Identity is the theft of the self...

So, I know I've been slacking with the music reviews as of lately, but I thought I would talk about something a little different.  I've been working on a project concerning identity.  I took mug shots of myself in several different personas: the army vet, the "wangsta", the cross dresser, the ski bum, etc.  I had a lot of fun with project and although I'm primarily a painter and a drawer, this is probably one of my favorite projects that I've ever done.  Dressing up as each character was fun and although the 8"x10" photos cost a lot of money, it was totally worth it.  Something my teacher talked a lot about today was scale.  Some people had around 20 photos, some around 8 or 10, but they were all 4"x6" and they really just didn't have much of a presence or impact when they were just stuck on the wall.  I had 24 8"x10" pictures, with the pair of mugshots for each of the 12 personas glued to a manila folder.  I had three rows of 4 "case files" and overall it was probably around 6' wide and about 3' tall.  This is how it looked when it was presented:

 

Luckily I had a tiny, tiny, tiny background in stage make-up from doing drama in high school, so doing make-up on myself wasn't awful.  The only thing that was bad was for the upper left photo (the army vet) I put an apple cinnamon teabag all over my face to make it more red and dirty.  Let me tell you, never EVER EVER do that; it burns like shit. I'm really getting into this whole photography thing right now and I'm really liking doing projects with it.  My last project had photos in it as well, but this project was infinitely more successful.  I like it because it really lets the viewer ask, "Who is this person?  Why were they arrested?  Do any of these resemble the artist as they actually see themselves?"  None of these questions can be answered just by looking at the piece.  That's the way I wanted it, ambiguous.  Ask yourself who you are, what your identity is.  The quote I have as the title of this entry is the title of the piece as well: "Identity is the Theft of the Self".  You have to ask yourself, "Is my identity who I really am or who I want to be/ who other people want me to be/ who I want to be for other people?"  Only you yourself truly know who you are.  No one else can even come close to knowing yourself as intimately as you do.

Now, I know there's some die-hard readers of mine who are anxious for another music review, so, I'll fill you in.  Over the course of this week, I will be highlighting my finally decided favorite band (as of right now).  This band is Metacritic's band of the decade: Spoon.  I will be doing a three piece, three album review over "Kill the Moonlight" (2002), "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" (2007), and "Transference" (2010).  I'll most likely post the first of these on Wednesday.  See you then!

Hugh

PS - If anyone wants to see any close-ups of the mug shots, just leave a comment and I'll post a few.