- Historical conceptions of identity
- Foucault's discourse methodology
- Place and critique contemporary practice within these frameworks
- Postmodern theories of identity as 'fluid and 'constructed'
- Identity today, especially in the digital domain
Theories of identity
(Modern period - modernity and industrial revolution)
- Essentialism (traditional approach - inner essence)
- Our biological make up makes us who we are
- We all have an inner essence that makes us who we are
- Post modern theories disagree and are anti-essentialist
Phrenology
- No underlying theory
- These parts of the brain 'formulate' who you are
- The 'balance' of your personality
Cesare Lombroso (1835 - 1909), an Italian thinker, was the founder of Positivist Criminology, the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited and passed through genetics. He suggests that facial characteristics, for example, define who we are.
Physiognomy
Facial characteristics 'equate' level of intelligence
'Legitimising' racism, suggests there is evidence to support it
Gives the impression that the white middle class are racially superior
Art work
Hieronymous Bosch (1450 - 1616) Christ carrying the Cross
The majority of characters appear grotesque with exaggerated facial features
Jesus Christ and a female follower appear 'normal' in comparison
Chris Ofili (1996) Holy Virgin Mary
Paints the Virgin Mary as a black woman in relation to his African origin
Used elephant dung to demonstrate his black origins
Historial phases of identity
- Pre modern identity - personal identity is stable and defined by long standing roles. What your father does influences your path within society.
- Modern identity (1750) - modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. There is a possibility to start 'choosing' your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to 'worry' about who they are. People began to move from the country to the cities which results in the rise of the working class.
- Post modern identity - accepts a 'fragmented self' (many assets). Identity is constructed.
Pre-modern identity
Institutions within society determined your identity and maintained patriarchy - marriage, the church, monarchy, government, the state, work (given most women never worked).
'Secure' identities
- Farm worker - Landed gentry
- Soldier - The state
- Factory worker - Industrial capitalism
- Housewife / gentleman - Patriarchy
- Husband / wife - Marriage / church
Modern identity
19th and early 20th centuries
Charles Baudelaire (1863) The Painter of Modern Life
Introduces concept of the 'flaneur' (gentleman-stroller - any word that ends in -eur is male orientated)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848 - 94) Le Pont de l'Europe (1876)
Thorstein Veblen (1899) Theory of the Leisure Class
German theorist. 'Leisure class' - those who do not have to go to work. Defined by fashion and the clothes you wear - something which people aspired to. 'Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman leisure.'
Georg Simmel (1903) The Metropolis and Mental life
Establishment of the modern city. Relates a note of social anxiety and concern about who you are and how you fit within society. Trickle down theory, emulation, distinction, the 'mask of fashion'. The upper classes are seen as wearing the newest fashion which the lower classes aspire to - the only way to achieve this is to emulate and copy what they are wearing. The upper classes wanted to distinguish themselves from the lower classes so find something new to wear which initiates another cycle of emulation and distinction (much like the modern day)
'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 int he traffic of a large city'. - The condition of identity becomes more alien and isolated. Simmel suggests that because of the speed and mutability of modernity, individuals withdraw into themselves to find peace.
Post-modern identity
'Discourse Analysis' - Michael Foucault
Identity is constructd out of the discourses culturally available to us. '...a set of recurring statements that defined a particular cultural 'object' (e.g. madness, criminality, sexuality)'.
Possible discourses (those to be considered in bold)
- Age
- Class
- Gender
- Nationality
- Race / ethnicity
- Sexual orientation
- Education
- Income
- ...and so on
Class
The current class system came into being with the industrial revolution when people began moving to cities and working in factories - the working class emerged. The upperclass wanted to maintain a sense of distinction with the lower class
Humphrey Spender / Mass Observation (1937) Worktown project / Worktown people
Mass observation formed by 'upper class' members of society who decided to look / observe how the lower classes lived. North and south divide - the north being observed by the south. Images have loaded suggestions in terms of culture, wealth etc.
Martin Parr
(1983 - 86) New Brighton, Merseyside from The Last resort
He gives the impression he is documenting the world as he sees it but is seen as condescending by others. The photographs do not 'glamorise' these holiday destinations.
(2003) Ascot
'Society... reminds one of a reticular shrewd, cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life, cheating if given a chance, flouting rules whenever possible'. Martin Parr was shrewd in capturing 'life' and social identities which people may not belong to.
(2000 - 2003) Sedlescombe from Think of England - Cliche stereotyping
Fashion
Alexandar McQueen, Highland Rape collection, Autumn / Winter (1995 - 6)
'Much of the press coverage centred around accusations of misogyny because of the imagery of semi-naked, staggering and brutalised women, in conduction with the word 'rape' in the title. But McQueen claimed that the rape was of Scotland (by the English in the 18th century), not the individual models, as the theme of he show was the Jacobite rebellion.' - Statement of national identity
Vivienne Westwood, Anglomania collection, Autumn / Winter (1993 - 4) - Taunt at Scotland and their place within English society. Uses tartan as a symbol of 'English-ness'.
Las Vegas
Fluid nature of national identity within the contemporary world.
Many identities combined in one place - Sphinx, pyramids etc
'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 happens al the time, and people are happy. It's much more fun. It's well designed!'
A college graduate just back from her first trip to Europe (1995), The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture, London, Thames and Hudson, page 139
Chris Ofili
No Woman, No Cry (1998)
Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars (1994)
Relates to his childhood and his obsession with art and comic books. He devises his own superhero entitled 'Captain Shit' and again, uses elephant dung within his work.
Gillian Wearing
From Signs that say what you want them to say and no signs that say what someone else wants you to say (1992-3). He asked the public to write down their feelings on a piece of card which he subsequently photographed (Volkswagen replicated this idea). Is it a perception of race or is what they are really saying?
Emily Bates
Emily Bates is a Scottish textile designer and artist. 'Hair has been a big issue through my life... it often felt that I was nothing more than my hair in other peoples' eyes'. She uses the image of Mary Magdalane (Titian, 1532) as an inspiration for her work - Magdalane was referred to as a promiscuous prostitute. She created a dress out of her own red hair - used as an installation piece as opposed to a piece of clothing.
Gender and sexuality
Wilson, E. (1985) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity
'...the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men. Its monstrosities, he argued, were a 'gigantic unconscious hoax' perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the Cold War - male homosexuals'. He made a mass assumption that many fashion designers are male homosexuals who had a hatred for women.
Masquerade and the mask of femininity
Cindy Sherman (1977 - 80) Untitled Film Stills
Plays with societies perception of women in the media. She tries to emulate this perception by placing herself, as the subject, in difference scenarios.
Female artists
Women breaking into a world which is typically viewed as male dominated.
Sam Taylor-Wood, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin
The Postmodern condition
Liquie modernity and liquid love (Zygmunt Bauman)
Identity is constructed through out social experience
Erving Goffman - precursor of these ideas 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life' - life is like a theatre where each act you decide what to wear, how to act etc
Andy Hargreaves (2003)
'In airports and other public spaces, people with mobile-hone headset attachment walk around, talking aloud and alone, like paranoid schizophrenics, oblivious to their immediate surroundings. Introspection s a disappearing act.'
Theodore Levitt (1970)
'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 were are fated to live'.
Postmodern identity
Rene Descartes - 'I think therefore I am' - justifying your existence by the thoughts you have
Barbara Kruger - 'I shop there I am' - contemporary, we are defined by what we buy
Darley (2000)
'The typical cultural spectator of postmodernity is viewed as a largely home centred and increasingly solitary player who via various forms of telemediation, revels in a domesticated 'world at a distance'
Sherry Turkle (1994) - 'The notion 'you are who you pretend to be' has a mythic resonance'
