This presentation looks at how media institutions use ideology to gain audiences. This is a good resource for A-Level Media Studies, key concepts. Also BTEC Level 3
This presentation looks at how media institutions use ideology to gain audiences. This is a good resource for A-Level Media Studies, key concepts. Also BTEC Level 3
Presented to ma'am Noshina Saleem (the acting Director of ICS, PU, Lahore).
This presentation will give an picture of ideology and its link to media and then how can it get power when ideology and media mix together. This is purely for academic purposes.
Presented to ma'am Noshina Saleem (the acting Director of ICS, PU, Lahore).
This presentation will give an picture of ideology and its link to media and then how can it get power when ideology and media mix together. This is purely for academic purposes.
CHARLES TAYLOR The Ethics of Authenticity Charles Tayl.docxbissacr
CHARLES TAYLOR
The Ethics of Authenticity
Charles Taylor (1931- ) is a Canadian philosopher who has written on a
wide variety of subjects, especially on ethics and identity. His largest and
most influential work, Sources of the Self (1989) , examines the historical
and philosophical backgrounds to the ways in which those of us living in
modern, Western societi es have come to think about who we are and how
we should live. The reading below is from a shorter work, The Ethics of Au-
thenticity, which critically examines the distinctively modern way in whic h a
la rge numbe r of people in the West, perhaps a majority of them, speak
about and think about their own lives and the lives of others .
The select ion begins in the third chapter, which is entitled "The
Sources of Authenticity." How does Taylor's account help you to under-
stand such frequent ly hea rd phrases as "do your own thing" and "deciding
for myself"? It looks like American popular culture is constantly offering
us images of people whom we should emulate, as in the case of Michael
Jordan above. Yet , according to Taylor, moderns are reluctant even to "find
models to live by outside of ourselves." Is Taylor right? Is there some way
to explain this apparent contradiction?
In th e middle part of the excerpt below, Taylor tries to do something
very important for the purposes of this enti re anthology. He shows us why
and how we must ta lk and reason with each other about the many ques-
tions that pe rplex us about our lives. It is not enough just to express our-
selves and move on, agreeing to "accept all points of view." How does Tay-
lo r describe or propose that we go about helping one another to reach
deeper t ruth about who we really are and how we should live ?
Ta ylo r says that questions of identity provide the indispensable back-
From Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard Un iversity Press, 1991) , pp.
25-53.
49
VOCABULARIES Authenticity
ground for questions about our desires and aspirations. Indeed, he argues
that our identities were first formed in dialogue with others and that our
identities continue to be "dialogically" formed. When we listen to our-
selves to try to discover what we should do and who we should be, we of-
ten find several voices speaking to us, not one. My self is not one voice
struggling to be heard but a medley of voices that sometimes sing in uni-
son , sometimes in discord. More important still, we continue to define
and discover our identities in company with others. Identity formation is a
collective project.
Taylor thinks that it is "crazy" to think that we can simply decide what
is significant for us or for others. Yet many of us speak and think as
though this were possible. Do you agree with Taylor that we are deeply
mistaken if we believe that significance is simply a matter of personal
choice? "I can define my own identity," he writes, "on ly against a back•
ground of th.
The power of the image: Contemporary art, gender, and the politics of perceptionDeborahJ
The relation between visual representations and the identity of the human subject.
The ideas and research that have informed this lecture are grounded in the areas of queer theory, gender studies, critical race theory, and feminist studies.
The global image. from consumer culture to the digital revolution DeborahJ
The Global Image: From Consumer Culture to the Digital Revolution is focused on the way we engage with images in the post-Internet era, when they can be shared, reproduced, altered, and distributed more easily than ever before in human history.
Beyond the visual: The Body in Contemporary ArtDeborahJ
When we think of the Body in Contemporary Art we could consider a number of different and relevant aspects. For instance, the body - the human form - is central in art, traditionally the body was often used to explore allegory, beauty and sexuality and so on. But in the twentieth century there was a significant shift in both how the body was perceived, and how it was used to create art across a range of media, from painting and sculpture to installation, photography, video art, performance and participatory art. By considering the different roles played by the body in art, we can identify that there has been a shift from being the subject, for example, in a portraiture, to becoming an active presence in live and participatory events. Alongside this there has also been a significant transformation of the role of the audience, broadly speaking, from passive viewer to active participant.
This presentation crutinises how art practitioners are navigating the artworld, which in our contemporary, late capitalist society is arguably, increasingly regulated by free market conditions, managed in the artworld by the same bureaucrats, curators, dealers and gallery owners, roles that have encroached on the career of artists themselves.
Debates around the idea that the interrelation or the interaction between artwork and viewers has been modified with the practice of Relational Aesthetics.
How Art Works: Week 5 The Rise of the ismsDeborahJ
This lecture will:
Examine how artists sought to find a language that would adequately express the changes and disruptions associated with modern life
Attempt to capture the dialectical relationship between each movement and its predecessors
Make connections between historical events and art genres
Encouraged you to think of styles as useful tools for exploration and analysis, rather than as hard and fast academic definitions, and to relate to the art itself rather than to a merely conceptual idea
Is a picture worth 1,000 words? Textual AnalysisDeborahJ
This lecture will introduce semiotics or the semiology of art, a mechanism for deriving meaning that is considered to a more inclusive development of Panofsky’s Iconography
How Art Works: Week 1 The ‘unruly discipline’ DeborahJ
This lecture will:
introduce ways to think about art and its history and help you to understand how art historians go about their practice
look at some of the issues and debates that make up the disciple of Art History
offer some reconsiderations of art history
consider the importance of the gallery and museum
Aims of todays lecture:
To analyse the conditions in which contemporary art is produced
To (re) evaluate your function as an artist within a broad context
Address making a living in the current climate of instability and enforced austerity
Consider issues of free labour, particularly internships, in the cultural sector
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
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During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
3. Representation refers to
the use of language and
images to create
meaning about the world
around us.
These systems have rules
and conventions about
how to express and
interpret meaning.
4. Do systems of representation reflect the
world as it is, as a form of mimesis or
imitation, or do we construct the world
around us through our use of the systems of
representation?
Social constructionists argue that systems of
representation do not reflect an already
existing reality so much as they organize,
construct, and mediate our understanding of
reality, emotion, and imagination.
However, the distinction can often be
difficult to make.
Alasdair Gray
Self Portrait
5. ‘Expression’ is mediated
Painters in particular often hold onto the
notion of being a conduit of the
unconscious, existing on an interior self
Expressionism:
Denies (external) mediation, maintains the
notion of individual expression, of
‘natural’, it venerates the ‘touch of the
artist’ , the expressive indexical.
Abstract expressionism
They align themselves to the idea that
there is ‘a reality beyond representation’
and socio-historical connections are
severed.
The Expressive Fallacy:
Hal Foster
Jackson Pollock
6. Are these images simply a reflection or do they produce meanings?
7. How do each of these images represent different icons of motherhood?
8. How is the meaning of Edvard Munch’s, The Scream
(1893), changed in each new context? How does the
reproductions change the meaning of the original?
9. Society prefers to operate with fixed identities - they
help to divide people into groups, to 'push' the
groups into separated "boxes" and computer files
(hierarchical or nested into one another), to label
these boxes and files with names, numbers and
codes, and then to do with them all sorts of
manipulations. And above all, to exercise control.
Fluid Identities
10. For many people, answering questions about identity begins by listing
details that can be found on birth certificates–name, sex, ethnicity, and
family origins. People wishing to research their family histories locate
the birth certificates of known family members because these
documents provide essential information about the identities of
ancestors. The importance of birth certificates might suggest that
identity is basically fixed and stable from the time of birth. Consider sex
and ethnicity, two labels applied at birth that are at the heat of how
many people think about identity. Both are generally understood as
clear-cut categories from which identity is established.
Frida Kahlo,
My Birth (1932)
David Shrigley
12. For example the cultural markers of identity that we choose–such as the
types of cars we drive, the clothes we wear, and the music we listen to–
can affect our sense of identity. These markers allow us to label
ourselves and others as belonging to a particular social group or as
having certain shared interests or values.
Lucy McKenzie, “Bryan Ferry”
13. Orlan: a performance artists who uses her own body and the
procedures of plastic surgery to make ‘carnal art’
14. ID cards show proof of the ever-evolving
nature of identity. The photos in these
cards never seem up-to-date and many
of us carry pictures of family and friends
that are also out-of-date. Pull out one of
these old pictures or IDs and look for
details that reveal a now-discarded or
changed aspect of your identity.
15. We live in an age in which individual
identity is widely conceived of as an
artificial performance, a conglomeration
of signs through which we are (not
necessarily willingly) fixed.
Yet at the same time we claim these
socially imposed identities in order to
unite within identity politics with others
‘like us’. That is to say:
“We want our body to ‘be’ and yet we
assert priority of the spirit (or language)
over it; we and we are not our bodies.”
Jennifer Blessing, Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose:
gender Performance in Photography,
Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997, p112
Rrose Sélavy (Marcel Duchamp). 1921.
Photograph by Man Ray
16. One way to think of the
traditional distinction is to cite
Freud, who asserted that
although an individual's
identity is socially constructed,
not just naturally produced, the
form it takes is conditioned by
the inner psychological self.
21. Barbara Kruger
"Untitled (I shop, therefore I am)"
(1987)
Later, French writers like
Roland Barthes, Michel
Foucault, Jacques
Derrida and others
rejected the tradition of
Cartesian mind-body
dualism that resonated
in Rene Descartes’
dictum “ I think
therefore I am” which
expresses that our
identity is to be
characterised through
thought, whereas now
the focus of attention
was shifted towards
bodily experiences.
22. All identities, whether based on class, gender or ethnicity are social
constructions. And there is no doubt that identity-construction is
increasingly dependent on images.
23. There exist many theories that inform us that
identity is determined, in each of them
institutions play a crucial determining role; there
is the family, the school, the place of work and
increasingly the media.
Richard Billingham,
Liz Shaking Fist at Ray
(1995)
24. Lois Lane in the 1950's television
program Superman
Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #21
25. Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film
Still #6
Sherman’s images are not an invitation to look behind or through the
representation for the ‘real’ Sherman, but rather they are an
exploitation of this impulse to drive a wedge between the unified and
authentic inner self and the postmodern sense of an irrevocably
fragmented and culturally constituted subjectivity.
27. Sherman, Untitled #155, 1985.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #250, 1992
The seductive has been used to produce the grotesque.
She accentuates the detachment of her
mannequins thus highlighting the artificiality of
identities and body constructs.
In this sense her work is in line with recent
cultural theory that demonstrates the ways in
which identity, sexuality, nationality, or ethnicity
should be seen as partial, provisional and
constantly in process.
30. However the notion that an individual might gain a sense of authenticity and
connection with the self in and through the body is profoundly disturbed by the
unstable appropriations and ideological representations of the body throughout the
history of Western culture, and within an increasingly mediatized and technologically
driven world.
31. Germaine Greer in The Whole Woman (1999):
“Every woman knows that, regardless of her other
achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful...”
Martha Wilson
I Make Up the Image of My
Perfection/I Make Up the Image of
My Deformity (2007
32. In these images, the woman is
hypersexualized, objectified and clearly
positioned for the male gaze.
Her naked body is used as space to
showcase men’s accessories. These
accessories (sunglasses, belts, bags,
etc.) are for sale and using a woman’s
bodies as the shelves to display implies
that women are available for
consumption as well.
33. In psychoanalytic film criticism, the gaze is not the
act of looking itself, but the viewing relationship
characteristic of a particular set of social
circumstances.
The concept of the gaze is fundamentally about the
relationship of pleasure and images.
34. In a typical female nude, a
woman is posed so that her body
is on display for the viewer, who
is implied to be male.
John Berger wrote that in his
history of images, “men act,
women appear.”
The traditional roles of men and
women are in upheaval and the
theoretical concept of the male
gaze has been rethought.
35. ‘Representation as a cultural process
establishes individual and collective
identities, and symbolic systems
provide possible answers to the
questions: who am I?; what could I
be?; who do I want to be?’
(p14).
On how identities are connected with the
world of media and the images which it
surrounds us with, she writes:
36. Even if we kept faith with a
mind/body split or a nature/culture
divide, body and mind have been
regarded as inextricably linked.
But there has been an explosion of
technological possibilities which have prized
oven this relationship loose, technologies that
outstrip our emotional and ethical grasp. For
instance, if reproductive technologies such as
IVF raise fundamental ethical questions then
asexual reproduction, cloning, reverberates
even louder/
37. Are there physical attributes that people have that remains unchanged
over time. The only plausible candidate here is DNA.
Maybe we should link personal identity to DNA.
This is problematic as it would imply that identical twins and clones are
nondistinct persons.
Marc Quinn has also explored the
potential artistic uses of DNA, making
a portrait of a sitter by extracting
strands of DNA
2001 witnessed the creation of the
DNA portraits, whose basis consists of
DNA that has been replicated by
means of standard cloning technology.
A portrait is thus not a copy of the
appearance of the person being
portrayed, but is actually his genetic
code.
38. Marc Quinn, Portrait of an artist as a young man, 2005, Painted bronze
Perhaps then we shouldn’t focus on looking for a property or properties that remain
unchanged over the life of the individual.
Maybe then we should look to specify the extent to which someone can change and
still be the same person
39. Gillian Wearing,
”Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else
wants you to say”, (1992-3)
40. USING THEIR OWN BLOOD AS THE MAIN INGREDIENT BEAGLES & RAMSAY MADE THEIR
“BLACK PUDDING SELF PORTRAIT”
41.
42. Bruce Nauman. My Name As Though It Were Written on the Surface of the
Moon (1968)
43. Bruce Nauman. Neon Templates of the Left Half of My Body
Taken at Ten-Inch Intervals (1966)
44. Marc Quinn. Self, 2001
Blood (artist's), stainless steel, perspex and refrigeration
equipment
45. Identity and Difference, edited by Kathryn Woodward in the
Culture, Media and Identities Open University series, published by
Sage (1997)
'This book is about identity because identity matters, both in terms
of social and political concerns within the contemporary world and
within academic discourses where identity has been seen as
conceptually important in offering explanations of social and
cultural changes...
Identity can be seen as the interface between subjective positions
and social and cultural situations... Identity gives us an idea of who
we are and of how we relate to others and to the world in which
we live. Identity marks the ways in which we are the same as
others who share that position, and the ways in which we are
different from those who do not.' (pp. 1-2).
46. Who I Am and What I Want,
a film by David Shrigley & Chris Shepherd
Editor's Notes
This powerpoint will be made available both through slideshare, an online…and as a pdf. Intentionally included quite a bit of text on the slides to help as an aid memoire.
So today’s theme is Identity. Under the rubric of this term there is a multitude of areas we can examine. For instance: What is identity? How is it created, defined, changed? How is identity articulated and represented?
Identity really is a complex concept, and the fact that its limited by hardly anything, makes it so broad that it is necessary to separate it into more manageable segments.
Notably, our ideas related to identity have changed over the years.
Compared to the assigning of identity upon individuals in the historical modern age, identity has become increasingly difficult to secure as a solid construction.
For example think of the changes in social identity from a feudal system where each of us have our place to our contemporary socially mobile society.
But what does this mean? In a positive social framework, say in a Western consumerist, capitalist country, now, more than any other time past, individuals can create their own identity, constructed of one’s own individual choices and desires.
In the context of visual culture, art can be an invaluable resource for examining the interplay of our values and ethical commitments, in addition to commenting profoundly on the human condition and identities.
My particular concern is the relation between visual representation and the identity of the human subject.
We will be exploring artworks with an emphasis on specific identities that have challenged formalist beliefs in a universal art (which was historically created overwhelmingly by and for a specific demographic group who were white, western, heterosexual men of the middle upper class). However postmodernism reflect broader social critiques of hierarchies based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class. I should point out that when I say postmoderism I am talking about a way of thinking that can be applied to any period, not an artistic movement.
Body, gender, identity – this thematic complex has acquired a new significance in art. It is relevant to consider why are these questions about identity so motivating?
As the quote on the screen by Craig Owens suggests, we cannot look at identity in isolation, we need therefore to place questions of identity in the context of history, language and power.
TO begin with, when considering the relation between visual representation and the identity of the human subject, the notion of individuality has to be reviewed.
The term ‘subject’ refers to something quite different form the term individual which dates from the Renaissance and presupposes that we are free, intellectual agents and that thinking processes are not coerced by historical or cultural circumstances.
The term ‘subject’ helps us to conceive of human reality or identity, as a construction, as a product of signifying activities that are both culturally specific and generally unconscious. The category of the subject calls into question the notion of the self synonymous with consciousness, it de-centres consciousness.
In examining how identities are represented, it is important to unpack the term representation also. Representation refers to the use of language and images to create meaning about the world around us. And these systems have rules and conventions about how to express and interpret meaning.
So this leads me to ask the question:
Do systems of representation reflect the world as it is, as a form of imitation, or do we construct the world around us, our identities, and representations of identities through our use of the systems of representation?
Social constructionists argue that systems of representation do not reflect an already existing reality so much as they organize, construct, and mediate our understanding of reality, emotion, and imagination.
However, the distinction can often be difficult to make.
Add this juncture I want to mention expressionism. And key here is Hal Foster’s text: The Expressive Fallacy
‘Expression’ is mediated
Painters in particular often hold onto the notion of being a conduit of the unconscious, existing on an interior self
Expressionists:
Expressionism: denies (external) mediation, maintains the notion of individual expression, of ‘natural’, it venerates the ‘touch of the artist’ , the expressive indexical
Abstract expressionism
They align themselves to the idea that there is ‘a reality beyond representation’ and socio-historical connections are severed
This further complicates our thinking of identity and representation.
So to begin with looking at a few well known portraits.
Are these portraits simply a reflection of the sitters, or do they produce meanings?
For example, how do these images differ in their portrayal of motherhood?
What about context?
How is the meaning of Edvard Munch’s, The Scream (1893), changed in each new context? How does the reproductions change the meaning of the original?
Now I hope you are realising that I am trying to suggest that identities are fluid, however:
Society prefers to operate with fixed identities - they help to divide people into groups, to 'push' the groups into separated "boxes" and computer files (hierarchical or nested into one another), to label these boxes and files with names, numbers and codes, and then to do with them all sorts of manipulations. And above all, to exercise control.
But how do we conceive of our own identities?
For many people, answering questions about identity begins by listing details that can be found on birth certificates–name, sex, ethnicity, and family origins. People wishing to research their family histories locate the birth certificates of known family members because these documents provide essential information about the identities of ancestors. The importance of birth certificates might suggest that identity is basically fixed and stable from the time of birth. Consider sex and ethnicity, two labels applied at birth that are at the heat of how many people think about identity. Both are generally understood as clear-cut categories from which identity is established.
However, the assumption that identity consists merely of what we are “born with” can underemphasize the influences or impact of larger social forces that also affect identity. Consider gender identity, for example. Although it is true in one sense that sex is established at birth, it is important to note that developmental psychologists have concluded that a person’s understanding what it means to be male or female develops through social interaction over time. During preschool years, children begin to discover what gender identity means. They carefully observe who’s a boy, who’s a girl, how they dress, what they do, and how they are treated. In fact, children’s understanding and expectations about gender are largely influenced by what they see and experience. Gender identity is not fixed at birth; rather it is a process that evolves over time.
Similarly, the meaning of ethnic identity and nationality is something worked out within larger social and cultural settings.
In reality, the facts of our birth are merely starting points for understanding identity. Larger social and cultural forces also play important roles in shaping our sense of identity–including ideas about gender and race. Personal identity cannot be separated from the social contexts in which we live.
During today you will be encouraged to examine how some taken-for-granted aspects of identity are shaped and influenced by larger cultural forces.
From this perspective, cultural attitudes and assumptions largely define identity and allow us to label or identify others. People do not live in a vaccuum. Instead we pick up the influences of our surroundings. According to this viewpoint, identity is shaped through acculturation. Acculturation is the process by which we absorb the practices, attitudes, and beliefs of particular social groups. Culture connects us by providing a shared set of customs, values, ideas and beliefs.
For example the cultural markers of identity that we choose–such as the types of cars we drive, the clothes we wear, and the music we listen to, our homes, our décor, our hobbies–can affect our sense of identity. These markers allow us to label ourselves and others as belonging to a particular social group or as having certain shared interests or values.
Another common assumption about identity is that it is shaped by our personal choices or decisions. According to this viewpoint, to understand identity we must examine the choices we make in our daily lives–choices about our social relationships and anything else we care about. Rather than seeing all matters of identity as determined by larger cultural forces that are beyond our control, this viewpoint recognizes that individuals participate in and make decisions about their identities.
Certainly this assumption is based in truth. We make choices. Personal decisions can be crucial to one’s sense of identity, and that personal choices can outweigh the importance of cultural influences and the expectations of others
What’s more, the identity that we convey to others changes according to different social contexts. That is, our individual identities are in constant flux. Recall the kinds of identification found in your purse or wallet. The cards illustrate the idea that identity, unlike identification cards, is not fixed or permanent. While ID cards include a photo and a series of facts, the “facts” of our identities are not so fixed, they change and evolve.
This is what it means to call identity an open text. ID cards show proof of the ever-evolving nature of identity. The photos in these cards never seem up-to-date and many of us carry pictures of family and friends that are also out-of-date. Pull out one of these old pictures or IDs and look for details that reveal a now-discarded or changed aspect of your identity.
This assumption suggests that despite the larger cultural contexts in which we live, we shape our identities through the choices we make. According to this view, identity is not fixed, but shifts over time and in different situations.
We live in an age in which individual identity is widely conceived of as an artificial performance, a conglomeration of signs through which we are (not necessarily willingly) fixed.
Yet at the same time we claim these socially imposed identities in order to unite within identity politics with others ‘like us’
That is to say:
“We want our body to ‘be’ and yet we assert priority of the spirit (or language) over it; we and we are not our bodies.”
Looking beyond our contemporary preoccupations, it is clear that now is not the first, nor will it be the last moment when issues relating to identity hold particular prominence.
Notably we can identify aspects of art production between the two world wars, in particular Dada and its legacy in Surrealism. Furthermore some of the psychoanalytic roots of theories relating to identity date back to the late 1920s.
In terms of Psychoanalysis, one way to think of the traditional distinction is to cite Freud, who asserted that although an individual's identity is socially constructed, not just naturally produced, the form it takes is conditioned by the inner psychological self.
This work by Barbara Kruger comments on the use of female patients in psychoanalysis and medicine.
She has created images that look as if they came from late-19th-century engravings for medical textbooks. In one typically billboard-sized photograph, a bearded and bespectacled man holds what appears to be a human heart while standing beside a naked woman who lies on a table. Kruger has written across the picture ''no radio,'' as if to equate the man (surgeon?) with a burglar and the woman with a car that he has just vandalized. Once seen, the image is easily, effortlessly consumed and forgotten, like the witty advertisements whose visual tricks Kruger exploits.
SO…
Does the body rule the mind Or does the mind rule the body ?
The body is essential to identity, as psychological states arise from, and require a body. But identity requires active reflection.
Are you the same person now as you were on the day you were born?
Explaining identity over time is possible but is a rather problematic issue.
After all, the physical changes your body has undertaken between your birth and the present are striking: it is possible that there is not a single atom that your current body shares in common with your infant body.
Perhaps then identity is not tied to your physical sameness but to your mental sameness.
However if we focus on your mental properties, explaining how you have remained the same person from your birth until now is difficult.
Can you remember being an infant? Do you share any specific beliefs or desires with your self as an infant?
It seems that explaining identity over time with reference to sameness of mental properties wont work either.
What other options are available?
Maybe you possess an immaterial soul that persists through your life unchanged, and it is by virtue of this that you are the same person as you were at birth? Will this explanation work without introducing even more problems?
These are the sorts of questions that fall under the topic ‘personal identity’. Their answers have ramifications for our basic self-understanding, for they imply who and what we are as individuals.
For example consider the idea of Materiality and identity, taking this car as an example.
Almost, if not all its original parts have been replaced. So comparing it to the car before this process, are they the same car?
If you think that the car resulting from the gradual replacement of all its parts is not identical to the original car, then we need to ask the question: When during the replacement process did the car stop being identical to the original car?
So clearly identity and mind body dualism is not so clear cut. These are ideas that have been debated at least since Plato.
More recently however, in the late 1940s Maurice Merleau_Ponty and Jean Paul Satre discussed the body and its experience as a reaction to the previous mentalist traditional philosophy.
Jean Paul Sartre's existentialist phenomenology was in many ways an attempt to eliminate Rene Descartes' dualism with respect to consciousness and self-identity.
Later, French writers like Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and others rejected the tradition of Cartesian mind-body dualism that resonated in Rene Descartes’ dictum “ I think therefore I am” which expresses that our identity is to be characterised through thought, whereas now the focus of attention was shifted towards bodily experiences.
All identities, whether based on class, gender or ethnicity are social constructions. And there is no doubt that identity-construction is increasingly dependent on images.
The construction of a personal identity can be seen to be somewhat problematic and difficult
We are surrounded by influential imagery, especially that of popular media. It is no longer possible for an identity to be constructed merely in a small community and only be influenced by family. Nowadays, arguably everything concerning out lives is seen to be ‘media-saturated’.
…individuals actively and creatively sample available cultural symbols, myths, and rituals as they produce their identities.
Within this idea, it is important to remember that an identity is not a fixed thing and it is just as difficult maintaining one as it is constructing one in the first place.
SO clearly there exist many theories that inform us that identity is determined, in each of them institutions play a crucial determining role; there is the family, the school, the place of work and increasingly the media.
We may consider that the recognition of ourselves in a photograph can serve to define us, to create an identifiable and distinct subject.
In addition to recognition of ourselves I photographs , they must also be acknowledged as similacra, as nothing more than a representation of a representation.
The term simulacra, drawn from the writings of Jean Baudrillard, is often used to signify this idea of representation as reality.
Cindy Sherman uses photographs as a mirror to deconstruct stereotypes.
Addresses issues of femininity, sexual identity, voyeurism, and artificiality and oppression in cultural representations.
Untitled Film Stills (1977) -- using herself as a model in some black-and-white film stills
Sherman’s images are not an invitation to look behind or through the representation for the ‘real’ Sherman, but rather they are an exploitation of this impulse to drive a wedge between the unified and authentic inner self and the postmodern sense of an irrevocably fragmented and culturally constituted subjectivity.
Sherman shows that to represent the self is to reproduce an already given type.
In this body of work Sherman uses body fragments, dolls or some other inanimate objects.
She accentuates the detachment of her mannequins thus highlighting the artificiality of identities and body constructs.
In this sense her work is in line with recent cultural theory that demonstrates the ways in which identity, sexuality, nationality, or ethnicity should be seen as partial, provisional and constantly in process.
Identity politics
Identity politics can be seen in art production after 1970 that foregrounds the connections of racial, class and sexual subjectivity to the institutions and processes of power.
Implicitly or explicitly, ‘identity art” is informed by the body of the maker or the subject of its investigation.
Gilbert and George
Race, religion, sexuality and criticism of the British establishment are the core themes
Gilbert and George create these huge brightly-coloured photo-based collage-pictures on a black grid -- which has become their well-known visual signature.
The subject matter of their photo-pieces is almost invariably directly autobiographical.
We place so much emphasis on physical attributes in determining identity.
However the notion that an individual might gain a sense of authenticity and connection with the self in and through the body is profoundly disturbed by the unstable appropriations and ideological representations of the body throughout the history of Western culture, and within an increasingly mediatized and technologically driven world.
Martha Wilson
I Make Up the Image of My Perfection/I Make Up the Image of My Deformity (2007)
In these images, the woman is hypersexualized, objectified and clearly positioned for the male gaze.
Her naked body is used as space to showcase men’s accessories. These accessories (sunglasses, belts, bags, etc.) are for sale and using a woman’s bodies as the shelves to display implies that women are available for consumption as well.
first she is on her knees bending over backwards, then she is lying down, and then she is on her hands and knees looking down. We never see her face because it’s not important – what matters more is her body: her sexy, thin, naked body which is exploited to market male accessories.
In psychoanalytic film criticism, the gaze is not the act of looking itself, but the viewing relationship characteristic of a particular set of social circumstances.
The concept of the gaze is fundamentally about the relationship of pleasure and images.
In a typical female nude, a woman is posed so that her body is on display for the viewer, who is implied to be male.
John Berger wrote that in his history of images, “men act, women appear.”
The traditional roles of men and women are in upheaval and the theoretical concept of the male gaze has been rethought.
On how identities are connected with the world of media and the images which it surrounds us with, she writes
‘Representation as a cultural process establishes individual and collective identities, and symbolic systems provide possible answers to the questions: who am I?; what could I be?; who do I want to be?’
Even if we kept faith with a mind/body split or a nature/culture divide, body and mind have been regarded as inextricably linked.
But there has been an explosion of technological possibilities which have prized oven this relationship loose, technologies that outstrip our emotional and ethical grasp. For instance, if reproductive technologies such as IVF raise fundamental ethical questions then asexual reproduction, cloning, reverberates even louder.
There is a fundamental difference between the new body our cells continually generate out of themselves and a genetic duplicate cloned from those cells.
Marc Quinn
Quinn has also explored the potential artistic uses of DNA, making a portrait of a sitter by extracting strands of DNA
2001 witnessed the creation of the DNA portraits, whose basis consists of DNA that has been replicated by means of standard cloning technology. A portrait is thus not a copy of the appearance of the person being portrayed, but is actually his genetic code.
Are there physical attributes that people have that remains unchanged over time. The only plausible candidate here is DNA.
Maybe we should link personal identity to DNA.
This is problematic as it would imply that identical twins and clones are nondistinct persons.
Perhaps then we shouldn’t focus on looking for a property or properties that remain unchanged over the life of the individual.
Maybe then we should look to specify the extent to which someone can change and still be the same person
A few examples of less literal portraits:
CONFESSIONAL
Gillian Wearing,
”Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say”, (1992-3)
Beagles and Ramsay
Self portraits
USING THEIR OWN BLOOD AS THE MAIN INGREDIENT BEAGLES & RAMSAY MADE THEIR “BLACK PUDDING SELF PORTRAIT”
Bruce Nauman transforms everyday activities, speech, and objects into works that are both familiar and alien.
Nauman’s work explores video, text, and self-portraiture—materials and themes the artist has engaged for over thirty years.
An example of one of Nauman's early neons on the subject of identity.
Neon Templates of the Left Half of My Body Taken at Ten-Inch Intervals (1966) as an innovative exercise in portraiture as sculpture.
How to Get a Head in Sculpture BBC 4
Finally I wanted to end with this rationalisation of the exploration of identity:
Identity and Difference, edited by Kathryn Woodward in the Culture, Media and Identities Open University series, published by Sage (1997)
'This book is about identity because identity matters, both in terms of social and political concerns within the contemporary world and within academic discourses where identity has been seen as conceptually important in offering explanations of social and cultural changes...
Identity can be seen as the interface between subjective positions and social and cultural situations... Identity gives us an idea of who we are and of how we relate to others and to the world in which we live. Identity marks the ways in which we are the same as others who share that position, and the ways in which we are different from those who do not.' (pp. 1-2).