Identity

James Beighton
James.beighton@leeds-art.ac.uk

Theories of Identity
Essentialism – biological make up makes us who we are
- an inner essence that makes us who we are
Post Modern Theorists disagree – anti-essentialism

Physiognomy VS Phrenology
Cesare Lombroso, 1835-1909 – founder of Positivst Criminology – the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited – ‘Luomo Deliquente’
Physiognomy legitimising racism

Historical phases of identity
Douglas Kellner – Media Culture: cultural studies, identity and politics between the modern and the post-modern, 1992
Pre modern identity - personal identity is stable and defined by long lasting roles
Modern identity – modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles, possibility to start ‘choosing’ your social identity rather than being born into it, people are aware of ‘worry’ about who they are
Post-modern identity – accepts these changes?

Pre-modern identity – institutions defined identity
marriage, the church, monarchy, government, the state, work, patriarchy

‘secure identities’ – related institutional agency with a vested interest
farm worker – landed gentry
the soldier – the state
the factory worker – industrial capitalism
the housewife – patriarchy
the gentleman – patriarchy
husband and wife (family) – marriage/the church

Modern Identity, 19th and early 20th centuries
Charles Baudelaire – The Painter of Modern Life, 1863
Thorstein Veblen – Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899
Georg Simmel – The Metropolis and Mental Life, 1903

Baudelaire introduces the concept of the ‘flaneur’ – gentleman-stroller
Veblen – ‘conspicious consumption of valuable goods in a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure’
example – Gustave Caillebotte, 1876 – Le Pont de L’Europe
Simmel – The trickle down theory
- emulation
- distinction
- the ‘Mask’ of Fashion
example – Gustave Caillebotte, 1877 – Paris Street, Rainy Day
Georg Simmel
‘the feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on the train, or in the traffic of a large city’
Simmel suggests that because of the speed and mutability of modernity, individuals withdraw…

Post Modern Identity – ‘Discourse Analysis”
Identity is constructed out of the discourses culturally available to us
‘a set of recurring statements that define a particular ‘object’ and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed’
- age, class, gender, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, income etc
Class
Nationality
Race/Ethnicity
Gender and Sexuality – All considered as otherness

Class
Bourdiou – talks about the idea of classes and the notion that one can have class, implying they are upper class
the concept of ‘taste’ and the history of it – essentially a history of distaste and the need to distinguish ones taste from another

Martin Parr, Ascott – 2003
‘”Society”… reminds one of a particularly shrewd, cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life, cheating if given a chance, flouting rules whenever possible”
Think of England/Berlin/etc Documentary photography of a place

Alexander McQueen, Highland Rape Collection, Autumn/Winter 1995-6
McQueen claims that the rape was of Scotland, not the individual models, as the theme of the show was the Jacobite rebellion
Vivienne Westwood, Anglomania Collection, Autumn/Winter 1993-4

Las Vegas – 73% of americans don’t have Passports
Victor Papnek – ‘I didn’t’ like Europe as much as I like Disney World. At Disney World all the countries are much closer together, and they just show you the best of each country…”

Chris Ofili – No Woman, No Cry – 1998 (Stephen Lawrence)
- Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars - 1994

Gillian Wearing – ‘Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that
say what someone else wants you to say’, 1992-3

Emily Bates – dress created using her own hair
‘hair has been an issue throughout my life…it often felt that it was nothing more than my hair in other peoples’ eyes’
Gender and Sexuality
masquerade and the mask of femininity
Cindy Sherman – Untitled Film Stills, 1977-80

Sam Taylor-Wood – Fuck, Suck, Spunk, Wank, 1993
Sarah Lucas – Au Naturel, 1994
Tracy Emin – Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-95, 1995
Wonderbra – I can’t cook. Who cares?
Gillian wearing – I can’t cool but I’ve got great breasts

The Post Modern Condition
Identity is constructed through our social experience
Erving Goffman – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Zymunt Bauman – Identity, 2004
Liquid Modernity, 2000
Liquid Love, 2003

‘Introspection is a disappearing act’

Darley, 2000 – Visual Digital Culture
Tom Hodgkinson, 2008 – ‘With friends like these…’ Guardian, 14/10/08
Second Life Marriage story
Charles Handy, 2001 - ?
Bauman, 2004 – Identity
‘”Identity” is a hopelessly ambiguous idea and a double edged sword.”