In this post I have compiled all of the research I have gathered in my exploration of the Contact Lens room from my workplace. My research focused on both the aesthetic (illustration) as well as the literary (writing/ interviewing).
Below I have posted the written essay created as a way for me to rearrange my feelings in regards to the room. It was written completely through text-to-speech and follows a ‘word-vomit’ format where the reader is actively thinking and experiencing the journey.
“Today I brought my laptop in the room on my lunch break. Inspired by George Perec’s “The Street” I have analysed the room in the form of a mind flow. This has given me the opportunity to view the space from a different perspective, that of a patient getting their contact lenses checked.
It is a room with a door, a chair, a desk and a counter, there are roughly hundreds of organised contact lens boxes, dozens of unorganised contact lens boxes, approximately 200 test lenses, a computer, a screen, a keyboard, a mouse, a mousepad, pencil holder, three pens, a highlighter, a marker, a contact lens recycling box, two posters, a testing chair, a slit lamp, a keratometer, a testing screen, a trashcan, a medical trash can, two hand mirrors, a sink, an air conditioner, a lockbox, seven contact lens solution bottles, a carpet, twenty ceiling tiles. When in use, one would sit on the testing chair, a tall pleathered chair situated 20 feet away from the testing screen – that’s where 20/20 vision comes from, if you see all the letters with no struggle.
The optician would sit to your right questions about your lifestyle. How often do you stay on the computer? How many hours if you drive whether you wear glasses while driving? She’d ask you if you smoke, now, that’s a tricky question because you’re in a healthcare environment you will tell her that you smoke, but you don’t know how much and then does it really matter? It does. Now after these questions are done she might ask you? What do you do in your spare time? Why do you want to go with contact lenses? She’ll ask you are you sure this is the right fit for you? Lifestyle wise? Do you do a lot of swimming? And you’ll say perhaps why you should explain to you that contact lenses are not to be worn in water, that if you wear contact lenses in water then you run the risk of catching some bacteria that might make you go blind that puts you off slightly but not enough. You don’t wanna wear glasses anymore do you. Now she’ll look at your eye with a slit lamp and she’ll put in a bit of yellow dye. It’s going to be on a bit of a strip and it will seem weird like your eyes are suddenly watering. You can’t see it but she can. She can see the veins of your eyes and analyse if they’re right now this is crucial because if they’re not then there’s a likelihood that you can’t wear contact lenses and then you’ve just wasted your own time. She’ll take it outside and measure the size of your corneas. That’ll feel weird. You’re just looking at a house but how can she see that number? She’ll take it back inside and congrats? Your eyes are fitting for a contact lens then she’ll pull out a few blister packs of contact lenses. She already knows your prescription because you had an eye test done you are -5 so she’s going to take a -4.50 and then a -5 to try out to see whether one of the other work better usually the prescription for lens is going to be a bit lower than the prescription you have for your glasses. That’s because the contact lens lays flat against your cornea. In that case she goes with a -4.50 she tells you to open wide and pull slightly at your lower lid her fingers are glove and it feels a bit weird but she manages to pop the contact lens with ease. You look around. You look right, blink a few times and there you go look ahead. One has a contact lens and the other does not. How does the room look weird? Now the room is doubled you can see everything slightly reflected like all the sudden in the room had split itself and became a mess blurry and blurry. It’s equally sharp and equally confusing. You tried to close one eye and the room is blurry again, but then you both and it’s blurry again. You close your blurry eye and suddenly everything is sharp. It’s got a sharp edge to it. They never expected a contact lens. It feels as if you have something in your eye like an eyelash or a bit of dirt and you go to try to rub them and the optician stops you that’s how contact lenses feel okay alright in that case she goes ahead and popped in the second contact lens now everything is so sharp you look at the world. Your eyes are watering. You dab them up with a bit of a tissue and the room is sharp but you can’t quite put your finger on what is off about it. It feels like when you look at text, it’s slightly blurry, but you don’t tell the optician that’s just yet she runs you through a few screens of letters and tells you to read the second row the third row and you kind of struggle, she flashes a red and green screen and tells you which one feels more comfortable on top of it which one can you read? More easily? You choose one or the other and then she says I suppose in that case we might have to go with an astigmatism lens. She takes out the contacts and then pops in a different pair of contacts. These are thicker. They sting a little bit when they’ve put onto your eye you want to ask whether that’s supposed to happen but you don’t because you’re in a medical space you’re sure that your optician knows what she does. She states that they may burn a little bit and you’re shoulders ease because then it’s fine. Now you look at the boat again and the letters are so much clearer. It’s like they’ve developed the quality to them. Finally this is where you imagine having 2020 vision is it feels like it’s got the sharp edge to it that you never expected it would sure you see it with your glasses, but that’s because you’re attributed to the glasses now this feels luxurious. It feels like you’re pretending to be an all seeing person. Now you look around the room you’re regarded with a different kind of curiosity for the first time you realise that there are a lot of boxes in here? You look at each individually and analyse the colourful blueness of them. A lot of contact brands use the colour blue I guess it’s medical she lets you kind of sit for a minute and take the look of the room. You’re happy with this. You want this so she takes a look again in your eyes and they look to be alright there’s no damage to them and they make contact quite fine. You don’t have any reaction so she takes off the contact lenses and tells you that you will come back next week for a contact lens lesson.
you come back in the next week you got a call from the store. They’re telling you that they’ve got your contact lenses in and it’s time to get your teeth done. Are you walking into your appointment? They sign you in as normal and then they take you into the same room you discovered your site. On the counter there is now a small mirror and a tissue. There is a new employee now the optician isn’t there. She doesn’t do this part. She explains to you that to get your contact lenses and you have to wash your hands thoroughly logically you do that and soup and sod and rub away all that then you try off your hands carefully because you remember from last time that the optician warned you about water and contact lenses the employee reminds you too and it feels like they really want to hammer in the idea that contact lenses in water just don’t mix so you do as asked and sit down. She pops in front of you two boxes with the notes that one is left and one is right and you have to open them. You pull out the little packs. There are five individual blister contact lenses in each; you take out one and you pop open the lid. It doesn’t look like there’s any contact for a second. It just looks like there’s liquid but the employee let you know that it’s fine and that you have to go ahead and dip your finger in and scoop out the contact lens to your surprise. There is a contact lens inside you scoop it out and you flatten it onto at the bottom of your hand, you can see it’s ball shaped and with your other finger you slightly scoop it up on top of it now the opticians assistant explains that you have to pull slightly on the bottom of your lashes just as the optician did with your ring finger and hold the top of your lashes with your other hand that your eye is nice and open then with your pointer finger you will slide the contact lens onto your eye and it will slightly suction onto the cornea then you let go and the contact is in and the happy beautiful half mirroring doubling of the room develops you you did it you put your first contact lens in all by yourself you blink a few times and now it’s strange again the room has its weird double look to it but it’s slightly blurry but then it blends into it’s sharp of you….”
Another way of researching the space came through filling up an entire A6 sketchbook with illustrations based on the room and the equipment found within.
Lastly, my most ‘strange’ exploration was creating a ‘interview’ with my coworker regarding her feelings about the room. The reason there are quotes around the word interview is because this is not a 1-1 recreation of the conversation as it took place on shift, but a fictional retelling of it.
