Essay

Online construction of identity is a very recent form of presenting oneself within social culture today. The past ten years has seen the rise of social networks, email, chat rooms, gaming, and internet shopping. This phenomenon has occurred in parallel with increasing Internet access and availability, it is becoming easier and easier to update yourself online and check constantly what is going on. People are now able to do it from their phones, keeping up to date with online identity is becoming a normal part of daily lives and routine; people wake up, have breakfast, check their email or social networks. There has been no question about this sudden importance and urge to constantly check the online world and events; it has gained a place in lives without people realising it, and if taken away, the effects would be felt.

This form of identity construction enables constant updating and improvements to be made to the persona people project, often differing from reality. Everyone knows what friends and peers are doing around them, keeping up to date with people’s lives and looking at the way they present themselves online and offline so to alter how they may present themselves.

‘It is part of the external fascination of drama that we can see ‘how the world works’ in lives other than our own’ (Gauntlett, 2008, pg 2)

Everyone is competing with one another to be best or most liked with the most friends. It seems people are never satisfied and there is always room for improvement. The creation of online communities has made us an increasingly nosey world.

Second life is a version of fantasy online construction of identity in which people pay to keep an alternate persona alive, called an avatar. They interact with other people who have created a fantasy self and develop virtual relationships and jobs etc.

‘On a single day in Second Life you can buy virtual clothes, fly a virtual plane and even enjoy virtual sexual liaisons within designated areas. I was there to report on the place for the Financial Times, but almost everyone else I met seemed to have an equally valid reason for being there too. Surrounded by palm trees, carefully cultivated beaches and gorgeously dressed virtual women, there were whole armies of clueless avatars- marketers, writers, publishers, academics, technology geeks and designers- wandering around with strict instructions to sample whatever exotic delights Second Life has to offer’ (Harkin, 2009, Preface)

An example of how social networks become real life is the story of David Pollard and Amy Taylor, who met on Second Life and got married in real life. Only he had an affair on Second Life which led to the couples divorce. Showing how online identity and events impact on real life.

Twitter allows expression of every thought. You can now Twitterize Yourself; your tweets are generated to 
create a version of yourself online reflecting what you tweet about. A lot of identities projected online are not true reflections of oneself, online Twitterized versions of self could differ greatly from reality.

Facebook is a social phenomenon which allows careful construction of identity. First developed for students at Harvard University in America by Mark Zuckerberg, who ran The Facebook as it was called then, from his dorm room in 2004. By the end of 2004, The Facebook had 1 million users and now it seems unusual to meet someone without a Facebook profile. People who do not have an online presence are quizzed about reasons why they don’t and if they ever will, finding themselves having to justify something that they would never have had to previously as it is considered to be the social norm. To not have an online presence and identity of some sort in the culture and generation today is considered to be a statement which may be unintentional.

Facebook has developed a place in language and the way we speak to people. For example, people saying ‘I’ll Facebook you’ to inform friends of events or to make social arrangements. Events are organised using Facebook, it is an easy way to contact big groups of people. If not present on Facebook, you can find yourself unaware that you may be missing out on something important. Being part of the right groups, liking and disliking certain things adds to online persona.

‘Participants are now becoming conscious of the information they themselves publish. For example, not joining a certain group for fear of their reputation in the offline world being disputed’ (Boyd, 2008)

Facebook enables de tagging of photographs that may look unflattering or present a different side to one’s personality that they do not want to reveal. People strive to present themselves in the best way they can to peers, accentuating the vanity in which is not always intended to be revealed as it is a negative quality. However, the compulsion to de tag over rides this. People can see what you choose to keep and remove from your profile, which causes them to judge either way.

Parents have begun to construct identities on Facebook; they can survey what their children may be doing at any time. However, Facebook does is enable the user to tailor what each person on their friends list sees if there is something they do not wish to reveal. The profiles have developed into more detailed pages about people, likes, dislikes, photos, links, people can share what they are thinking at any time, allowing access to what people are feeling, eating, doing, at any second of the day. There is a compulsion to know and see all that humans cannot steer away from.

‘In his work on social upkeep, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar found that humans gossip (as in they share personal information) for the same reason monkeys groom – to keep tabs on the social world around them (Dunbar, 1996)’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 16)

Facebook can predict what you may be interested in by what is on your profile, it tailors the advertisements at the side of the page to your interests to entice you into buying products; this is how it makes its money. Most things are connected to Facebook or have a Facebook page; you can like things off Amazon, IMDB, Blogs, and businesses. Facebook creates a feeling of self-importance; people want to know about everything, receiving notifications causes self-gratification.

Mark Zuckerberg comments on the newsfeed feature of Facebook as ‘a stream of everything that’s going on in their lives’.

Facebook presents Panopticism in the way it is monitored and controlled. People can find you and can read everything about you; it is hard to escape Facebook even if you choose not to construct a profile, you will still be present in photographs and conversations. There is a feeling of surveillance, although it is a supposed chosen form of surveillance, society has been indoctrinated into thinking that constructing ourselves online is a logical and necessary action, if not online, you miss out on events and opportunities in real life. People can check-in to places, even if they do not wish to, their friends can let everyone know where they are at any time. Everyone can see what you are doing. Facebook or online friends can see everything about you, yet when faced with in reality, you have little in common with and little to talk about. However, deleting them off your friend list causes great uproar and offence though there may never have been a foundation of friendship in past life offline.

‘all Friends are treated equally and updates come from all Friends, not just those that an individual deems to be close friends’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 17)

The online social world is a complex realm of unspoken rules and ways to interact that people must abide to. There is no way to tell tone of voice or context online. For example, sarcasm, the above quote relates to sarcasm greatly. Many things get misinterpreted as it is not a real conversation and things can be construed in completely the wrong way.

‘With Facebook, participants have to consider how others might interpret their actions, knowing that any action will be broadcast to everyone with whom they consented to digital Friendship. For many, it is hard to even remember whom they listed as Friends, let alone assess the different ways in which they may interpret information. Without being able to see their Friends’ reactions, they are not even aware of when their posts have been misinterpreted’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 16)

Online identities and relationships can turn sour and into public fall outs. If you declare that you are in a relationship with someone, people can express their thoughts about your relationship, and if you break up, they can leave comments and pass thoughts on events as if they are involved in the relationship themselves.

Profiles have now developed into a Timeline format, to show everything everyone has done from their day of birth if they choose to share it.

‘The idea of ourselves as messengers, navigating an endless loop of information is called Cybernetics’ (Harkin, 2009, pg xi)

This description of the online world presents an idea of self-importance and the developing need we are making ourselves have for the existence of people as online beings. Cybernetics and Cyburbia must be kept going constantly with the constant exchange of information to connect people and events offline.

Simultaneously, technology and creators of these networks are developing to be better and more popular than the previous one. With the rise of Facebook and the demise in popularity of Myspace, it is apparent that Myspace profiles and applications began to mirror Facebook.

If desired, people can construct multiple differing identities dependant on who they are presenting themselves too and how they wish to be perceived. However, this is risky business when people who know you in the real world can easily discover these multiple identities, which differ from reality, only one presentation can be true to real life.

‘This narrative can always be gently revised, but an individual who tells conspicuously different versions of their biography to friends may be resented and rejected, and acute embarrassment is associated with the revelation that once has provided divergent accounts of past events’ (Giddens in Gauntlett, 2008, pg 108)

Although there are different aspects to people, it is not possible maintain multiple differing personalities. People who create these differing profiles may use these personas as an escape and get away from reality; however, actions online affects relationships offline. Things said online are recorded and transferred into real life situations; online events enter the real physical world. Online profiles and the way they are constructed are entering and becoming real life identities.

‘‘Facebook is positioning itself as not just your social graph online, but your life online’- Forrester Research analyst Sean Corcora’ (Cellan-Jones, 2011)

We are conditioned to present ourselves a certain way and act a certain ways according to place and situation, for example, at work, you present a professional, together persona. At home the way you act is much different as you are surrounded by family or friends. The title, role or surroundings you are in dictates behaviour and language used, much like behaviour online and offline.

‘We know that in service occupations practitioners who may otherwise be sincere are sometimes forced to delude their customers because their customers show such heartfelt demand for it.’ (Goffman, 1959, pg 29)

Online communities and network have no boundaries for identity construction, people are not constrained to labels such as a teacher, a nurse, a builder, they do not have to fulfil expectations in the way they behave or perform and people can often find themselves acting different to how they would in reality. The idea that identity is a performance in different surroundings and social situations is an ever present theory. Online identities are a performance as we are continuingly editing the persona we are projecting to friends and acquaintances according to who we are with.

‘I have been using the term ‘performance’ to refer to all activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers.’ (Goffman, 1959, pg 32)

Projected identity has an effect on people observing. This directly relates to Facebook as people are constantly checking up on each other and updating themselves according to what they see online.

A recent film called ‘Catfish’ presents this ability people have to construct online identities. It follows Ariel Schulman and his brother Nev as he develops a romantic relationship over Facebook. Nev speaks to Abby, a woman who is seemingly real from her Facebook profile, on the phone and via text. She sends him paintings by her little sister and he begins to fall for this online version of Abby. As the film unfolds, Nev decides he finally wants to travel to meet her, however, when he arrives he discovers that this woman he has fallen in love with is not real. The reality is a middle aged woman, who has created Abby, multiple profiles and characters such as her little sister as a fantasy and escape from her real life. She reveals how she put on different voices on the phone to create the illusion of different people. This reflects a story of a woman so unhappy in her own life she convinces herself and Nev that she is Abby as a form of escapism.

There has been debate and questioning about whether the documentary is based on true events. However, it presents a dangerous use of online construction of identity and social networking which is entirely possible and has great implications in real life. Creating a projection of self and a life happier than one’s own prevents the improvement of reality and facing real life situations. The world the woman creates in ‘Catfish’ gave her a sense of control until it became real. It shows the possibilities of constructing false identities and networks online, presenting more questions, how are we able to decipher what is true? People believe what they want to be true, and can convince themselves that they are, in fact, the identity they create online, offline.

Bibliography

Bauman, Z (2005) Liquid Life, Cambridge, Polity Press

Bauman, Z (2004) Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi, Cambridge, Polity Press

Boyd, D (2008) Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck; Exposure, Invasion and Social Convergence, Los Angeles, http://www.danah.org/papers/FacebookPrivacyTrainwreck.pdf [24/01/12]

Cellan-Jone, R (2011) Facebook focuses on media sharing and adds timeline, London, BBC [25/01/12] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15028920

Gauntlett, D (2008) Media, Gender and Identity, Oxon, Routledge

Goffman, E (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Great Britain, Penguin Books

Harkin, J (2009) Cyburbia, London, Little, Brown

Hegarty, P (2004) Jean Baudrillard Live Theory, London, Continuum

Sparrow, A (2010) The Law of the Virtual Worlds and Internet Social Networks, Surrey, Gower Publishing Limited

Woodward, K, (ed.) (2000) Questioning identity: gender, class, ethnicity, London, Routledge

Woodward, K, (ed.) (1997) Identity and Difference, London, SAGE Publications

Lefebvre and Space

In 300-400 words, use Lefebvre's Spatial triad (see above) to conduct a critical reading of one Social Space in or around Leeds. 


Woodhouse Moor and the Hyde Park in Leeds is recognized for its distinctive architecture of back to back housing built in the early 19th century. The back to back buildings were built for families and are very small and lacking in windows and space. The houses attached to other houses/factories/buildings from the back and at bother sides, without a garden. The Representations of Space of these houses and the intention of them being designed this way was to get people accommodated as quickly as possible, a reason for them being small and attached. This model is found all around Hyde Park, however these days, the inhabitants are mainly students. The shift in the purpose and use of these houses has changed from there being a majority of working class families residing in them to students occupying most of the Hyde Park area and these houses. 


This means that in Hyde Park there is a now a student culture and society, shifting from the working class society once inhabiting this space as it was built for. Students have taken over the whole area and park and it has become renowned for being a student populated area. Its a natural migration from halls to Hyde Park. The reality of everyday life is that is noisy the majority of the time, there are 24 hour shops appearing to accommodate students, the houses are not in as good condition and are only inhabited by the same people for a year or so at a time. They are not family homes. The functioning of the area and housing in this way shows the urban reality and daily routine differing from the planning, modelling and designing of these houses. The vision of their function has differed greatly with the shift in society and culture.

Lecture 7; Space, Place and the Body

27/01/12

 'Semi-Detatched', 2004, Micheal Landy

This work by Micheal Landy was exhibited in the Durveen Gallery at Tate Modern in 2004. Influenced by his father who had an accident and had to stay at home to work. He was trapped in his home and instead of home being a relaxing, comfortable place it became prison like. Meanings and connotations of domestic life changed.

Link to Tate Modern Article

'Ghost', 1990, Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread is interested in the body, mind, memory and how it works.Ghost is a negative plaster cast of the space of an entire parlor in a modest Victorian townhouse. Creating a different viewing of the home, a familiar domestic place becomes unfamiliar and alters the feeling of the space. 

Article about Ghost 

'Splitting', 1974, Gordan Matta-Clark

Gordan Matta-Clark intervenes with architectural structure, fragmented. An hour after the work was completed the building was demolished.

The Homely VS The Unhomely. The relationship between place, space and the body. How is this view alterred or changed? Traditional understanding of the built environment/architecture is intrinsically linked to design, form and structure. 

Modernist architect Le Corbusier defined architecture as 'the precise and monumental interplay of from within light'

Michel Foucault, relational and social space. 

Gaston Bauchelard, relationship between space and time, 'The Poetics of Space'

The Walking City was an idea proposed by British architect Ron Herron in 1964. In an article in avant-garde architecture journal Archigram. Ron Herron proposed building massive mobile robotic structures, with their own intelligence, that could freely roam the world, moving to wherever their resources or manufacturing abilities were needed. Various walking cities could interconnect with each other to form larger 'walking metropolises' when needed, and then disperse when their concentrated power was no longer necessary. Individual buildings or structures could also be mobile, moving wherever their owner wanted or needs dictated.

'Le Modulor', 1942-1948, Le Corbusier. This was used as a system to set out a number of Le Corbusier's buildings.

'Unite d'habitation' 1947-1952. A residential housing design by Le Corbusier and Nadir Afonso.

Mapping intersections between body, and space in Art practice

• Minimalism, American Movement in the 1960s where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts.
• Gender and Space.
• Post Modernism.

Phenomenology

Tells us that we experience the world through our body, we are an extension of it. It is only by having a body that we experience the world. It is about perception, we perceive the world with our body through movement and vision.

'Phenomenology of Perception' Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Theorist. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work is commonly associated with the philosophical movement called existentialism and its intention to begin with an analysis of the concrete experiences, perceptions, and difficulties, of human existence.

Article link

Shepard Fairey uses phenomenology in his work to 'create a sense of wonder about one's environment' 

Obey Sticker Campaign as an example of Phenomenology.

Gender and Space

'Space, Place and Gender', 1994, Doreen Massey. Key writings about social space, gender and feminism. Talks about women being confined to the domestic space. 

Lucy R Lippard is a writer and activist, she writes about de-materialisation, conceptual art and feminist art.

'Womanhouse', open to the public in 1972 in L.A by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro.

http://womanhouse.refugia.net/

Lecture 8; Comtempary Art

'The physical Impossibility of Death in the mind of someone living', 1991, Damien Hirst.

The shark cost Hirst 6,000 pounds but the piece is worth 12 million pounds (2005). The shark on display now is not the original one.

Conceptualism in the 60s.

Micheal Glover, Art Critic (Independant) Art as a challenge/ not necessarily beautiful. The concept over rides the aesthetic to shock the viewer.

'Breakdown', 2001, Michael Landy destroyed all of his possessions into dust. Everything from his birth certificate, photographs, clothes, everything.


'Once Break Down has finished, a more personal break down, will commence - life without my self-defining belongings'

 'Fountain' , 1917, Marcel Duchamp. 

Marcel Duchamp submitted this work under another name to an exhibition for which he was on the hanging committee. The work caused uproar and was rejected and Marcel Duchamp resigned from the hanging committee. This was Duchamp's anti art gesture.

'Fountain after Marcel Duchamp', 1991, Sherrie Levine

A version of Marcel Duchamp's work cast using Bronze. There have been many interpretations and plays on Duchamp's work. Bruce Nauman photographed himself as the subject and fountain.

'Fountain Self Portrait', 1967, Bruce Nauman

 'Erased De Kooning', 1953, Robert Rauschenberg

Youtube video interview

'Pilgrim', Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg attaches an object to his work and paints it as a part of the canvas. 

'Art and Culture', 1966-69, John Latham

Latham chewed up paper from Library books and then put the paper into bottles and sent the books back to the Library. For this, he almost lost his job.

Conceptual Art 60s/70s, ideas and concepts given power/reference over art and aesthetic of the work. Plays with the audience and critic. Elements of humour brought into artwork.

'Artist's shit', 1961, Piero Manzoni

 'Untitled', 1992, Rirkrit Tiravanija

Tiravanija is known for his art installation work involving food. Here, he made a make shift kitchen and  cooked Thai food for guests at the gallery, and even encouraged them to cook themselves. 

Lecture 6; City and Film

20/01/12

Georg Simmel (1858-1918), a German sociologist who wrote Metropolis and Mental Life.

Dresden Exhibition, 1903. Simmel was asked to lecture on the role of intellectual life in the city but instead reverses the idea and writes about the effect of the city on the individual.

Urban Sociology- Lewis Hine (1932). He looks at the fragility of the body to this mammoth creation of the city, the huge buildings and architecture. The architecture of the the city defines it.

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)

• Creator of the modern skyscraper, known as the 'father of skyscrapers'.
• An influential architect and critic of the Chicago School.
•  Organic nature in his design. 

The Guaranty Building is recognized as one of Louis Sullivan's masterpieces. Completed in 1896 in Buffalo.

The building is built using Terra Cotta (baked earth). Louis Sullivan is considered to be a forward thinker with his design of this building as it combines the modern skyscraper built fully out of Terra Cotta and is very ornate.

The skyscraper became symbolic of change.

Another one of Louis Sullivan's buildings is Carson Pirie Scott store in Chicago (1904).

'Art in America' BBC documentary.

Click the link to watch Manhatta.

'Manhatta' (1921) Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler. Strand was a photographer and Sheeler a painter.There is an unusual structure to the film.

Fordism; Mechanized labour relation. Manufacturing to a high standard for means of mass production. Coined by Italian writer Antonio Gramsci in his essay 'Americanism and Fordism'.

The Charlie Chaplin film 'Modern Times' (1936) , criticizes the concept of Fordism. It follows the main character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. A comment on employment and social conditions faced during the Great Depression, created by Modern Industrialization.

1929- The stock market crash. Industries and Factories seemed golden until the Great Depression. Factories shut and unemployment rises dramatically leading to this Great Depression.

Click the link to watch Man with a Movie Camera

'Man with a Movie Camera' (1929) Dziga Vertov. A Russian director whose work was considered pioneering at this time, he uses lots of different camera shots and techniques.


Flaneur- Comes from the French word for stroller. Used to describe the upper class gentleman stroller leisurely wandering around the city, surveying the streets.


'A person who walks the city in order to experience it' Charles Baudelaire. Art should capture this.

Walter Benjamin adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle as seen in his writing. Benjamin's 'Arcades Project' (1927-1940) was a lifelong project of Benjamin's, a collection of writings about the city and construction of glass covered arcades in Paris. Benjamin saw them as being inhabited by the flaneur in the city and co insiding with Paris's streetlife.  They began to be constructed in the early 19th century, however many of them were destroyed during Baron Haussman's renovation of Paris known as Haussmanisation.

Photographer as a flaneur. 'an armed version of the solitary walker'- Susan Sontag.

Flaneuse- Female version of the Flaneur.

'The Dialects of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades' - Susan Buck-Morss.
In this text Susan Buck-Morss analyses Benjamin's concept. Commenting on the female flaneur/wandering are usually described with negative connotations, e.g. as prostitutes.

'Woman at a counter smoking' NYC, 1962, Diane Arbus.

When a female figure is alone it is questioned and queried why, whereas if a man is seen alone there are no questions asked. It seems more normal for a man to be unaccompanied than a woman. It seems that if a woman is alone then there must be something wrong or unusual happening.

Sophie Calle, a photographer. She followed a man through a city and eventually follows him to Venice. Venice is the perfect setting for her detective photography journey, streets and alleyways for getting lost and following this perfect stranger. 

'Suite Venitienne' Venice, 1980, Sophie Calle

'The Detective' (1980) is another project by Sophie Calle in which she hires a detective to follow her. She documents him as he documents her in Paris. I find her work really interesting and exciting, she creates these detective chases around the city sort of like a game of hide and seek. Capturing moments that otherwise would go un documented. Its as if she is creating her own detective movie.

Tate Article about this project.

'Untitled Film Stills' 1977-1980, Cindy Sherman

The female figure here is surrounded by the skyscrapers in the city. 

Weegee, real name Arthur Felig, a Ukrainian photographer who photographed murders and police investigations in NYC. He follows the emergency services around and captures the crime scenes as they have just occurred. 

Weegee

'Drunken Men' 1943, Weegee.

'Joy Of Living' 1947, Weegee

Car Hits 3d Ave. L - One Dies, Two Hurt. Under double-bill movie marquee, body of Stanley Stanley, was covered with newspapers and coats by police. Technical charge of homicide was lodged against Frank Whalen, who was taken to Bellevue Hospital for observation. Another passenger, Joseph Mahoney, also was hurt.

'He will take his camera and ride off in search of new evidence that his city, even in her most drunken and disorderly  and pathetic moments, is beautiful' - William McCleery in Naked City.

'Naked City', 1945, Anthony W Lee and Richard Meyer.

He chases around these dramatic crime scenes following murders and the deaths of people in mysterious circumstances, often getting to the scenes before the emergency services. His photographs are shocking because of the gritty reality behind them, capturing night life, the drunk crowds, brawls of the busy city. I would like to do some further reading into his journalistic photography approach and this tabloid style of capturing events.

'L.A Noire' (2011) is the first video game to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Metropolis by Fritz-Lang paints a picture of what the city of the future could be like.

 'Metropolis', 1927, Fritz-Lang

'Blade Runner', 1982, Ridley Scott

Blade Runner creates a picture of a futuristic Los Angeles in 2019 where genetically engineered robots have been created, however banned from earth, they must be hunted down and destroyed.

'Many are called', 1938, Walker Evans

Walker Evans photographs people in the city, capturing moments where people are surrounded by buildings and people however seem separate from the city and alone.

Photographer Joel Meyerwitz, known for his street photography, captures the confusion and overload of the city and crowds.

Crisis in the city means the demise of the Flaneur. Tragic events make you and the city more surveillanced and suspicious of everyone. An underlying threat in the city of something bad happening creates panic and constant state of wariness.

Twitterize yourself

Twitterize yourself, from your all of your tweets a version of you will be generated from things you post about, see how accurate it may be! Is the way people talk on twitter the way they talk in real life? I think this is very interesting to discover although I cannot do it as I am not a part of the twitter world...

Catfish