identity and the world @confusingaspectsoflife-blog - Tumblr Blog

social identity

Social identity is the universal concept ‘that we are born into a world that pre-exists us’ (Barker 2007, pg 222); it already has set rules and as humans instinctively we feel obliged to follow. Tagg & Sergeant 2016 state that ‘Identity operates as a set of resources which people draw upon in presenting and expressing themselves...and is performed to some extent through the alignments people make with different groups’ (pg 343). Wrabels “The Village” highlights the issues of being raised into a specific category and examines principal transgender issues within a family unit. Also the conflict an individual faces with social identity when trying to ‘fit in’ while adjusting to resemble their truest form, the music video states an interpretation about society "in nature, a flock will attack any bird that is more colourful than the others because being different is seen as a threat…” (Wrabel, 2017)

#socialidentity

fractured identity

Fractured Identity is Stuart Halls notion of recognizing that identity isn’t a single coherent, yet individuals acquire multiple identities throughout there life. Explored through the impression that ‘the fully unified, completed, secure and coherent identity is a fantasy’ (Hall 1996, p. 598). As an individual progresses through the human experience they discover more and therefore take on another identity. A character within ‘All The Bright Places’ by Jennifer Niven, Theodore Finch continuously shifts his entire identity to attempt to fulfill what he feels is his ‘core-self’. Throughout multiplex transformation, he notices his core self is mentally ill and shapes himself into someone he perceives others will see and believe as his true self.

#fracturedidentity

unconscious

The unconscious is distinguished as our fears, desires, and segments of ourselves we hide, it approaches the self through dreams, parapraxes, and jokes. It can be seen as ‘the existence of ideas on the border of consciousness” (Mansfield 2000, p.27). The unconscious mind is Freud's concept that leaves an individual left venerable and perplexed. The song 'Visions of Gideon' by Sufjan Stevens is a response to the unconscious, the repetitive nature of the lyrics asking "Is it a video? Is it a video?” (Stevens 2017, track 17); is exhibiting when the unconscious links too tightly to reality. When one's unconscious desires transmute into a reality for a limited period, the artist formulates how his memories are nothing more than visions towards the unconscious now that the one he had craved for so long has left him.

#unconscious

overdetermination

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/natasha-dern/can-dreams-reveal-potenti_b_642775.html

Overdetermination is the obsessive behavior that every fraction of ourselves is an ‘expression of the most plural and deep psychological complexity’ (Mansfield 2000, pg. 29); That all we endure in our both internal and external selves. It's Freud's suggestion that our human but unconscious thoughts we don’t pay attention to influence our ordinary conscious selves. Usually manifested through dreams, this articles explores notions that if we analyse our dreams as individuals we are ‘open to receive insights/information from the subconscious’ (Bern 2011, para 2); and that we can use overdetermination as a tool to hypothetically predict events in the future and comprehend messages from the unconscious.

#overdetermination

subjectivity

Subjectivity is the ‘condition of being a person and the processes by which we become that person,’ (Baker 2007, pg 220). It’s outside influences that control how we experience certain components of ourselves and at which times, ‘the subject assumes different identities at different times” (Hall 1996, pg 598); translating that external forces shape that subjects version of ‘self’. In Connor Franta's novel ‘Note to Self’ the author traverses the concept of how certain experiences made him recognize the part of him that encounters depression and ‘living with this dark spot on the back of my otherwise effervescent mind’ (Franta 2017, pg 175). By specific forced experiences, another identity of himself rises and that existence of himself has to adapt to his situation.

#subjectivity

creative influence

Creative Influence is when the work of an artists practice is comprehended by another artist and ‘that individual differences impact the creative influence of situational forces' (Shalley, Hitt and Zhou 2015, pg. 240). Ideas in creatively and originality can be quite amenable when constructed new art or new variations of art. Frequently new adaptions of songs can lead the unending result of creative influence. An example is the 1931 song ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ by Ozzie Nelson, correlated to a 2018 cover revise by Conan Gray. Almost one hundred years on, the song is still responsible to be stimulating for artists and by embracing creative influenced art, the original work is able to stay relevant for longer.

#creativeinfluence

authenticity

Authenticity is the concept to be able to produce art and state something about that art while being completely genuine and true to one’s character. “[C]onfession is considered to bear a special stamp of authenticity… [I]t has become… a dominant form of self-expression, one that bears special witness to personal truth… truth of the self and to the self have become the markers of authenticity’ (Brooks 2001, pg 9). Alana Valentines playwright ‘Parramatta Girls’ contains authentic stories of the experiences of the girls that got sent to Parramatta Home for Troubled Girls and were abused and tortured for years, Alana used true verbatim to evoke the authenticity behind the stories and bring truth to the surface that was hidden away for various years.

#authenticity

essentialism

Essentialism is highlighting that ‘identity exists as a universal and timeless core of the shelf that we all posses. We might say that persons have an ‘essence’ of the self that we call identity’ (Barker 2007, pg 221). It’s the sincerest version of ourselves feasible, and it’s the process of bestowing this essence of ourselves to the world. The image highlights gender essentialism at a young age, society has constructed a way to force a fixed essence of femininity and masculinity within individuals (Barker 2007, pg 221); determining the idea of anti-essentialism, which in how "language ‘makes’ rather than ‘finds’” (Barker 2007, pg 221). By having a perceived core essence, this initiates the journey for one to express their true essentialism more difficult.

#essentialism

sensory knowledge

Sensory knowledge shows ‘as individuals and as members of societies with particular sensory paradigms, we learn how to value these impressions and how to use them to make sense of ourselves and the world’ (Howes, pg. 26). It’s a representation of how our senses can enquire knowledge to bring awareness to the changing world around us. The short film ‘Let it Be’ By Bertie Gilbert, shows the shifts a girl faces when a character ‘death’ shows up, she finds herself more used to death and more disconnected to her surroundings and relationships since she suffers from cancer. Her sensory knowledge becomes less reliable and starts to shape due to the beginning of another phase of her life.

#sensoryknowledge

creative identity

Creative identity is the manner in which individuals perceive themselves and use their personal experiences to signify themselves creatively as an artist, ‘linking their creative actions with their identities’ (Karwowski and Kaufman 2017, pg 49). Due to occurrences that have affected their identity, those aspects heavily sway how they appear as an artist. The Social Media Influencer and singer Dodie Clark allows her experiences of depression and depersonalization to move her music and aims to inspire and educate others, she has strongly connected herself as the type of artist who is open about her mental struggles and strives to highlight the low and high points in her journey through her music.

#creativeidentity

References:

-Barker, C. (2008). ‘Issues of subjectivity and identity’, in Cultural studies: theory and practice. 3rd ed. London: Sage Productions, p.220-223

-Boskey, E. (2017). What is Gender Essentialism?. [online] Verywell Health. https://www.verywell.com/what-is-gender-essentialism-3132613 [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

- Clark, D. (2016). when || dodie. [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2LuQAtD9tE [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].

-Created Equal. (2007). [image] https://www.flickr.com/photos/runnerone/955456240/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

-Dern, N. (2011). Can Dreams Reveal Potential or Predict The Future?. [Blog] THE BLOG. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/natasha-dern/can-dreams-reveal-potenti_b_642775.html [Accessed 19 Mar. 2018].

-Franta, C. (2017). Note to self. New York: Keywords Press, p.175.

-Gilbert, B. (2016). LET IT BE - a bertie gilbert film (2016). [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwItKu2Qz8&t=712s [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

-Gray, C. (2018). dream a little dream of me - cover. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bWxIOkLeQI [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

-Hall, S., Held, D., Hubert, D. and Thompson, K. (2006). Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, p.596.

-Howes, D. (2005). Skinscapes: embodiment, culture, and environment, in Classen, C. The book of touch. Berg: Oxford, p. 27-29

- Karwowski, M. and Kaufman, J. (2017). The Creative Self. London: Academic Press, p.49.

-Lindesmith, A., Strauss, A. and Denzin, N. (1999). Social psychology. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p.225.

-Mansfield, N. (2000). Subjectivity: theories of the self from Freud to Haraway. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, p. 27-29

-Nelson, O. (1931). DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME - Ozzie Nelson - 1931. [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry3G_JpxDco [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

-Niven, J. (n.d.). All the Bright Places Quote. [image] https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/462322717980309704/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

-Niven, J. (2015). All The Bright Places. London: Penguin Books.

-Shalley, C., Hitt, M. and Zhou, J. (2015). The Oxford Handbook Of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. Oxford University Press, p.240.

-Stevens, S. (2017). Visions of Gideon. [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlxDu7WSWss [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

-Valentine, A. (2007). Parramatta Girls. Currency Press.

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