Summary
To introduce historical conceptions of identity
To introduce Foucault’s ‘discourse’ methodology
To place and critique contemporary practice within these frameworks, and to consider their validity
To consider ‘postmodern’ theories of identity as ‘fluid’ and ‘constructed’ (in particular Zygmunt Bauman)
To consider identity today, especially in the digital domain
Theories of identity
ESSENTIALISM (traditional approach)
Our biological make up makes us who we are.
We all have an inner essence that makes us who we are.
POST MODERN THEORISTS DISAGREE
Post-Modern theorists are ANTI-ESSENTIALIST (more of this later …)
born a certain way - makes us who we are - stereotypes are made from this.
identity can be fluid and constructive
Phrenology - fact science. idea that it is an ideal make up. essentialist view point - perfect ratio of brain make up - right make up will have a well balanced identity.
Criminal tendencies can be made from having one element more than another.
Physiognomy - intelligence according to the angle of your face.
anglo teutonic is superior.
Superman - Nazi german ideas of the perfect man being blue eyed with blonde hair.
Hieronymous Bosch (1450 - 1516)
Christ carrying the Cross, Oil on panel, c. 1515
Facial characteristics - legitimates anti Semiticsm.
His version of the Holy Virgin Mary - Using logical ideas. Giving Mary blck features as Jesus was not a perfect blonde and blue eyed human.
Image was withdrawn from New York galleries as hey believed it was wrong to show Mary as not a European woman.
Histroical Phases of identity
Douglas Kellner – Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and
Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern, 1992
pre modern identity – personal identity is stable – defined by long standing roles
Modern identity – modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibility to start ‘choosing’ your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to ‘worry’ about who they are
Post-modern identity – accepts a ‘fragmented ‘self’. Identity is constructed
Pre modern Identity
Institutions determined identity
Marriage, The Church, monarchy,
Government, the State, Work
‘Secure’ identities
Farm-worker - landed gentry
The Soldier -The state
The Factory Worker - Industrial capitalism
The Housewife - patriarchy
The Gentleman - patriarchy
Husband-Wife (family) - Marriage/church
Modern identity
19th and early 20th centuries
Charles Baudelaire – The Painter of Modern Life (1863)
Thorstein Veblen – Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
Georg Simmel – The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903
Baudelaire – introduces
concept of the ‘flaneur’
(gentleman-stroller)
Veblen – ‘Conspicuous
consumption of valuable
goods is a means of
reputability to the
gentleman of leisure’
Lower classes aspire to move up social class and start to wear clothing which mimics that of the upper class. The upper class always looks for new things to wear to stop the bridges of the gap.
‘The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on the train, or in the traffic of a large city’
Makes the point that showing off is actually an alienating way of life...
Simmel suggests that:
because of the speed and mutability of
modernity, individuals withdraw into
themselves to find peace
He describes this as
‘the separation of the subjective from the
objective life’
Post Modern Identity
‘… a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural ‘object’ (e.g., madness, criminality, sexuality) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed.’ Cavallaro, (2001)
Possible discourses
Age
Class
Gender
Nationality
Race/ethnicity
Sexual orientation
Education
Income
Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
Discourses to be considered:
Class
Nationality
Race/ethnicity
Gender and sexuality
Race and Gender are often being known as "the otherness"
Class
To identify other peoples identity you need to be aware of your own
Looking how "the other half' live.
Typical representation of what a nothern pub might look like if your a southerner.
Making a loaded statement that the people up north may be cultured bu no one goes to the theaters to see the culture.
Showing what his perception of identity is.
“Society” …reminds one of a particularly shrewd,
cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life,
cheating if given a chance, flouting rules whenever
possible
Are these people at the ascot actually high society ? Is it making a social comment about class ?
Nationality
You can have New york, Paris etc. 73% of Americans don't have passports.
‘I didn’t like Europe as much as I liked Disney World. At
Disney World all the countries are much closer together, and
they just show you the best of each country. Europe is more
boring. People talk strange languages and things are dirty.
Sometimes you don’t see anything interesting in Europe for
days, but at Disney World something different happens all the
time, and people are happy. It’s much more fun. It’s well
designed!’
Do you need a national or cultural identity if you can put it all in one place?
Race / Ethnicity
Chris Ofili
An artist that bases his work on his ethnicity and race.
Draws using raster colours and references Bob Marley
Uses elephant dung to display his work. Possibly trying to show how a white person sees a black person.
Captain Shit - what he believes a black person superhero would be called in a marvel comic.
Is this making a statement about black people ?
Does he use symbols which show power between black and white.
Emily Bates, Textile Designer/Artist
Talks about how she spent her teenage years getting called 'ginger'
‘Hair has been a big issue throughout my life… It often felt that I was
nothing more than my hair in other peoples’ eyes’
Gender & Sexuality
The idea that male fashion designers are homosexuals.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills, 1977 - 80
Poses her self like film stills.
The idea of Masquerade and how you can hide away behind fashion.
Artists tend to be men and if you are a woman you are named a 'woman artist" which draws attention to the difference.
Tracey Emin, Everyone I have ever slept with
Contains grandparents and siblings not only people she has had sex with.
Germain Gereir writes about Sam Taylor-wood saying that women need to do deal with their own sexuality to become a female artist.
Wonderbra
Is the advertisement making a point that women with large breats are stupid and can not cook?
Post modern theory
Identity is constructed through our social experience.
Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
Goffman saw life as ‘theatre’, made up of ‘encounters’ and ‘performances’
For Goffman the self is a series of facades
Zygmunt Bauman
‘Yes, indeed, “identity” is revealed to us only as something to be invented rather than discovered; as a target of an effort, “an objective”
Argues that it is something you can strive for now. It doesn't matter where you were born or how you were born.
Gillian Wearing, from Signs that say what you want them to say
and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say, 1992 - 3
‘We use art, architecture, literature, and the rest, and advertising as well, to
shield ourselves, in advance of experience, from the stark and plain reality in
which we are fated to live’.
Rene Descartes
(1596 – 1650),
Enlightenment
Philosopher:
‘I think therefore I am’ (Discourse on Method, 1637)
“The typical cultural spectator of
postmodernity is viewed as a largely home
centred and increasingly solitary player who,
via various forms of ‘telemediation’ (stereos,
game consoles, videos and televisions),
revels in a domesticated (i.e. private and
tamed) ‘world at a distance’”
“If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my
favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation
of who I am in order to get sex or approval. (‘I like
Facebook,’ said another friend. ‘I got a shag out of it’)”
Tom Hodgkinson (2008), ‘With friends like these …’, Guardian, 14/01/08
“The notion ‘you are who you pretend to be’ has a mythic
resonance. The Pygmalion story endures because it
speaks to a powerful fantasy: that we are not limited by our
histories, that we can be recreated or can recreate
ourselves... Virtual worlds provide environments for
experiences that may be hard to come by in the real”
Sherry Turkle (1994), Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality
‘In the brave new world of fleeting chances and frail
securities, the old-style stiff and non-negotiable identities
simply won’t do’
Bauman (2004), Identity, page 27
Two people who married after second life and he married someone else while on the game
BBC2 documentary - online adultery and cyber space love.
People look nothing like they perceive online, so it always end up being a tragic relationship.
