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