day, because this sort of panicattacks run in the family, I just never expect it to happen in a cute little diner on a tree lined suburban street...

this is the first picture I took when I got back on Manhattan, I threw away all the photo's I made on Staten Island.

26/5 - Oldskool

This one arrived by post

20/5 - MindFuck

is dit echt?
ben ik er ooit NIET meer?
wat is de keer van het bestaan?
Leegte? geen vast lichaam?
Hoe ben ik (ik?) hier ooit beland?
Ben ik "DAT" of mezelf?

19/5 - Out of Body

This should be an animated pic, but gif doesn't seem to work..
eitherway, still looks good :)

18/5 - A most colorful zetafrustration by Rieman

17/5 - Some further explanations

A few days after I started this project, it turned out a lot of people didn't quite understand what this thing was all about.
Some of my friends thought I was sending out spam, some mistook the story about paranoia as the main theme, and so on.
So just to clear things out:

The aim of this project is to gather 'visual outcomes';
I'm asking people from all over the world, to create something visual
(drawings, paintings, poems, collages, photographs, ... you name it)
based on a deep emotion, causing a transition in the way you perceive this world. This could be based on an experience you had in the past, as well as a recent one. Off course, one of the strongest emotions that binds us all is fear, hence the paranoia-story as an example. I got a very interesting reply on this topic that I'd like to share with you.


I think this is very interesting topic you came with here.
I have some experience with paranoia and fear and of course it is touching everyone of us.
They are mostly affected by use of different kind of drugs. I know lots of people who were so paranoic that they barely get ot of house or pick up a phone. Especialy speeds(amphetamine) dugs and all other stimulants are very common cause of paranoia.
What I know about these drugs is that they are stimulating production of serotonin, which is a a natural drug in our bodies responsible for happines and probably also self confidence. The more of the drug you take, the more you are damaging centers producing this serotonin. That means the body is not able to produce it and you are not able to be happy. Also you are less and less selfconfident, and if you are not self confident you are afraid of people.
Of course life is not just a chemical sentence and the same thing can happend without use of any drugs in some cases.
Or it can be flash back effect of some drugs taken long time ago.
Our brain is a mystery even for the biggest scientists even now.
The best solution I came up with was to think straight as much as possible in the situation. I mean to concentrate on what is the reason of my fear and what is the worse thing that can happen .. I know it is not easy in the moment, but I know it works. It is the only thing I have tried with some succes ..
So I hope some of it will help a little for your research or your life ..

Although this wasn't the kind of reply I expected, I was very happy to get this story; and I hope it can be of some help to anyone who reads it. So, your answer to my question does not necessarily have to deal with paranoia, it might as well be a moment of pure joy that caused you to create an image/text. Perhaps induced by drugs, as stated above.

By gathering all these different 'states of mind', I hope to find some recurring symbols or similarities in the images and texts,
that point out a certain structure in the way we express our emotions. I'm not trying to prove that a collective consciousness exists and it is not my intention to debate this philsophy, but either way, I guess it could be very helpful to get an insight in all the different ways people come up with to handle their experiences. So we might all learn from one another.

17/5 - First Reply