Design Context

Different faces of history have seen different faces of identity.

Essentialism - A certain approach to thinking about identity that we often fall into the trap of. Without necessarily being as blatant as physiognomy, we still have a tendency to essentials people's characteristics and identities.

Physiognomy - Because people were born a certain way (their physical characteristics) means that they will have certain attributes and a certain outlook. For example receding chins were a sign of weak character and criminality.

Most theorists nowadays are broadly anti-essentialists - it's actually society that shapes us as people and we don't have any defining essence or characteristics.

Phrenology - measuring the brain and the skull - used to prove that African people were more dumb than the English, historically.

To what extent do the working class recognise themselves within other's representations of them?

Concepts of 'Otherness'

What makes you, you?
- background
- where you're born
- where you live currently
- where you grew up
- who surrounds you
- your personality
- your career
- how you dress
- how you're vocally perceived
- how you smell
- your social status
- your hobbies / interests
- the media
- your skills / talents / abilities
- your biological makeup
- your DNA
- what you eat
- your possessions
- birthmarks / skin defects
- your body language
- your fears
- sense of humour
- religion / beliefs
- skin colour
- gender
- sexuality

Identity is about someone else's perception of you - essentialist vs anti essentialist - there is no simple answer to this debate.

How do you express your identity?
- what you wear
- your interests
- body modification eg piercings, tattoos, surgery / physical appearance
- makeup
- conspicuous consumption
- social networking
- lifestyle choice
- where you live
- socialising
- your mannerisms
- taking pictures of yourself / vanity
- emotional availability
- reality vs projected identity

Circuit of Culture - Stuart Hall

A way of representing identity that complicates the debate of essentialism and anti-essentialism.

"Culture is the framework within which our identities are formed, expressed and regulated." - Stuart Hall.

Your place in the world is limited by what you want to be as a person. What you want to be as a person is stereotyped by identities in the world and will inform other people's ideas of identity.

Process from psychoanalysis - Jacques Lacan.
Worked on the formulation of identity in the infant and from birth. The Lacanian theory - when you are born you have no comprehension of yourself as an individual being (your 'hommelette' stage). When kids are very young they end up hitting themselves in the face all the time as they don't understand that they are a uniformed thing - they think of themselves as inseparable and a continuity of their mothers. When you get to the 'Mirror Stage', your sense of ego fully develops. He uses the mirror stage as a metaphor - a baby suddenly sees itself in a mirror and realising for the first time that it is a thing in the world that is solid, rounded and a capable human-like thing. That's not to say that every child walks past a mirror and realises, but between 16-18 months you go through a process of understanding that you are this whole and solid thing. You then notice that certain things you do cause reactions from other people, for example if you cry people come and look after you and give you attention. You get great elation from this knowledge of being an individual. The problem is - you aren't a fully grown human yet and still need your mother's help - this brings the conflict of revelation to what you want to be yet who you already are, and the need to want to know who you actually are in the mirror. We are always trying to affirm our own sense of self and get back to this initial moment of epiphany in the Mirror Stage. A desire to secure a solid identity for ourselves - an illusion of wholeness, a sense of self subjectivity.

Our identities are a desperate attempt to tell ourselves that we are who we think we are.
Our identity is always informed by receiving the views from others.

RESULT = our own subjectivity is fragile. This is what psycho-analogy tells us.

Constructing the 'Other'
Problems: relies on the assumption of the opposition and radical otherness.
What we often do to measure ourselves - take ourselves as an object and define what we are not. "I am a person, because I am not a table" "I am a man, because I am not a woman" "I am straight because I am not gay" etc.

Shores up unstable identities through the illustion of unity
Shared fashions, belief systems, values - Subterranean Values (Matza, 1961)

Task for next week on e-studio (Construction The Other Task 3)