rubycacs102-blog

[rubycacs102-blog]

By its very etymology, subjectivity is the idea that the self is a subject to the greater influence that is the world around it (Bennet & Royle 2016. p.151). This idea sees identity as a passive and malleable force, born a blank canvas, that is constantly changing to keep up with its surrounds (Bennet & Royle 2016. p.151). The concept of an individual is thrown out of the window in this case as a subject can be replaced by any other, just like a person who is subjected to their role in society such as worker, student, politician, etc. The latter is well characterised in Belgian artist, René Magritte’s, surrealist painting Golconda (1953) which features a downpour of men, all dressed identically in black suits and Magritte’s signature bowler hats, from the sky. The grey suburban scene reinforces the banality of their professional and domestic milieu, where society conforms to its working self and thus every man becomes a product of one another and a subject their environment rather than being a product of humanity…

[rubycacs102-blog]

Fractured identity can be thought of as the shattering of a mirror, where one’s identity is broken into many conflicting selves (Hall 1996). This notion of the decentred self (Barker 2007, p.225) is portrayed in John Hughes’ film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), when Cameron has a mind blowing and moving moment with Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on the Island of la Grande Jatte. As the camera humorously cuts back and forth between him and the child in the painting, we recognise the cold childhood and loveless relationship Cameron has with his father and go on to understand the character’s erratic behaviour. Throughout the film we see Cameron as a hypochondriac, Cameron as a paranoid and anxious teenager, Cameron as a brooding victim, and finally (because it is a movie after all) Cameron as a confident young man. This portrayal of the character thus takes us deeper into the mind of the individual…

[rubycacs102-blog]

The notion of the unconscious comes from Sigmund Freud’s idea of the split subject, where the self consists of two co-existing realms: the conscious and the unconscious (Mansfield 2000. p.25). Freud sees the latter as a dramatic and strange, yet inaccessible, part of the mind that contains all of our ideas, impulses and desires (Mansfield2000. p.27). This Freudian idea comes through the works of painter Stephanie London, who often paints seascapes featuring icebergs as a metaphor for what she finds most unsettling about the mind: “that what [she sees] and know[s] is a small portion of something largely hidden and existing in depths unfathomable.” (Artsy Editors 2013). Iceberg #6 (2012) is a perfect example of this, with the tip of the iceberg being the only visible and tangible part of the painting amidst the dark and mysterious space. As the viewer observes this work, they know that so much more must lie underneath the surface, but how do we know what that might be?

[rubycacs102-blog]

Overdetermination is the Freudian concept that there is meaning behind every action we take, and through dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue and other signs of our unconscious mind we can see that even seemingly trivial behaviour is at the whim of our psyche (Mansfield 2000. p.29). As a child, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí remembers encountering the corpses of dead animals as they were being eaten by ants, leading him to associate the insects with the death and decay and then famously use them as a symbol for the latter in many of his artworks (Dalí Paris). Therefore, upon observing the swarm of ants on the watch in Dali’s famous self-portrait The Persistence of Memory (1931), the viewer contextualises the meaning of the insects alongside the warped watches and clocks and thus questions the durability of time (Shanes 2014. p.102-103). Dalí’s symbolism is not an original model however, as he uses the Freudian concepts of overdetermination, dreams and the unconscious to create his symbolic and provocative style.

[rubycacs102-blog]

As a society, we praise artists that appear true to oneself (Brooks 2001. p.9) and creative works we deem authentic, but whether it be one’s identity or art at stake, authenticity cannot exist without an audience to criticise it. What’s more, this notion of authenticity thrives on a selective obliviousness to that fact that everything we are and create derives from what we already know. When Angus Stone’s side project Dope Lemon released the song ‘Home Soon’ (2017), I was really excited to hear his new and unique sound, not yet realising that everything but his vocals was actually the song ‘Stories’ by Chakachas (1970). Subsequently, the artists image became inauthentic because he did not attempt to associate himself with the Belgian funk band but rather reproduce their work without credit. This point goes hand in hand with the perception of creative influence and the borrowing of concepts and imagery from another artist or work. In a criticism of poetry, T.S. Eliot once stated: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better” (Eliot 1934. p.114), meaning that it is how an artist uses the influences around them that authenticity is measured. So, what does this mean for Dalí? The use of Freudian ideas in his works is successful because he has interpreted them for his own creative identity.

[rubycacs102-blog]

If identity is how we express ourselves through exhibition and alignment with different groups in society (Tagg & Seargeant 2016, p. 343), then by its very name creative identity is who we are through our art, whether that broached from the perspective of gender, psychoanalysis, religion, culture, etc. No matter which identity theory we understand to be true, we all inevitably put a piece of ourselves into our creative practice. Yinka Shonibare is a British-Nigerian artist with ideas of race, colonialism and subsequently identity at the centre of his work (Shonibare, 2018). As he expresses himself, there is a visible affinity and sensory attachment with traditional Nigerian textiles, just like in his work Trumpet Boy (2010). The juxtaposition of his cultural heritage through traditional textiles and various colonial 19th century characters not only demonstrates his multicultural understanding of the self but also the importance of his creative heritage when it comes to identity. By expressing this to the world, Shonibare is then demonstrating his social identity...

[rubycacs102-blog]

Social identity recognises that a person’s self-awareness extends as much to the external world as the internal, and that social and cultural roles and expectations based on our biological selves also form who we are (Barker 2007, p. 223). As we interact with others in the real world and determine our place in society, we also aim to express and distinguish ourselves through that. Made from the native animal hides and then marked with symbols and map-like designs depicting the owner’s totems, stories, travels and Country (Interview: Boonwurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs 2011), the Indigenous Australian possum-skin cloaks (seen in are incredibly personal garments that link the owner to their land, ancestry and fading culture. Aboriginal culture relies heavily on social customs and identification as the many nations exist within a very complex and interconnected kinship system that heavily influences their notion of identity (Gibbins 2010. pp.125-126). Kirrae Wurrong and Gunditjmara woman Vicki Couzens is not only looking to represent her own social identity through this ancient art however, but is also looking to revive Aboriginal Australia’s social identity through the regeneration of this traditional cultural practice around the country (Interview: Boonwurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs 2011) (Gibbins, H 2010). Through this artistic expression, a culture can thus reconnect with their social identity and, just as importantly, their land…

[rubycacs102-blog]

Sensory knowledge is the idea that the sentient body also has its own intelligence (Howes, 2005. p.27) and therefore concepts of identity and knowledge can be extended to the senses. In many ancient and traditional cultures, as opposed to western beliefs today, individuals have a strong relationship to earth and a shared connection with their environment, and this awareness categorically makes up a part of their identity (Howes, 2005. p.33-35). This recognition thus shines a new light on one’s connection to landscape, geography, cultural history and mythology and changes how one sees themselves based on and in relation to nature. Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II (1930) embodies this perfectly through her textured and carved landscape. The mountain’s flesh-like qualities and colours bring about the idea of skinscapes (Howes, 2005. 27), where the sentient skin is intrinsically connected to the earth. The view depicted in her work has a fleshly and living feeling to it which gives the landscape an identity and make us reflect on how we connection to it and therefore the world around us.

[rubycacs102-blog]

References

Text:

Artsy Editors, 2013. Stephanie London’s Symbolically Charged Icebergs, Artsy. Accessed 19/3/18 on: <https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-stephanie-londons-symbolically-charged-icebergs>

Barker, C 2007. ‘Issues of subjectivity and identity’, Cultural Studies: theory and practices, 3rd edn, Sage Publications, London. pp .218-223

Bennet, A & Royle, N 2016, An introduction to literature, criticism and theory. Lecture notes, Critical Frameworks in Creative Practice, CACS102, University of Wollongong, delivered 9 March 2018.

Brooks, P 2001, Troubling confessions: speaking guilt in law and literature, Lecture notes, Critical Frameworks in Creative Practice, CACS102, University of Wollongong, delivered 9 March 2018.

Dalí, S 1973. The secret life of Salvador Dalí, translated [from the Spanish] by Haakon M. Chevalier. Vision Press, London.

Dali Paris, ‘Dalinian Symbols’, accessed 20/3/18 on: <http://daliparis.com/en/salvador-dali/dalinian-symbols>

Eliot, T.S. (1934) ‘Philip Massinger’, The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, Methuen, London.

Galleria Dell’Accademia Firenze, David, The Work. Accessed 19/3/18 on: <http://www.galleriaaccademiafirenze.beniculturali.it/david/>

Gibbins, H 2010. ‘Possum Skins Cloaks: tradition, continuity and change’, in Russell, L & Arnold, J 2010, ‘Indigenous Victorians: repressed, resourceful and respected’, La Trobe Journal, May, no. 85. State Library of Victoria Foundation, Melbourne. Accessed 20/3/18 on: <http://latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-85/t1-g-t10.html>

Goffen, R 2004, Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian. Yale University Press.

Hall, S, Held, D, Hubert, D, Thompson, K 1996, Modernity: an introduction to modern societies. Lecture notes, Critical Frameworks in Creative Practice, CACS102, University of Wollongong, delivered 9 March 2018.

Howes, D 2005, ‘Skinscapes: embodiment culture, and environment’, The book of touch, C. Classen ed., Berg, New York. pp.27-39

Interview: Boonwurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs 2011, Culture Victoria. Produced by Sarah Rhodes & Koorie Heritage Trust. [video recording] Accessed 20/3/18 on: <https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/possum-skin-cloaks/interview-boonwurrung-elder-carolyn-briggs>

Mansfield, N 2000, ‘Freud and the split subject’, Subjectivity: theories of the self from Freud to Harraway, New York University Press, New York.

René Magritte (2017), Golconde, Paintings. Accessed 17/3/18 on: <http://www.rene-magritte.com/golconde>

Shanes, E 2014. ‘The Persistence of Memory, 1931’, Salvador Dalí, Parkstone International, New York. Accessed the 20/3/18 on: <https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/lib/uow/detail.action?docID=1718164>

Shonibare, Y, 2018. Biography, Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA). Accessed 18/3/18 on: <http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/biography/>

Tagg, C & Seargeant, P 2016, ‘Facebook and the discursive construction of of the social network’, in A Georgakopoulou & T Spilioti (eds), The Routledge handbook of language and digital communication, pp. 342-347. Lecture notes, Critical Frameworks in Creative Practice, CACS102, University of Wollongong, delivered 9 March 2018.

Images:

Chakachas, 1970. Stories. Stories [album]. Polydor Records. [album cover] accessed on 21/3/18: <https://www.discogs.com/Chakachas-Stories/release/2139279>

Dalí, S 1931, The Persistence of Memory. Oil in canvas, 24.1 x 33cm. the Museum of Modern Art, New York. [image] accessed 21/3/18 on: <https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79018>

DOPE LEMON, 2017. Home Soon, Hounds Tooth [EP]. Universal Music Australia. [album cover] accessed 21/3/18 on: <https://www.discogs.com/Dope-Lemon-Hounds-Tooth/release/9986795>

iomelinamela, 2010. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off- museum scene, video recording, YouTube. [video] viewed 18 March 2018: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubpRcZNJAnE>. [1:16-1:42]

London, S 2012. Iceberg #6, oil on linen, 12” x 16”, Stephanie London. [image] accessed 19/3/18 on: <https://www.stephanielondon.net/new-gallery/fs164yus3jjox6q5kpe6x5q8vnle74>

Magritte, R 1953, Golconda. Oil paint, 81 cm x 1 m. Menil Collection, Houston, Texas. [image] accessed on: <https://www.renemagritte.org/golconda.jsp#prettyPhoto>

Michelangelo, B 1501-1504, David, Carrara marble, 17.0 ft. Galleria Dell’Accademia, Florence. [image] accessed 21/3/18 on: <https://www.artsy.net/artwork/michelangelo-buonarroti-david-4>

O’Keeffe, G 1930. Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II, Oil on canvas mounted on board. 61.6 × 89.5 cm. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe. [image] accessed 21/3/18 on: <http://cdm16622.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/gokfa/id/679/rec/5>

Possum skin cloak: Wadi Wadi, unknown date. Wadi Wadi tribe. Michael Carver / Regional Arts Victoria, Koorie Heritage Trust. [image] Accessed 20/3/18 on: <https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/possum-skin-cloaks/possum-skin-cloak-wadi-wadi/>

Shonibare, Y 2010, Trumpet Boy. Fibreglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, trumpet, globe, leather and steel baseplate. [image] accessed 18/3/18 on: <http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/articles/past/>