I am
knowing thyself
Working on the concept of ‘identity’ — knowing thyself, I found myself stuck and asked my phone’s AI to go through my social media chats and figure out Who I am?
Quite unexpected but the simple-minded AI performed a keyword search and generated answers like-
I am sleeping
I am not even kidding
I AM HAPPY
I am up since 4am
I am really really sorry
Not the philosophical jargon I was looking for but these responses in themselves formed an interesting narrative that actually said a lot about who I am to a set of audience.
I used these prompts to create a visual narrative using Generative art and Image Manipulation along with the sound art in an attempt to know thyself.
Since arriving in London a few months ago, amongst all the other things, I’ve noticed the obsession with identity in the Western culture, a need to identify the sameness & difference. The intellectual significance of the term ‘Identity’ at present is not as weighty in other cultures as it is in the western world. One’s identity, in various forms-linguistic, ethnicity, social and many more has suddenly become a big part of everyday life.
In an interview with The Guardian, writer Inua Ellams remarked,
“I became a black man
when I arrived in England”
I recently came across a few exhibitions centred around similar themes. Barbara Kruger: ‘Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You’. at the Serpentine, and Douglas Gordan ‘All I need is a little bit of everything’ at the Gagosian galleries. Both of the exhibitions were delivered through a similar medium- visual narratives interacting with the physical space creating the gallery a safe space for the viewer to introspect upon their lives and revisit memories.
Shapeshifting the digital
Kruger’s work, which was originally bold capital letters, short statements installed in a physical space, was adapted into digital installations and multimedia experiences capturing new audiences. In an era dominated by social media where attention spans are short and visual impact is paramount, Kruger has made a shift into the digital landscape by also entertaining the internet memes adaptations of her style. This shift between spaces, and the potential to create a shared space can be seen in Gordan’s work as well. Allowing the viewer to consume data from physical space in the form of visual and linguistic stimuli which makes the viewer shift into their mental space through introspection and nostalgia. The exhibit’s curation utilized digital space as a medium to connect with the audience.
How the identity wave is polluting the environment
Consciousness & self awareness is what defines our personal identity but the available knowledge about ourselves has changed a great deal with globalization. With these limitless kinds of subjects to which identity can be attributed is attached a crisis, a sense of loss of something familiar and the inability to keep up with change is seen as a deviation from the ‘normal’ state of existence, an identity crisis. Florian Coulmas’, A Very Short Introduction on Identity has focused on how people who share these common features such as ethnicity, religion, and nation are striving to evoke a shared sense of identity and fit in the constructs of society.
Shift of Identity in Spaces
Building up on the classical law of thought which simply defines identity as x1 = x2 which means x1 is the same thing as x2 these examples have provided a broader perspective of the parameters that define one’s identity in the shared space. Experimenting through generative image overlapping, I want to build a narrative based on how identity is given or constructed in a shared space and how it changes from each perspective. Connecting it with my own practice of capturing experiences and narrating stories through sensory mediums with a focus on autobiographical memories, this experiment will provide further insights into human cognition and perception.
References
- ‘Know Thyself — Wikipedia’ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself> [accessed 13 March 2024]
- Amrani, Iman, Noah Payne-Frank, Grace Shutti, and Ken Macfarlane, ‘“I Became a Black Man When I Arrived in England”: Inua Ellams on His Play Barber Shop Chronicles’, The Guardian, 12 December 2017, section News <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2017/dec/12/i-became-a-black-man-when-i-arrived-in-england-inua-ellams-on-his-play-barber-shop-chronicles> [accessed 13 March 2024]
- ‘Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.’, Serpentine Galleries <https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/barbara-kruger-thinking-of-you-i-mean-me-i-mean-you/> [accessed 13 March 2024]
- Coulmas, Florian. , ‘Identity: A very Short Introduction’, Anonymous Translator(, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019).
- ‘Douglas Gordon: All I Need Is a Little Bit of Everything, Grosvenor Hill, London, February 1–March 15, 2024’, Gagosian, 2024 <https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2024/douglas-gordon-all-i-need-is-a-little-bit-of-everything/> [accessed 13 March 2024]
