Hannah Concannon

PNCA MFA Visual Studies '18 

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Sad Girl Series 3: self-portraits exploring feminine performative sadness and the elevation of the glamorous sad woman vs the often taboo, “ugly” reality of sadness.

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Sad Girl Series 2: self-portraits exploring feminine performative sadness and the elevation of the glamorous sad woman vs the often taboo, “ugly” reality of sadness. 

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Sad Girl Series 1: self-portraits exploring feminine performative sadness and the elevation of the glamorous sad woman vs the often taboo, “ugly” reality of sadness. 

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Disembodybutter Installation View 2018

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Disembodybutter: Club Kid Time-Lapse

In tandem with Rupaul’s Drag Race season 10, the sad club kid began to appear in my algorithmically suggested Instagram content. After Ms. Cracker and Aquaria both did sad eyebrows on episode 1 this season my Picked for You feed was overrun by sad drag and sad club kid makeup.

Criteria for simulating the Sad Club Kid Identity according to my Explore page: 1.Unnatural brow and hair color 2. A smudged lip 3. Glitter 4. Emotion, emotion, emotion.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Club Kid

Self Portrait. In tandem with Rupaul’s Drag Race season 10, the sad club kid began to appear in my algorithmically suggested Instagram content. After Ms. Cracker and Aquaria both did sad eyebrows on episode 1 this season my Picked for You feed was overrun by sad drag and sad club kid makeup.

Criteria for simulating the Sad Club Kid Identity according to my Explore page: 1.Unnatural brow and hair color 2. A smudged lip 3. Glitter 4. Emotion, emotion, emotion.

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Instagram knows I have curly hair, so “Picked For You: Naturally Curly” represents the natural curls style blogger. This persona felt the most like doing drag of myself, a riff on my everyday look just amplified.

Here are the criteria for visually simulating the naturally curly style blogger: 1. Perfect wavy voluminous hair (I bought a wig that looks pretty much the same as my own hair. If that’s not surreal, I don’t know what is) 2. Smudged out smokey eye makeup 3. Fake eyelashes 4. A smile like the woman eating salad alone.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Naturally Curly

Self Portrait. Apparently Instagram knows I have curly hair, so I regularly encounter the natural curls style blogger on my Explore page. This one felt like doing drag of myself, my regular self just amplified. Needs: Perfect wavy voluminous hair (I bought a wig that looks pretty much the same as my own hair. If that’s not surreal, I don’t know what is) smudged out smokey eye makeup, fake eyelashes (always), and a smile like the woman eating salad alone. 

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Right in the middle of my thesis project Coachella happened. Consequently my Instagram Explore Page was flooded with images of festival goers, and within this deluge of Coachella selfies a few distinct patterns emerged.

To simulate the Coachella digital persona the criteria are as follows: Glitter, rhinestones on your face, bright colorful makeup, festival wear (revealing, sparkly, impractical, but it looks so good in selfies).

There’s also a certain quality to the light in southern California in the late afternoon, so I also used the most lights for this look in order to make it seem like I was standing in front of that one wall at the Saguaro Hotel.

Projected near life size, this time-lapse video is the real documentation of the deception and artifice employed to make “Picked For You: Coachella.” Projected on the wall, it references the fantasy of cinema, the escapism of films and movies, and directly reveals the skill set required to pull off said fantasy, a skill set increasingly drawn upon to present curated versions of the self to an audience of Instagram followers. The projection acts to pull back the filter, documenting and foregrounding the labor involved in performing for social media.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Coachella, 

Self Portrait. Right in the middle of my thesis project Coachella happened. Consequently my Instagram Explore Page was flooded with images of festival goers, and within this deluge of Coachella selfies a few distinct patterns emerged.To simulate the Coachella digital persona the criteria are as follows: Glitter, rhinestones on your face, bright colorful makeup, festival wear (revealing, sparkly, impractical, but it looks so good in selfies).There’s also a certain quality to the light in southern California in the late afternoon, so I also used the most lights for this look in order to make it seem like I was standing in front of those brightly colored walls and doors in Palm Springs. 

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Created during week five of my thesis project, “Picked For You: Watches” presented a blip in the system, an instance where, because I was on the hunt for a specific item to purchase, I unknowingly disrupted my Instagram Explore page algorithm in a pretty major way. During weeks four and five of the project I began researching and eventually purchased a new watch. Almost immediately images of watches, male watch bloggers, and menswear bloggers populated my feed, providing the inspiration for Watch Guy. Watch guy likes to wear suits. Watch guy has the kind of hair that is perfectly, but not overly gelled into place. Watch Guy works in Sales. Watch guy is kind of a smug asshole with the smirk to prove it. And, apparently, Watch Guy and I have similar taste in timepieces.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Watches

Self Portrait. Created during week five of my thesis project, “Picked For You: Watches” presented a blip in the system, an instance where, because I was on the hunt for a specific item to purchase, I unknowingly disrupted my Instagram Explore page algorithm in a pretty major way. During weeks four and five of the project I began researching and eventually purchased a new watch. Almost immediately images of watches, male watch bloggers, and menswear bloggers populated my feed, providing the inspiration for Watch Guy. Watch guy likes to wear suits. Watch guy has the kind of hair that is perfectly, but not overly gelled into place. Watch Guy works in Sales. Watch guy is kind of a smug asshole with the smirk to prove it. And, apparently, Watch Guy and I have similar taste in timepieces

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Perhaps my favorite of all my social media personas, Crystal Girl. I lived in the Bay Area for three years after college. If any of you have lived there, you know that uncomfortably long hugs, in-depth discussions of chakra balancing, and general new age love and light stuff are pretty much mandatory for participating in creative social circles. As a result, most of my friends have at least at one point identified as “yoga instructor” and frequently post about the healing power of crystals. This type of suggested content in my Instagram Explore page comes as no surprise.

In “Picked for you: Crystals” here are the characteristics I tracked and replicated: 1. The Natural Look, where you still use makeup but you look natural 2. Crystals. 3. Tan, you have to be California bronzed from all that meditating that you somehow do outside all year, or freckles. Here I used way too much bronzer and applied fake freckles for good measure 4. Stretchy clothing so that yoga can be practiced at. Any. Time. 5. Long hair, sun-kissed, naturally (or unnaturally) highlighted 6. Zenned out, #tooblessedtobestressed expression.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Crystals

Self Portrait: Yoga Girl. I lived in the Bay Area for three years after college. If any of you have lived there, you know that uncomfortably long hugs, in depth discussions of chakra balancing, and general new age love and light stuff are pretty much mandatory for participating in creative social circles. As a result, most of my friends have at least at one point identified as “yoga instructor” and frequently post about the healing power of crystals, this suggested content comes as no surprise. In “Picked for you: Crystals” here are the characteristics I tracked and replicated: 1. The Natural Look, where you still use makeup but you look natural 2. Crystals. 3. Tan, you have to be California bronzed from all that meditating that you somehow do outside all year, or freckles. Here I bronzed myself and applied fake freckles for good measure 4. Stretchy clothing so that yoga can be practiced at. Any. time. 5. Long hair, sun-kissed, naturally (or unnaturally) highlighted 6. Zenned out look.

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Using source material from the algorithmically suggested “Goth Glamour” tag, the criteria for goth glamour, based on my research, is as follows: 1. Black clothing 2. Black hair. 3. Dark makeup colors with pale foundation 4. Drawn on eyebrows, most of these people shave theirs, so I had to cover mine and paint over them. Shape is important, you can’t just have regular eyebrows, they have to be more intense, more pointy, more angular 4. Stiletto nails, dark colors or matte black preferred 5. A shocking, vampiric red lip.

This video documents the labor inherent in performing a subcultural persona for Instagram.

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Disembodybutter: Picked For You: Goth Glamour

Self Portrait. Using source material from the algorithmically suggested “Goth Glamour” tag, the criteria for goth glamour, based on my research, is as follows: 1. Black clothing 2. Black hair. 3. Dark makeup colors with pale foundation 4. Drawn on eyebrows, most of these people shave theirs, so I had to cover mine and paint over them. Shape is important, you can’t just have regular eyebrows, they have to be more intense, more pointy, more angular 4. Stiletto nails, dark colors or matte black preferred 5. A shocking, vampiric red lip.

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“Picked for you: Fitness” is a digital self-portrait representing an amalgamation of young, white, female “fitness” fashion bloggers who heavily feature photographs of themselves wearing minimal clothing sourced from discount fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21. In order to create this look I aggregated a large of number of images of scantily-clad fitness girls which appeared on my Instagram Explore page in the “Picked for You: Fitness” content block. Then I pieced together the various rules and guidelines of visually belonging to the fitness babe aesthetic identity, namely:

1. Pose in a way that amplifies your butt and hides your waist, 2. Have long, well-coiffed hair or extensions, preferably color-treated, usually blonde, 3. Wear a full face of makeup and false eyelashes to appear gorgeous, poreless, and contoured, 4. Have well-manicured long nails, and 5. Wear inexpensive, revealing clubstyle clothing.

Back in the lighting studio, I filmed a time-lapse of the four hour process of setting up lights, backdrop, applying makeup, getting into costume, and taking the final photos of my full-fledged digital persona. In the end I created an image which would look at home next to other fitness girls on my Explore page, successfully simulating an identity suggested for me by the Instagram algorithm.