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Project 04 – Identity Project
In this project I have created a 3 independent images confined to the theme of what can be defined as an identity. i) Self Portrait This is a self portrait of me holding a composite of identity card pictures in a background and foreground comprised entirely by identification papers. Here I wanted to present firstly what officially constitutes as an identity, as a torrent of endless paperwork. For many people you meet, this is all they need to know about you in order to establish a meaningful communication. Admittedly even though rapid digitization would help ease the physical burden in terms of documents, relieving the physical presence of such documents would only encourage an increase in quantity. Another element I wanted to point out is how we do appear in these photographs. Quite frankly the way most people appear in the photographs embedded to their identities can only be classified as mug shots. The requirements that these photographs have is the absolute absence of any personality, which one can only question how can something that does not take into account who you really are as an individual can pass on as an identity? ii) Another Stranger Me This picture presents 2 forms of identities; one relatively familiar one in the form of a fingerprint, and another in a form of a binary string. These identities have two things in common, the obvious one being that both can be used to identify a person and more importantly, that these cannot be deciphered by the naked eye and therefore can be seen to have no individual properties. All fingerprints look alike unless you put them under a very sophisticated microscope, and all binary is just an endless feed of ones and zeros unless you have a method to decipher them. However as we all know a fingerprint is an integral part of a person’s identity. The numbers in the picture form the binary equivalent of my name, and a name is a pivotal form of identity as well. As time progresses these forms of identities will be intertwined, becoming just a part of another database. iii) The Nameless Faceless Legion The idea behind this image is that whether a form of identity can be achieved by discarding any elements which may form an identity. This was inspired by the online group calling itself Anonymous whose members thrive on a total lack of identity. The internet gave us this ability to establish communication without revealing any identifiable properties, an ability which can arguably showcase the best and the worst humanity has to offer. The Anonymous group was called everything from new age rebels, delinquent juveniles and terrorists. For the most part of their existence, their agenda was comprised as communicating with other peers in anonymous bulleting boards. But recently, they were responsible for organizing worldwide protests on a global scale, a feat that was fueled by their anonymity which ironically is their most identifiable trait. |
