final idea and development

In my images I wanted to show the lack of real life identity in real life people. I wanted to portray that who someone is and their identity is moving to the digital world, where most people perceive it to be more important. I chose to photograph people who I could tell nothing about their identity, and some where they still maintain an aspect of real life identity. I edited the photos to make it appear the people where disappearing to the digital world. While a couple of the people I photographed had more of a real life identity, the most likely still develop a digital identity. I therefore varied the extent that this were being sucked into the digital world in my images.

I think If I were to further develop the images I would have looked into taking photographs outside of  multiple portraits, and find other ways to portray my point.

As I continued to observe the city and struggled to develop my last idea I noticed that many people spent a lot of time on their phones. I thought about how many people have an online/ digital identity (almost all people), I then realised that I could probably tell more about an individuals identity through the internet rather than in real life.

I came to the observation that the idea of the personal identity is moving to a place where it is more important in the digital realm than it is in real life. People are constantly developing their digital identity rather than enjoying life for what it is and believing in who they are in real life. It seems most people find it more important to say they have done something or been somewhere or like something on their Facebook page, rather than just doing it and experiencing it in real life. 

This idea of the digital identity gives people the option to build up a facade and create any kind of identity on the internet, almost an ideal version of themselves, they way they want people to see them, the identity you want people to think you have, rather than express your actual identity, and believe in who you are both online and the real world.
What was once integral – our self, our person, our identity – is now split among ourself in the physical world and our many digiSelves, each having an autonomous lifeof its own. Thus, we disconnect from the normal experience of physical and corpo-real time and space when we live vicariously through our digiSelf on the Internet.This disconnection is signi fi cant and profound, as our consciousness becomes discon-nected from our sensorium, extends in a real sense into the world’s electronic nervoussystem and thereby creates the unique experience of separating our identity, or self,from our body. (Federman)

We are heading to a place where it is almost more important to develop this digital identity rather than a real life identity. For example we can even lose a job based on our activity or identity in the digital world.Stacey M. Koosel defines a digital identity as As new media is transforming culture, we transform ourselves into digital iden- tities in the information age. Digital identities are who we say we are, when we are online. They can be a subtype of a public persona, an extension of our ‘true’ selves, or they can be completely fabricated and fantastical, to function as a mask  to hide the identity of an Internet user from rest of the world. A digital identity can spin intricate, interconnected webs utilising creative, social and interactive platforms that enable them to share and perform to an open or closed audience (Koosel, 2012).

To be honest I cannot determine the weight to which people define a person based on an online identity, I try to do it less, some may do it more. The point is that this development in the idea of identity has a negative impact on society. I think that people should look in the mirror and think about who they are and how they can represent their identity in a positive way in real life, opposed to constantly developing and ideal online identity, to "appear" happier, or funner or cooler than they are in real life. Embrace your identity and forget about making your Facebook page a mass advertisement for the unreal you.

Therefore my theory is that people should spend less time developing an online identity and focus on their real life identity.

Works Cited

Koosel, S. M. (2012). Exploring Digital Identity: Beyond the Private Public Paradox. The Digital Turn: User’s Practices and Cultural Transformations .

these are some haikus I wrote for this idea

New identity

I can change it everyday

A new me is born

No one will see me

I hide behind many webs

Who do you perceive?

What defines someone?

Facebook, selfies, instagram

Reality, zilch

I am in the cloud
my identity has gone
to the digital

this is my iPhone
it holds my identity 
without it I'm lost

my identity 
facebook, instagram, twitter
constantly changing 

my identity
selfies, Facebook, instagram
look in the mirror

new ideas

As I continued to observe the city I found the prominence of many different sub cultures throughout the city. I thought about what defines these people and there identity within this subculture, How could I tell these people were part of this subculture without speaking to them.
I found that I could identify members of a subculture through what they were wearing, where the were, and the products I saw them with.

This lead be to the observation that sub cultures are defined by their consumer behaviour. What people buy and spend their money on, what products they bought, and where they spent there money all added to the identification of a sub culture.

A strong example i though was he sub culture of bikers, or even Harley Davidson bike riders. They are defined by the products they surround themselves with, the leather jacket, the bike itself. The reason I agreed with this observation is that if I took the jacket, the hardly logo, the bike away (the products they spend their money on, or their consumer behaviour) away, then who are they?
Are they still considered to be part of that subculture, or is it these products that define the identity and define them as part of a subculture.
If you took away the jacket, the bike, the harley logo, are they still a biker?

Another strong example i though was the hipster subculture. Not only did the clothes they wear, and the products they surround themselves with define them as part of that subculture, but also where they  spent their time. We can all agree there are certain bars or cafes that hipsters spend a lot of time at. This added to the defining elements of the subculture and the idea that consumer behaviour defines a sub culture. If you take away his alternative fashion, his moustache, the macbook, and take him out of the hipsters cafe. Is he still considered a Hipster?




These are some of the Haiku's I cam up with to back up this idea

This is my iphone

It is my identity

Nothing else matters

This is my iphone

There are many like this one

But this one is mine

this brand defines me

without it I am nothing

This is my logo

Without it I am no one

Who else could I be

My identity

Always the freshest new brands

What else could I be

My identity

Brands, brands, brands, brands, brands, brands, brands,

I am lost without

My identity

Cigarette, coffee and beer

No need for a brand

Who am I again?

My identity is gone

Please return my brand

Brands connect people

Consumer, community

I will not be lost

What could define me?

Without my brand I am lost

Look in the mirror

First ideas

When I first started observing the city I focused on the movement of people throughout the city and the spaces they created. I noticed that the negative space created in between the the movement of people was ever-changing , creating many shapes and new spaces. It was interesting to observe this negative space be manipulated by the constant movement of people and how watching the same space for eve 5 minutes provides you with many new shapes and spaces created through this movement.

these images were not taken in wellington, as I did not have a camera with me for these initial obsevzrtions, but I used some images I found to experiment with the idea.