What's Tumblr?

- Socially Inept - - Eternally Unsure - - A Social Media baby -

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Reference List

Abakanowicz, M, Fibre Statues, viewed 18/03/2017, http://milenaolesinska.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/abakans-magdalena-abakanowicz.html-

Agatha, C 1934, Murder on the Orient Express, Collins Crime Club, UK.

Austen, J 1813, Pride and Prejudice, Thomas Egerton, UK.

Austen, J 1814, Mansfield Park, Thomas Egerton, UK.

Barker, C 2012, ‘Issues of subjectivity and identity’, in Cultural Studies: theory and practice, 4th ed., SAGE, London, pg. 219-251

Bowman, R 2009-16, Castle, American Broadcasting Company, USA.

Brooks, P 2001, Troubling confessions: speaking guilt in law and literature, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pg. 9.  

Browning, EB 1986, Sonnets from the Portuguese, St. Martin's Press; 1 ed., New York, USA, XXXII.

Campion, J 2009, Bright Star, viewed 17/03/2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW6AkaO-LQM-

Dumas, A, The Count of Monte Cristo, Vintage ed. 2009, CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon.  

Giddens, A 1984, The Constitution of Society, UC Press, USA, pg. 282-283

Hall, S 1996, The Question of Cultural Identity, SAGE Publishing, California, USA, pg. 611.

Ink Image for profile, Unknown Artist, viewed on 22/03/2017, https://jamiecurtisdesign.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/dscf61092.jpg

Ink Image for Header, Unknown Artist, viewed on 22/03/2017,

http://more-sky.com/group/ink-wallpaper/

Mansfield, N 2000, Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway, NYU Press, New York, USA, pg. 27-30.

Neusüss, F 1967, Untitled, viewed 18/03/2017, http://www.widewalls.ch/photogram-artists/floris-neussus/

Snyder, MV 2005, Poison Study, Mira Books, Chatswood, NSW, Australia.

Trotta, M, Iron Sculpture, viewed 17/03/2017, http://thedesigninspiration.com/articles/the-iron-sculpture-by-mattia-trotta/

Zlatarova, V, Clay Sculpture, viewed 17/03/2017, http://academyofartbarcelona.com/tutors/valentina-zlatarova/

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Locked in darkness that surrounded me like a coffin, I had nothing to distract me from my memories. Vivid recollections waited to ambush me whenever my mind wandered. Encompassed by the blackness, I remember white-hot flames stabbing at my face. Though my hands had been tied to a post that dug sharply into my back, I had recoiled from the onslaught. The fire had pulled away just before blistering my skin, but my eyebrows and eyelashes had long since been singed off.

Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study, 2005, Chapter 1, Pg. 9

Stimulated senses and feelings that are triggered by techniques in art— from prior experiences, a viewer or consumer can acknowledge a feeling or sense that is being portrayed to them through words, images or textiles. Writers especially use Sensory Knowledge to immerse a reader into their world. Using adjectives, verbs, metaphors and similes, alongside vast other devices, a writer can pull on a reader’s experience of sensations— like touch, smell, taste— and cause them to feel them again, if on a smaller scale. While not really feeling the softness of the bed, a reader can picture or simulate the experience of touching something smooth when it is described to them.

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Creative Identity

Your unique fingerprint, your stamp, your style— your Creative Identity. A murder mystery novelist, a period-drama enthusiast, a lover of handmade sculptures. What speaks to you when you write something—the language, structure and imagery, or the plot and characters.

“There are two kinds of people who sit around all day thinking about killing people... mystery writers and serial killers. I'm the kind that pays better.”  ― Richard Castle, from American television drama, Castle.

Your Creative Identity may be exceptionally diverse, or centred around one genre and creative practice. Jane Austen, for example, was primarily a romance novelist, leaving clear creative marks on the world— having eight (if not more) adaptions of her novel Pride and Prejudice made.   

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”  ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

 “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” 

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Creative Influence

Creative Influence— that which guides, sparks or helps define your creative practices. Whether it be in relation to what stories you write, how you write them— or even what things you omit from your creative pieces. Romanticist texts, for example, all draw on one another in some form or rather. Jane Campion’s film, Bright Star, follows the love story of Fanny Brawne and John Keats, based on a single poem he wrote. The time-jumping vignettes which portray the story are Campions inspiration from the Romanticists refusal to adhere to Neo-Classicist structure. The following is a scene from Bright Star in its entirety, as an example of the vignettes.

[preference-anonymous-blog]

The first time that the sun rose on thine oath To love me, I looked forward to the moon To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon And quickly tied to make a lasting troth. Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe; And, looking on myself, I seemed not one For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste, Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note. I did not wrong myself so, but I placed A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,— And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1850, XXXII

Maintaining and sharing one’s personal truths, addressing honestly, baldly and without guise, one’s individual failings, quirks and strengths, are the fundamental aspects of Authenticity. Sincerely confronting aspects of your identity and allowing these aspects to be viewed by others can become experiences of personal growth and acceptance (Brooks, 2001, Pg. 9) Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese are exceptional confessions of not only her love, but her feelings of inadequacy, of inferiority to others, and her strident fear of being in love. Browning explored and confronted her understandings of her identity through the written word, and in doing so, shared with the world a true depiction of the trials of falling in love.  

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Social Identity

Our Social Identity— essentially who we are in a cultural setting, and who we are not. The titles we adopt, trivial or otherwise, that place us in certain roles within society and help define or shape our understanding of ourselves and others. Some such titles may be references to our gender, sexuality or ethnic group (Giddens, 1984, pg. 282-283). Magdalena Abakanowicz’s fibre sculptures, with their tendency to depict near-identical headless figures in a group, assimilate this concept of Social Identity— the manner in which our sameness with others, our belonging to specific groups, can form potentially fundamental parts of our identity.  

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.

Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express, 1934, pg. 205

Over Determination is to take seemingly inconsequential interruptions of the conscious mind by the unconscious— whether that be an image, a thought, or a phrase— and to address it as something substantial— as a deeper reflection of an individual’s psychology or identity. Even the smallest of behaviours, traits or preferences can be viewed through Over Determination as intense mirrors of the self, or of innate cultural meaning (Mansfield, 2000, pg. 29-30). Murder mystery novels such as Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie, are excellent examples of the way in which small, outwardly trivial, slips can be observed as revealing parts of the unconscious— inner motivations, repressed feelings and the like.  

[preference-anonymous-blog]

A shadow at the edges of our consciousness— the thoughts, feelings, or images we rarely dwell on, and may even at times fear. Our unconscious mind, the darkness or otherwise lingering just outside of our mental sight, that, within its depths, may hold answers to questions regarding our individual identities (Mansfield, 2000, pg. 27-28) Floris Neusüss’ photographs embody this sense of darkness, lingering just outside of clear sight— of parts of one’s identity obscured or undefined. We gain a sense of a concealed truth that has the propensity to take a sharper form– much as the unconscious may slip into our conscious mind— if only for a moment.  

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Essentialism

The supposition of a core, enduring self, which is unique to each individual— otherwise known as Essentialism— stands almost directly opposed to the concept of Subjectivity. Rather than embodying aspects of the self which have been taught to us by society, Essentialism suggests an innate, intrinsic identity which would always have been fundamentally our own (Barker, 2012, pg. 220-221). The iron sculptures created by Mattia Trotta evoke impressions of resilience, fortitude, and unique, distinctive identities. Not only the material itself— which, so at odds with the malleability of clay, is durable and long-lasting— but the unshakeable form of the sculpture, represents the maintenance of an individual’s true, unique self.  

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Here Edmond was to undergo another trial; it was to see if he should recognise himself, never having beheld his own features for fourteen years. He had preserved a tolerably good remembrance of what the youth had been, and was now to find what the man had become… he requested a looking-glass in which he might see himself. He was now, as we have said, three-and-thirty years of age, and his fourteen years’ imprisonment had produced a great change in his appearance. Dantès had entered the Château d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young, happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been smooth, and who relies on the future as a natural deduction of the past. This was now all changed. His oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a large and thoughtful wrinkle; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred… the deep learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features the rays of extreme intellect… More-over, being perpetually in twilight or darkness, his eyes had acquired that singular faculty of distinguishing objects in the night common to the hyena and the wolf. Edmond smiled when he beheld himself: it was impossible that his best friend—if, indeed, he had any friend left— could recognise him; he could not recognise himself.

Alexandre Dumas, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, 1845, Chapter 22, Pg. 251-252

Within us may exist multiple selves, multiple identities which surface at varying intervals and for different reasons— in other words: a fractured identity. Rather than existing with a ‘core self’, individuals consist of possibly clashing identities which may lure us to different places in life (Hall, 1996, pg. 611). Alexandre Dumas’, The Count of Monte Cristo, explores Edmond Dantes’ assimilation of multiple identities in his quest for revenge— the manner, and extent, to which he does not have a ‘core self’, but rather embodies a fractured identity, maintaining separate selves (some kind and simple, others shrewd and cruel) that deter him from enacting revenge, or demand that he does.    

[preference-anonymous-blog]

Subjectivity is the malleability of the self—the way in which we are all subjects to societies many hands, to be shaped, formed, and progressed as an individual. We are each adorned with layers in our exposure to culture— guided and taught to assimilate desirable qualities all throughout our life (Barker, 2012, pg. 224-225). Valentina Zlatarova’s clay sculptures depict this pliability of identity, not only because, as a material, clay is flexible and adaptable and therefor easily manipulated, but because their forms, the portraits they take, are identities Zlatarova has developed herself. They therefor portray, in some form or rather, her own cultural understanding of man.