Representation

“Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive.� (Marx)

I like this quote. Found it when I was searching the idea of "drifting" or derive in regards to the Situationists. Else/Where mentioned the Situationists' drifting being this premire sort of urban mapping process. Drifting, as I understand it, is a process of moving through the city with no intent or place to go, and letting oneself get carried by circumstance, choice, and wimsy. It can be done in a group or individually. It is meant to be playful.

If one were to map a "drift" through a city, wouldn't it in someways be more true to the form of the city? There is no pretention of objectivity in it. In Else/Where they mention how maps are often made to be so legible and clear, but that the reality of the city is generally very illegible. confusing. over stimulating. multi-facited. fractionalized. full of choices at every moment. kind of like life. I am not saying that maps are lies, just overly abstract sometimes. but they do help us get to the essence of a situation or a place. I look forward to mapping "my city" and "my landscape". Pairing down my memories and significant moments into symbols that can signify why a certain place is of importance to me. In line with what Marx said, I certainly have constructed an image of my landscape through my own experiences.

Posted by Carrie Fathman at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am continually amazed at the work done right here at the U, under our noses ;)

This is an amazing article about an interface developed by Cryss Brunner and the U's Digital Media Center that strips users of their identities and assigns (unknowingly) new identities to them. These false personas are used to mediate the educational experience of students, in order to bring to light issues regarding identity and communication.

Please read this very relevant article in light of our discussion: http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/Unmasking_our_true_selves.html

Posted by Ange Tank at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My fascination with the constant creation and re-creation of self probably begins in highschool. I went to a small school and ran on the cross country team. I considered my idenity as a runner, among other things, a huge part of who I was. When I had some repeated injuries and stopped competing, I still considered myself, as did my peers, a runner. After high school, I went to a college where I knew noone. Suddenly, my identity as runner was totally lost. I was just talking to someone who was a competitive skiier in highschool, and though she hasn't skiied in 4 years, still considers herself as such. The activities that we participate in are a huge part of who we are, what happens when we stop participating in a particular activity? When does it cease to play a role on our identity? How do we decide when we're not that person anymore? When you're proud of a particular activity, you might be likely to keep it as an idealized part of self. On the other hand, if it's something you'd rather people no know about, like previous drug habits when you're trying to start a new life, how does that continue to inform self, while still keeping that on the low down? I haven't run with any sort of regularity since 1994, my connection to that lifestyle is very far removed. But it's still a part of my past, 5 formative years of running, that still inform a small part of self. There are countless other activities I participated in that at the time defined who I was, especially within the context of certain communities. It's this constant metamorphasizing process.

I also had a conversation today about how handwriting is a huge self identifying aspect. I am constantly trying to perfect my own personal 'font,' so that I exude some subtle characteristic of myself. It's not only about my signature to prove who I am when I sign a credit card slip, it's a larger message about what it says about myself when I script a lower case g is a particular style...

Posted by Laura Kamin Lyndgaard at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I agree with the myspace and facebook comments. I think it is interesting how online services have and are becoming more our identities to the world. Slowly we are using online services to be the people we want to be. It is a bit like creating a character on a video game. We can exaggerate some of the details. I have read about this becoming a problem as far as communication goes. People are relying more and more on these identities and ways of communicating and in the process are losing out on some of the social skills that are so important in the "real" world.

Posted by James Felgate at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How is myspace and facebook used as representation?

Each person's "space" is a representation of their personality or who they want others to think they are. On myspace they can be as cool as they want to be, or not want to be. It is entirely up to the person painting the picture.

It is similar to the assignment of "the self". I don't think it is necessarily a form of their "Authentic Self" but a part of "the self" nonetheless.

Cynthia Harrison

Posted by Cynthia Harrison at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From Kristin:

I would like to make a short statement about the work of Kara Walker, who is
on view at the Walker right now. She does large installations of black
cut-paper silhouettes to depict historical slave relations in the pre-civil
war South.

In terms of representation, I loved a quote by Kara from the Walker
publication (March/April 07),

"The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that's also what
the stereotype does. So I saw the silhouette and the stereotype as linked."

Kathy Halbreich (Director, Walker Art Center), continues...
"This mating of means and message––a post-war trope that pushed illusionism
out of abstract painting––is therefore updated, as it had to be, to confront
and contain content."

Posted by James Boyd-Brent at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

From Carrie: http://www.futurefarmers.com/homepage.html

The Communi- Culture project is fun to sign up for. (find it in the "stimuli" drop down and then scroll to Comm- V2. It is a way to place yourself on a visual spectrum in an opinion poll. You not only get to see where you stand on an issue, but you get to be and to see the individual identity that people create for themselves. So much better than an anonymous poll or being a number.

Posted by James Boyd-Brent at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Julie forwarded me some examples of the "pavement" artist, Julian Beever.

http://www.thepuzzlefactory.com/2006_chalk.cfm

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfn8Dz_13Ms&mode=related&search=

This type of representation is called "anamorphosis"---and has been used since the Renaissance: a really famous example is Holbein's "The Ambassadors" (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/holbein/ambassadors.jpg.html)--you can only see the skull in the foreground if you crouch down to the side of the painting (it's in the National Gallery in London).

Posted by James Boyd-Brent at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Representation: kymaerica and Eames Demetrios' talk:

I went to the showing of Powers of Ten today at noon and asked Eames Demetrios to talk a bit about his own work, particularly www.kymaerica.com.

I thought it was interesting that there seemed to be parallels between Powers of Ten, the way Charles and Ray Eames worked, and kymaerica. My interpretation is that just as in the film Powers of Ten, in kymaerica we (the viewer) are challenged to really SEE what we see. Or, put another way, we are encouraged to see the "familiar" in a completely fresh light.

Eames talked today about how "our brains can get in the way of perception." In this context, he mentioned that the purpose of the films by Charles and Ray Eames was to engage viewers in new ways of seeing. In a conversation I had with him after his talk he talked about how invented stories about a place can help draw our attention to that place in new ways and unleash more meaningful understanding of place–and that this was his purpose for kymaerica.

An example that came to his mind was the London Underground map: on the one hand it's completely made up and bears very little actual relationship to the physical and spatial reality of London, yet on the other it is an invaluable tool for helping people navigate the city. Kymaerica exploits this type of juxtaposition. He cited an example of a self-confessed "very unartistic person" who became highly attuned to the spatial and aesthetic details of her town, through experiencing the story and artifacts of the kymaerica version of it.

There's another interesting — “representation�-related — aspect of the work of Charles and Ray Eames: the idea that whatever they did, they tried to do it in the spirit of being the "host," with the viewer or audience being therefore the "guest." So they always tried to be as visually engaging as they could possibly be, and a lot of their thought went into this. He mentioned that they had said something along the lines of, "we're asking them (the audience) to give up nine minutes of their life to see this film, so it'd better be worth it for them!"

Posted by James Boyd-Brent at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)