Lecture - Identity

Historical conceptions of identity


Foucault 'discourse' methodology
To place and critique contemporary practise within these frameworks and to consider their validity

• Theories of identity
• ESSENTIALISM - Traditional approach
• Our biological makeup 
• We all have an inner essence that makes us who we are
• Post modern theorists disagree
• Post modern theorist are anti-enssentialist

Physiognomy - The more vertical your face, the more intelligent you are

Phrenology

Cesare Lombroso 1835-§909 founded of positivist criminology - the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited. You can read the likely hood of someone being criminal by the way they look.

Physiognomy legitimising racism

Irish iberian, ango-teutonic, negro.

Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) Christ carrying the cross, oil on Panel.

Normal figure are christ and a follower, everyone else is distorted. Anyone helping to kill christ is evil; thus looks grotesk.

Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary, 1996. Virgin Mary to be black, used Elephant dung within work, features to demonstrate black origins. 

Historical phases of identity

Douglas Kellner - Media Culture: cultural studies, identity and politics...

Pre modern identity - personal identity is stable - defined by long standing roles

Modern identity- Modern societies begin to odder a wider range of social roles. Possibility to start 'choosing' your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to 'worry' about who they are.

Post modern identity - accepts a 'fragmented self'.Identity is constructed.

Pre-modern identity

Institutions in society determine who you are

Marriage, the church, monarchy, government, the state, work

Secure identities

Fram worker....Landed gentry

The soldier ... The state

Factory worker...Industrial capitalism

The housewife...Patricarchy

Gentlemen .... Patricarchy

Hisband / wife....church

Modern identities

19th and early 20th century

Charles baudelaire - The painter of modern life

Thorstein Veblen  - Theory of the leisure class

Georg Simmel - The metropolis and mental life

Bauderlaire - introduced concept of the 'flaneur' (gentlemen-stroller)

Veblen - 'Conspicious consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure'

Gustave caillebottle (1848 - 94)

Le pont de l'Europe, 1876

Being ' out and about' dont need to work, showing your status as bieng above that of the lower classes.

Simmel

-Trcikle down theory

- Emulation

-Distinction

- The mask of fashion

Lower class emulate what higher class are wearing

Upper classe snot wanting to be linked to lower classes, so new clothing lines forever being evolved

Georg Simmel

'The feeling of isolation is rarely decisive andf intense when oneself physically alone, as when is a stranger without relations amoung many physically close persons, at a party  on the train....'

Simmel suggests that becaude of the speed and mutability of modernitity, individuals withdraw into themselves to find peace. He describes this as the seperation of....

Foucault

Discourse analysis

Identity is constructed out of the discourses available to you.

a set of reoccurring statements that define a particular cultural object

Possible discourses

age, class, gender etc

Discourses to be considered:

Class

Nationality

Race / ethnicity

Gender / sexuality - otherness - Indicate, people who aren't white european.

Otherness - written my heterosexual men

Class

Humphrey Spencer / Mass observation, worktown project, 1937 (Bolton)

Upperclass observing lower class

The children are playing with Rabbits feet, all they can afford.

Martin Parr, New Brighton, Merseyside, from the last resort, 1983-86

Looking down on others, the way they live their lives.

Possibly poking fun

'Ascott' 2003

'Society...remind one of a particularly shrewd cunning and pokerfaced player n the game of life, cheating if given a chance, flouting rules whenever possible.'

Nationalitiy

Martin Parr, Sedlescrome, from think of england, 2000-2003 cliche stereotype

Think of germany, berlin, 2002

Alexander McQueen, Highland Rape colections, Autumn/Winter 1995

Much of the press coverage centred around accusations of misogyny because of the imagery of semi-naked, staggering and brutalised women in conjunction wit the word ' rape' in the title' But Mcqueen claimed ....

Vivienne Westwood, anglomania collection, autumn / winter 1993

Using something very scottish, to then title 'anglomania' 

Las Vegas - Fluid nature of national idneitity within the contemporary world. Different identities forced into once place, 77% of americans dont have passports - they have las Vegas...no need

' I didnt like Europe as much as i liked disney world. AT Disney world all the countries are much closer together, and they just show you the best of each country. Europe is more boring. People talk strange languages and things are dirty. Sometimes you dont see anything interesting in Europe for days

'Chris ofili, no woman no cry 1998

Captain shit and the legend of black stores, 1994

No black super heros....as a teenager, feels this is how a black superhero would be viewed

Gillian Wearing, from signs that say what you what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say 1992

People given a piece of card, writing what they feel on them

Vauxwagon did the same

Alexander McQueen, its a jungle out there collection, Autumn/ Winter 1997

Emily bates, textile designer/ artistdress, created using her own hair

'Hair has often been a big issue throughout my life, it often felt that i was nothing more than my hair in other peoples eyes'

Titian, saint mary megdelenc - prositiute, red hair, outcast from society, the scarlet woman. - Inspired Emily Bates

Gender and sexuality

Fashion industry is the work of men - edmund bergler, dominated by men deisgning for women, fashion designers are 'queers'

Flapper , 1925

Cover of la Garconne,  by Victor Marguerite

Androgyny 1920s style, from punch magazine

Masquerade and the mask of femininity

Cindy Sherman, untitled film stills, 1977

Sarah Lucas, Au naturel, 1994

Tracy Emin, everyone i have ever slept with, 1963-95

Sam Taylor-wood, portrait (fuck, such, spunk, wank) 1993

The postmodern condition: 

Liquid modernity and liquid love

Post modern theory

Identity is constructed through our social experience

Zygmunt Bauman

'yes identity is revealed to us only to be something invented,...'


'i think therefore i am'
' I shop therefore I am' - barbara Kruger - Selfridges (retail graphics)

define self from what and where you buy