Week 4 - what other people think

Photo Series: what other people think. 

Perception of Identity

“A woman must continually watch herself”

- John Berger 

who is that

Vulnerable 

I don’t want to watch. 

Closer

Are they staring back at me?

 Disclaimer: the scattered photos are deliberate but if it’s too messy for the blog I can change it. 

     When looking through the work of Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman and Carrie Mae Weems, I recognized their work as closely following ideas of identity. How they represent, camouflage, and perceive the identities they photograph is prevalent. I’ve learned to mask socially, a type of camouflage I’m sometimes good at, sometimes horrible at. As a result my identity is a bit.. fluid I guess. While Cindy Sherman uses her body and alters aspects of herself to create characters, this type of camouflage is representative of an identity separate from her own. Carrie Mae Weems represents the identity of an idea, whether it be a guiding woman of color in powerful places, or a domestic setting where many people can relate to a single household in its several dynamics. Ana Mendieta heavily focuses on her identity as a woman immigrant and violence against women. These artists each take parts of their identity and use or twist them in their work, causing me to contemplate perception, especially within an image.

Lurking

Powerless to perception

Let me know.  

Solitary 

   I have a complicated relationship with identity and being perceived by myself or other people. When analyzing a photo, you're analyzing not only a fragment of time visually but also the background; who took it, why, when. In this way, sometimes to me eyes give the same feeling as cameras. They have the ability to look, to actively see and question, and store moments in peoples head without being me able to control it. Being unable to control how you're perceived is kind of a fear of mine yet I desperately need to know how I'm perceived in order to rationalize my own identity. The idea of my photo series lies heavily on the idea of being photographed, looked at, or perceived without a sense of control. While other people may have an idea of what they want to represent or who, it's difficult when you go back and forth between wanting to represent a certain way and also dreading it. To me, there is solitude with being perceived by other people, even though it should feel the opposite. To look and be seen is intimidating in both ways. Bell Hooks describes in The Oppositional Gaze how “the child who had learned so well to look the other way when necessary. Yet, when punished, the child is told by parents “Look at me when I talk to you”. Having to look people in the eyes, knowing they see me back, frightens me. Even moreso, photographs are semi-permanent, and can be viewed for even longer. Knowing people have the potential to see me the way I see myself with my own eyes, looking at my hair and makeup, expression or skin, is odd. I can be called ugly. Or fat. Or sexualized. Or called other things. With no control. I feel like a character of Cindy Sherman’s, except that's.. actually me. I dress myself like a doll every day, knowing I'll be viewed even if I don't want to be. Being seen is like a performance to me, but separate from art. It's constant. It can be exhausting at times. Sure, pretending I'm a character in a dress up game is cool until you realize people can look at you. Being a sentient person with an identity is cool until you realize.. you're a sentient person with an identity. 

   In the article How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making, Weems describes how she thinks “artists are always trying for, struggling for, clamoring for, unearthing, digging for what is most authentically true about their understanding of the world and how they fit in it”. I too as an artist struggle to find an authentic truth with how I perceive my identity in reality, artwork, and visual identity. I have a need to understand how others see me but it also torments me. My body feels like a separate entity from myself. Visually, I perform when I put on a bunch of colorful clothes and funky accessories. I take pictures sometimes when I feel confident. But then I look back. I like the idea but the idea of being perceived in that moment is scary. It feels alienating, looking at myself through the blue light on my phone and I feel so small, distant. I wonder how other people will perceive what I look like or who I am. Staring at myself on a screen feels scary. Do they see a pretty girl? An ugly girl? A girl with messy, frizzy hair and a large nose? A girl who dresses immaturely? An artist? Simply a woman? And how does a photo of me and the perception of the photo relate to a perception of people viewing me in real life? Do I seem different? Do I appear more vulnerable in a photo or face to face? There’s so many questions to ponder, so much to stress, and so little to do about it. Do these women photographers struggle with their identity some days? No one else sees exactly what I see but I see every moment of myself. The fact someone can glimpse at me, perceive me as a person, is overwhelming. The blue light is not only representative of digital photography and my time staring at pictures of a mirror, but also of a depressive headspace toward the whole idea of perception. I feel locked in a box, a tight confine where I don't want to look toward the screen but I'm drawn anyway. At that point, I'd rather be in the dark and not have to think of being perceived, by myself or anybody else. It's a struggle I have a lot of difficulty with and I wanted to use the ideas of identity I read to visually represent how I myself feel about it. Some day I wish to be more comfortable in myself, in my ideas of identity and in my body and mind. Maybe like one of Sherman’s characters, who “are gloriously, catastrophically themselves, and we meet them on their own terms”. I wish to be myself without the fear, without the masking. 

"Being a woman is an identity problem"

Doring-Baez

The Cindy Sherman Effect

I don’t like this. 

Sights and insights

alteration