RATIONALE - Identity

RATIONALE:

Identity

Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman believes that our identity is no longer identified by social affiliations such as our age, social class, gender, religion etc. We are now faced with the increased responsibility of choosing and constructing our identity rather than being born into it. We long for the experience of belonging to a new group, with a sense of togetherness, through which we can facilitate identity-making. Bauman is concerned with how these groups are becoming very virtual and electronic, he illustrates that online communities are making us lose the ability to enter spontaneous interaction with real people.

I'm interested in the shifts in how one identifies themselves as an individual and how much of our identity is now built in a virtual, non-space. The way we interact with one another has changed considerably with the advances of mobile technology and social media. I find it interesting how social networking sites are almost like an extensive identification card such as a drivers license or a passport. This is quite an interesting comparison which would address the shift from being born into your identity to choosing and constructing it. Social networks display information about an individuals social affiliations such as name, age, gender, nationality in the same way that a passport would. However, social networks are much more self regulated with identity in the sense that you are able to choose how you represent and identify yourself with the ability to choose your 'profile picture' or 'like' pages that relate to the group/subculture you long to belong to. It was this interesting comparison that influenced my rationale for the image making process.

My final response depicts a male subject wearing a floral-patterned shirt against the backdrop of some floral-patterned curtains. I was looking to capture a portrait image that referenced passport identification photos but with an almost casual twist that would essentially represent a social networking 'profile picture'. To achieve this I applied the aesthetics of a passport booth, capturing a head-and-shoulder portrait with the subject using the direct mode of address. Using a disposable 35mm camera with a direct flash juxtaposed the association with passport images due to the amateur aesthetic. Cropping the frame to a square format referenced the way in which a Facebook 'profile picture' is cropped and displayed. This way you make associations with identity in an online format...

- Floral patterns linking to materialism and identity building