Context Report

THE TRANSIENT IDENTITY

Introduction

Living is hard. We have to do things we don’t want to, we experience stress, guilt, fear and anger as a result of things that are beyond our control.
“For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and land filled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born.”

Cunts are still running the world , and there is nothing you can do about it.

“Let’s suppose your omnipotent and uncompromising government, with the support and the cheering of the masses, decides to use the taxes you pay to finance a golf course that will spoil the landscape of your childhood, or an airport that will deafen your ears, or an unwanted war.”

“Everything is served up in a brochure, with its prescribed etiquettes and its set price. There is nowhere to run. All hideaways are typified, programmed and standardised. They are not, and never again will be, your “own” escape.”

So where do you go? Holidays, books, films and computer games allow you to escape in some way, but what if they don’t cut it anymore? In times as stressful as these, do we need a more complete form of escape?

What if you could take a holiday from yourself?

The philosophical theory of dualism is based on the idea that an individual is made up of two parts, mind and matter. This theory can be traced back to Plato’s Phaedo, in which it is suggested that the true substance of the self lies not in the physical body, but in the mind . Descartes believed that "There is a vast difference between the mind and the body" and that although interlinked, the mind and body are separate entities.
With the right design intervention this separation could be encouraged, and an identity swap could possibly be facilitated.

The type of identity swapping I propose is borne out of disillusionment with modern society, and the problems it brings. Identity transplanting or swapping does not aim to encourage people to escape themselves. It is to encourage and help people to deal with their lives, and with the stresses, problems and fears that everyday life brings by swapping all or part of their identity.
There is a big difference between wanting to be someone else for a while, and wanting to no longer be you. I hope to find the best way of catering for the former. People who wish for the latter are not suitable candidates for identity swapping, it is not permanent and the user should return to his or her original identity feeling refreshed after escaping themselves for a short while.

I AM JAMES BOND

Mark: “Jeremy please, don’t smile like that, you’re not James Bond you’re disgusting.”
Jeremy: (says in his head) “I am James Bond”

Imagine how much easier life would be if you could employ a different identity, perhaps of someone who was more confident, or more polite, to do something you didn’t want to do. James Bond is clever, popular, and confident, he is refined and relaxed in all situations. We could all benefit from a bit of Bond.

James Bond is fictional; his public image is much less likely to change. As he has been played by many different actors, over many years the average person is less likely to attach his persona to one face, making it easier to imagine yourself as him.

ANDREW W.K

Identity can be manifested in many different ways. Celebrity culture often causes individual identity to be abstracted from the physical person it belongs to.

The concept of an identity that can be changed and swapped through a number of different bodies is mentioned in ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ ‘A Scanner Darkly’ ‘The Journey to the East.’ (Quotes, further explanation)

Andrew W.K is a musical performance artist who has had popular chart hits across the world. He has appeared in T.V and radio shows, released two albums, and had 2 world tours. His Wikipedia page contains his entire life story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W.K.) As does his extensive website, which also contains videos of shows, photographs and press (http://www.andrewwk.com/)

Andrew W.K is a fabricated person, and his identity is purely conceptual. His promotional photographs and album covers are all of the same person, but his concerts and interviews are played by a series of actors. (I will collect proof of this- interviews with fans that know he is fabricated, people who have booked him to play etc. and fans that don’t know he is fabricated)

I HAVE THEREFORE I AM

The second part of my project focuses on swapping one specific part of someone’s persona that contributes to his or her overall identity.

In the early 19th Century “Objects were regarded as indicators of moral character, directly measuring the integrity of the owner. However, “correspondences” of this kind were eclipsed by the consolidation of capitalism in the middle of the 19th Century and by the triumph of the self-made man. The interior ceased to be a moral barometer and became instead a domain of material display. The case of the soul was equivalent to the quantity and variety of objects that could be collected and accumulated and, as Marx observed “the more you have, the more you will be”

In the 21st century this trend has intensified “The inner space of western citizens is more likely to be found within the walls of their own cave than in some hidden corner of their soul.”

“The fact is that, far from contributing to your supposed ‘uniqueness’, what objects really do is ‘brand’ you.”

To be branded by objects is to have an identity forced onto you by the manufacturing companies and mass-producing factories that make those products.

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

Despite the current trend, it is possible to take control of our personal environment once more. We can create our own environment “an environment that would go beyond institutionalised patterns of consumption” this requires a greater level of understanding.

To understand first people must think more deeply about their favourite objects, why they like them, why those objects in particular mean so much to them.
Considering this would hopefully discourage someone from buying mass produced objects, that seek not to hold true meaning for the owner, but to purely decorate the home, to ‘brand’ the person.

Object Identity

Objects that change identity, either due to interaction from the user, or of their own accord would sever the ties the user has with their object, forcing the user to think more deeply about what their possessions mean to them, and why.
If the user could change the identity of their products at will then they could truly create an environment that was an expression of their identity, instead of an environment that created their identity for them.

Storage Of Objects

Most people display their favourite objects, but not in any particular order. If the user is forced to order their objects, maybe they would think more about each object, what it means to them, why they like it.

DESIGN FOR THE POST NUCLEAR FAMILY

There are many situations in modern society that already require a certain degree of identity swapping, sometimes without the individual even realising they are doing it. A nurse for example will often use a more detached persona to give patients bad news, and this persona is often different from the one they would use at home. People in these situations would benefit from design interventions that encourage, or make this partial identity swap easier.

The Post-Nuclear family is a good example of this. Families where the parents have broken up and gone on to have new families often exhibit partial identity swapping independent of any design interaction. There is often a significant age gap between the two families; one is often older than the other, meaning that the parent has to act quite differently around each family.

For the parents there is a certain amount of guilt that inevitably comes with the break up of a family. (I may include interviews with my family to back this up) If there is a product available there is almost always demand for it, showing the consumer that they are not alone in their situation. I think that if products were available to encourage this type of identity swapping, either for the parents or for the children, then even just the fact that those products were available would provide reassurance that this type of family (and this type of identity swapping) was acceptable and normal. I also hope that these products would be useful for the family.

The most productive way to encourage identity swapping is not to try and force meaning into objects. “You can’t design things that people will feel emotionally attached to: people’s feelings about objects develop through processes that are out of the designer or maker’s control” But to facilitate identity swapping through storage of treasured possessions.

IN CONCLUSION

I have none as of yet.

Design for the Post Nuclear Family

I have also been working on developing some products for the post nuclear family. I think there is a certain amount of guilt associated with a couple who have children together breaking up nowadays, even though it is now completely normal. I think if products were available, either for the child, the parent or the house it would make the parents feel better. Parents often go on to start other families after a breakup, with each set of children having a large age gap in-between. This means they often have to alter aspects of their identity when dealing with each family. I think this is an interesting example of identity swapping occurring naturally, and it would be interesting to intervene and try to encourage this swapping.

I am James Bond.

I have begun to think that it would be interesting to find ways in which average people can become fantasy figures, if they could swap their identity for a day or more, to be someone who is more confident, interesting, or has some personality features that they don’t, and wish they had. I don’t want to allow someone to get rid of their identity, I want to create a sort of ‘Identity tourism’ where the user could swap identity to try out a new personality, or maybe use their identity to do something that they don’t want to, or couldn’t do on their own. The person will always be able to swap back to their personality again, like a holiday where you can return home.

What if everyone could be James Bond for a period of time? How could this be done? I decided to use him because he is a fictional character (so his public image and personality is harder to be ‘tarnished’ than a real person’s is), he is well known (so a number of people would know what he is like without having to have a personality explained to them first) and he has a desirable personality.

I will look into what constitutes James Bond. When I have researched this through experimentation I will try and create methods of applying James Bond to people.

The Android is a Human

I have recently been thinking about the implications of digital identity. Although this wasn’t a path I originally wanted to explore ( I felt it was very broad and has been extensively explored through various design disciplines already) I find the need to digitally document our entire life interesting. Philip K Dick says in his speech ‘The Android and the Human’ (1972)
“It is the tendency of the so-called primitive mind to animate its environment. Modern depth psychology has requested us for years to withdraw these anthropomorphic projections from what is actually inanimate reality, to introject -- that is, to bring back into our own heads -- the living quality which we, in ignorance, cast out onto the inert things surrounding us.”

In the world of today an infinite amount of ourselves, of our identity, can be stored on the internet for all to see. What would the implications be if the record of our identity we have spent so long pouring into the artificial constructs that surround us was to be lost? How would we survive in a world without a digital identity? I am not interested in a world where the internet, and all computer systems fail. I want to investigate the possibility, and subsequent consequences of the collective identity stored on the internet being lost forever.

First map

I have recently become interested in the different layers of identity, and how they can be organised. After doing some research and looking over some of my previous ideas to see which ‘areas’ I have been working in, I have come up with a map, organised from the most phsycoligically inherent ‘layers of identity’ in the middle, to the more changeable ones on the outside (it is the outside area I think I will mainly be working in) The central three circles are also the most ‘fixed’ in the physicality of the body, these are very hard to affect or change using design. I wonder if it would benefit my project to investigate these areas further. I may refine this map before turning it into a large scale map of my territory. I think that the outer two areas may well be the only ones I work in, so it may be more useful for a map showing my project to divide these sections more carefully, and make them into another map.

This Week I Also...

Made some art for Off Modern
and some for Loud and Quiet magazine

I will put these on the website as soon as I can.


I am also reading House of Leaves, I recommend it.

Identity Transplanting

After a week of drawing I will be focusing on transplanting identity, and how people can be branded. I wanted to steer away from branding in terms of looks, for example what people wear or the tattoos they have, and focus more on less obvious areas in which identity can exist.

PERCEPTION

By this I mean how we present our identity to others, for example through subconscious actions, and how we perceive ourselves.

Putting personal meaning into an object is not something that a designer can often do, it is something happens naturally, is independent process and can’t be created by a design. I developed my ideas with this in mind.


I want to see what happens if you try to change someone's self perception. Would this count as altering their identity? Since drawing week I have been interested in the concept of heroism. I have a friend who has been feeling a bit down recently, and I thought that if she could see herself more as a hero then it would help her feel better. I have contacted as many people as I can that know her, and asked them to tell me the nicest thing she has ever done for them. I plan to make this into a book, and give it to her as a present and document her reaction. The product, and most valuable part of this experiment will not be the book, but her reaction, and the book's effect (if any) on her personality.

In a sense I am trying to put meaning into an object, which is only possible because I know her. I would like to carry on the idea of individual heroism, it would be interesting to develop the idea so it would work for people who I have no connection with.

POSSESSIONS

“The inner space of the 21st century is more likely to be found within the walls of their own cave than in some hidden corner of the soul”

- Roberto Feo, Rosario Hurtado, Diego San Martin: Nowhere/Now/Here

Objects, and the environment a person creates for themselves forms their identity, and ultimately 'brands' them. If I could find a way to swap or change people’s treasured possessions, I could go some way to swapping or changing a person’s identity.



I overheard a conversation about someone the person knew who had a big family, and wanted them to think that they were all the most important to her. Whenever they all came round she would swap the photos on the mantelpiece, bringing the photos of whoever was visiting at that time to the front.

Today people often have two or more ‘sets’ of families, due to divorce and remarriage. Double sided photo frames spin round and display the photo on the other side, making it easier to ‘swap’ from family to family.


This idea developed into a mantelpiece for a semi detached house, where the fireplace and chimney are often shared, and are places where lots of ornaments and photos are displayed. A conveyor belt would swap the two neighbours possessions, ornaments and photos that are displayed above the fireplace.

I would like to find ways of changing the whole of a person’s surroundings, their environment, and perceived environment to investigate this further. Would changing whole environments facilitate identity swapping better? How effective is a person's environment, away from the home in facilitating identity transplants?

I had an idea for an apartment block, where the locks would randomly swap, so when the person came home their key would only access the person living next door’s flat, and they would have to live as that person, wear their clothes and eat their food, until the locks swapped again, and they would move onto the next flat, and so on. This idea presents obvious testing problems, but is an interesting research area.

I plan to look further into how the processes and usages surrounding personal possessions can be manipulated to encourage or facilitate identity swapping.

LEGAL IDENTITY

In today’s world anything can be bought and sold, as long as someone owns it in the first place. If I can legally own my identity, then I could swap it, give it away, or sell it, and in the eyes of the law transplant, swap, or get rid of my own identity.

I could legally cover most aspects of my identity. I could protect the things I create with a copyright, I can register my name as a trademark, I can protect how I look with design protection, and I could patent how I work and what I do, as long as my 'invention' fits the required specifications.

“Patent law requires that any invention must be novel (never have been made public before), inventive (not obvious to someone with a good knowledge of the subject), useful (could be turned into an industrial product, for example) and not excluded (discoveries, theories and works of art are amongst those excluded).”

- www.ipo.gov.uk

This project would not be about what identity is worth, it would be a way to swap or transplant identity using a system in which anything can be bought. I want to see if it is possible to patent myself. Patenting identity in Britain has only been tested once that I know of, by the poet Donna Maclean in 2000.

Drawing Week

This week I drew. Many of my ideas are half formed, or concepts to explore, and not necessarily things that could be made. I have decided to look into the area of identity. One area I want to look at is how individual identity is connected to the body. I think it is possible in today’s world for one’s identity to become more and more detached from the body, the two are and always have been very separate entities, but I want to research the effects that begin when the two entitles cease to be linked, or when the individual becomes disgusted, or struggles to accept their own body. I will look into the work of Susan Bordo, at first, as I am particularly interested in her theory that disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are linked to the individual’s wish to have complete control of, and therefore be able to transcend the body, and eventually detach from it completely. I will read her collection of essays “Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body” This idea could branch out into the realm of existentialism, which I am also interested in.

Another area of interest to me is how identity relates to the body, and how important/ vital to identity the body actually is. I was reminded of the part in Philip K Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ when a simulation is used to encourage group solidarity. The person puts on an electronic mask, and is then linked up with people, all working together as one man pushing a huge rock up a steep hill. The man will never reach the top, and the people using the simulation are all well aware of this. I want to use this as a starting point to look into group solidarity, and how it affects the individuals’ identity. I plan to read ‘The Man in the High Castle’ by Philip K Dick, as well as ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ by Joseph Campbell.

I thought of a syndrome this week, and named it ‘Phantom minds’ It is based on the way that when a person loses a limb, they can still feel it, they still believe it is there, and it is only seeing that the limb is missing that reminds them it is not. I wonder if people today suffer from phantom mind syndrome, where the mind seems to be there, we seem to have an identity and thoughts and feelings, but it only seems that way because we are so used to making our own decisions, having our own feelings. So much of ourselves is downloaded and stored on the internet, so many tasks that used to be vital are carried out by computers (sums, spelling, even learning important facts can be replaced by Wikipedia) and these tasks go a long way to creating a person’s identity. The media now tells us what to buy and when, where to go and how to do things. The media, advertising and marketing, heavily influences our ‘own’ life decisions. Throughout history, the ruling classes or elite forces in society have dictated to the majority of mankind, and our actions and decisions have always been tied up with societal power relations. I wonder if we just think our minds and individual thoughts are still there because we are used to that being the case. There is Descartes “I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am” discourse which I would look into to further this.

This leads me another area I am looking into, on how individual identity is affected by modern day life. In the same way as I am looking into how the body is related to identity, I want to look into how the media presents things, and how this relates to the content. A simple example would be branding. How does the content (identity) relate to the brand (body) as a starting point I would like to strip down various media products (magazines, television shows) to their bare content somehow, to see what the content actually involves. I wonder if it would possible to do this with a human as well. I plan to read ‘Manufacturing Consent’ by Chomsky to research the effect of modern society, (in particular the media) on the individual. Further suggestions would be welcome. I am also interested in comfort, as I feel that western society, particularly cities, are incredibly lacking in it. I wonder if the body can be used as a tool to provide comfort to combat the effects of everyday life on the individual, and I wonder how this could be done.

Other ideas I have touched upon have been the concept of ‘The Long Now’ after it was mentioned to me this week. Other cultures think of 'now' as being one or two generations in the future. The plans they make and the way they live their lives reflect this. I wonder if teaching ‘The Long Now’ or trying to integrate it into our society would help us. I thought about alternate realities, is there a way that someone could take on another identity to do their dirty work, or to stand up for themselves. If everyone did this, and it became socially acceptable, I wonder how society would be. I wonder about the impact it would have on crime, or how criminals would be tried if it was possible for everyone to do this, I will be researching split personality disorders and strains of schizophrenia to look into this more. I thought about using the online community ‘Second Life’ to try this out. What if every time someone pissed me off I went online and took it out on those people. Would that help me feel better? I wonder about the sense of guilt I would have if I took out my frustrations virtually, although they involve real people. I wonder if this action would have any repercussions.

3rd Year Design

I have been working on two briefs over the last two weeks, the first of which is Upcay/Decay, which asks that the final outcome challenges the perceptions of decay. I liked the idea of decay as the invasion of a host, and through uncontrolled growth. The most destructive example of this being cancer. I looked into this by making some prints of tumours, using the same method of decay through invasion to ‘invade’ the paper, using materials such as bleach.

I also researched scabs, and how they are formed. I used a similar process to this by creating a base of oil paint, and removing the top layer using turps.

I got a bit sick of these after a while. They are pretty simple, and lacking in concept. It has been suggested to me that the shape of the print is not important, and hat is infact most interesting is the actual act of decay, which I have stifled through controlling the prints too much, which is why I hope to move away from making prints, and perhaps continue this project through research, I may begin to look at decay that is inherent in, and caused by society, as a side project.

The second brief was called ‘Physical Identity’ It asks the designer to create a record detailing interesting elements of the human face. This is one of the briefs I wrote myself, I am particularly interested in this area because I think the face can represent, and be represented, in many different ways.

I was interested in using the human face to explore how easily information can now be accessed, based only on the individuals face and name. I was also interested in researching facial recognition, and codifying faces in different ways. I think the richest area to look into came from some research I did into look-a-likes.

I believe that it is the way each look-a-like presents themselves that leads you to think they are famous. I conducted various small-scale surveys within my class, these all showed that separate features are often recognisable alone, especially if that part of the face is particularly distinguishable. I also found that personalised features often stand out the most, this is what makes the individual most recognisable.
From this I have come to the conclusion that the face is obsolete.

I have since been thinking about the idea that a look-a-like may have to take on someone else’s appearance to do their job, they may even have to replace their own identity. I started to look into transplanting identity, and how this could be a hindrance or a help to personal development. I have been looking at the work of Cindy Sherman as a starting point for this. (If anyone else has any other suggestions they would be very useful)

I have also become interested in the various effects that modern society has on the individual, for example the way that the media can make a person feel inadequate, or the way a busy city induces anger. I think my next step will be to look into how the human face and body can be used as a tool to investigate this.