24 / 10 / 13
LECTURE - 3
IDENTITY.
ESSENTIALISM (Traditional approach)
- Our biological make up is what makes us us.
PHRENOLOGY - Not much of a substance to this theory but it implies that your bran is broken up into different tendencies and features of being human. If one section of this brain is larger then this has more impression on the acts of the human.
PHYSIOGNOMY LEGITIMISING RACISM
Suggests that the angelo tutonic races are superior to those form Africa and South America.
HIERONYMOUS BOSCH
CHRIS OFILI, HOLY VIRGIN MARY 1996
Caused a big stir as it was excused of defacing the thought that The virgin mary was blond hair blue eyed and went agains the norm ingrained into the Western Cristian world.
HISTORICAL PHASES OF IDENTITY
PRE MODERN IDENTITY.
Institution determined identity.
Your identity is secured to an institution through were you work or how you live.
Your identity is secured to an institution through were you work or how you live.
MODERN IDENTITY
Charles Baudelaire - The Painter of Modern Life (1863)
'Poet, aesthete and hedonist, Baudelaire was also one of the most groundbreaking art critics of his time. Here he explores beauty, fashion, dandyism, the purpose of art and the role of the artist, and describes the painter who, for him, expresses most fully the drama of modern life.'
Thorstien Veblen - Theory of the leisure class (1899)
'Veblen's study indicts the nineteenth-century socio-economic system which based class status on the accumulation of material wealth. More than a century after its original publication, his work still is of surprisingly high relevance, since it casts an astonishingly contemporary and often very satirical eye on American economics and society. Originally released in 1899, "The Theory of the Leisure Class" is considered as the first detailed critique of consumerism.'
'Flaneur' - a man that has time on his hands and go out to be seen and admired with a desired lifestyle. A gentleman of leisure and shows you are high up on the social scale.
'The upper classes are by custom exempt or excluded from industrial occupation, and are reserved for certain for certain employments to which a degree of honour is attached.' - Thorstien Veblen (Theory of the leisure class)
Conspicuous Consumption - showing of wealth through things that are visible such as clothing and accessories.
Georg Simmel - The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903)
The trickle down theory, the higher classes wear expensive clothing that are desirable to the lower classes. The lower classes then make a 'knock off' version. The higher classes have to keep coming up with newer things to distinguish themselves for the lower classes.
Alienation in society as people are more concerned about what they have and become withdrawn from life and their own existence.
'The barrage of lures, and choices in the modern city of commerce has introduced a kind of 'monkish' self-reflection that can be seen as transcendence as much as retreat.' - Georg Simmel (The Metropolis and Mental Life)
'The barrage of lures, and choices in the modern city of commerce has introduced a kind of 'monkish' self-reflection that can be seen as transcendence as much as retreat.' - Georg Simmel (The Metropolis and Mental Life)
POST MODERN IDENTITY
Identity is constructed out of the discourses currently available to us.
a categorisation of things that could form who you are and were you sit in society. This leads to the notion of stereotypes.
There are many possible discourse that can effect how you are viewed and categorised.
•Age
•Class
•Gender
•Nationality
•Race/ethnicity
•Sexual orientation
•Education
•Income
•Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
Main discorces to be considered:
Classs
Nationality
Race/ethnicity
gender and sexuality
CLASS
Lower, middle and upper
Humphrey Spender/mass Observation, Work-town project, 1937
Set up by the photographer with the idea that they would observe Britain living. They documented for a few months. These people who set up the project were more upperclass/middle class people. This gives an condescending feel as they are documenting a different culture / working class culture.
Martin Parr, New Brighton, Mersyside, from the last resort, 1982-86
Can be said he is celebrating this culture or it can be said it is condescending. People who want these images are people that have money to spend on such an item there fore it can be seen as derogatory.
Ascot, 2003
The notion that you act out a part in a society. You could say that it is a nice photo showing the feel of the day, or it could said that the photo has been purposely taken to show the kind of sherade that the event is. This thought could be taken from the objects with in the image such as the overweight woman in an ill fitting yet probably expensive with a stain were she has probably spilt here champagne.
This can be taken as an indication that really we are all the same, however our money and possessions make us individuals which intern effects the social circles we keep.
NATIONALITY
Rivalries between English and German.
Alexander McQueen - The idea to him is a political as it gives a sense that i symbolises the rape of Scotlan by England.
LAS VAGAS
Is its identity it own or has it just been taken from other parts of the world?
70% of American don't have a passport is this because a lot of other cultures are taken and built within there own country so there is no reason to travel.
RACE / ETHNICITY
CHRIS OFILI
Perceptions of black people and how they are viewed by society. Elephant dung used to prop up his paintings as a stereotypical manner regarding his African heritage.
Looking at super heroes that are internationally renowned and realises there are not vey many if at all black superheroes.
GILLIAN WEARING
Getting people to right on the pages what they are thinking at the time. You get the idea that many of the images originally taken have been discarded as they are dull were as the more appealing ones are present in the publication.
GENDER / SEXUALITY
The idea of gender being represented my fashion.
CINDY SHERMAN
Stereotypes of female characters with in films.
Dresses her self up with in different contexts regarding scenes that could be with in a film.
Women are a minority with in the creative industry.
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD
The idea of putting herself with in the image so she is not the accused of subjecting either men or women.
The idea of putting herself with in the image so she is not the accused of subjecting either men or women.
TRACY EMIN
Displaying all the people she has been in bed with. As a female artist she was subject to insults and opinions that lab led a whore. However being if a similar thing would have been done by a male, he would have got a pat on the back for his 'manliness'.
POST MODERN THEORY
BAUMAN
Identity is something that you work towards and develop into the person you want to be.
Identity is something that you work towards and develop into the person you want to be.
Barbara Kruger - Translates the well known saying to show how people today feel that they are identified by the possessions they have, buy and invest in.
Religion to day is the act of consumerism.
People creating a vertual identity in which they become a completely different person.
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