OUGD501: Context of Practice Seminar

Identity:

Overview of the lecture:

• Essentialism - certain approach to thinking about identity
• Different phases of history have seen different stages of identity
• Appearance was used in courts e.g someones eyes are too close which means they are a criminal
• We are born a certain way and this does not change our identity
• We still draw on essentialist ways of thinking
• Martin Parr representing the working class
• The way the working class recognise themselves by representations from other people

Identity and 'the Other' in visual representation

• Creation of identities
• Concepts of 'Otherness'
• Analysis of visual example

Identity - who we are & how others perceive who we are

Identity creation - What makes you, you?

• Upbringing - parents
• Education
• How you choose to dress
• Work - job
• Ethics
• Morals
• Physical attributes (deformities)
• Fears
• Sense of humour
• Skills and abilities
• Religion and beliefs
• Gender
• Sexuality

Background - this can determine our identity quite drastically and can also limit our options for life/career.

Gender - identities are different for a man or a woman

How do we communicate our identity to the world?

• Social/online presence
• Our personality
• Lifestyle choices - Vegan, Conspicuous consumption
• Body modifications
• Profession/Vocation/Job
• Emotional availability
• Reality vs Projected identity

Circuit of culture - Stuart Hall

Culture is the framework within which our identities are formed, expressed and regulated. 

We cannot discuss our identity without discussing production, representation, consumption and regulation. 

Example:

Identity - Goth

Representations which are already out there. Peoples understanding of what a goth is will effect the goth identity. 

There are certain forms of consumption when being a goth

Regulation - satanist but can't kill people

What we want to be as a person is dependent on stereotypes around the world.

Identity formation

• Process from physcoanalysis 

Jacques LACAN
The hommelette
The mirror stage

When we are born we have no concept of self, LACAN called this stage hommelette. Hommelette - scrambled up mess of information.
Children see themselves as attached to their mother.
The most important stage for Jacques Lacan is the mirror stage.
He uses a metaphor - a baby seeing itself in a mirror and realises that it is a thing, separate from others. 6-18 months (time of the mirror stage)

When we understand what we are develops a concept about who we are and who we want to be.
We are always trying to confirm who we are and who we want to be.

'Mirror stage'
 Sense of self (subjectivity) built on:

• an illusion of wholeness.

Our subjectivity is really frail. It is built on fictions.

• receiving views from others

To measure our identity is to receive affirmation from other identities.

Eg. we are only cool when someone recognises you are cool

Constructing the 'Other'

• Problems: relies on the assumption of opposition and radical otherness

e.g  I am a woman because I am not a man.

• In the same way that we create our own 

Identification

• Shores up unstable identities through the illusion of unity
• Shared fashions, belief systems, values - Subterranean Values (Matza, 1961)

Task:

Newspaper stories or advert or image or fashion magazines