I’ve been using Simone de Beauvoir’s TheEthics of Ambiguity (1947) as a lens through which to look at Francesca Woodman’s self-portraits.
My initial ideas for the research paper all had something to do with presentation of self and authenticity and multiplicity and contradiction. My starting point was a subversion of a statement from Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle (1967). He wrote that “In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false”. I was interested in subverting this and considering when/how the inverse might also be illuminated, that the false might be a moment of the true. Because this is how I feel when I look at Woodman’s photographs. In her work I see the images she created that speak to illusion, fantasy, movement, transience, contradiction, myth, magic, shadows, and I think that what she offers is quite a stark “truth” rather than a falseness, despite the theatrical and dreamlike qualities of her images. And I think it’s her offer of illusion itself that that creates the authenticity present in her work, i.e. the falseness is the truth.
The Ethics of Ambiguity offers a more specific framework to hold Woodman’s work up against. I’m currently working through the key ideas that de Beauvoir posits in her writing about ambiguity and exploring to what extent Woodmans’ self-portraits embody the principles. In the book de Beauvoir argues that, “As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it. They have striven to reduce mind to matter, or to reabsorb matter into mind, or to merge them within a single substance.” and that, “To attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it. He rejoins himself only to the extent that he agrees to remain at a distance from himself.”
I’m interested in why ambiguity is important now in particular. To me, embracing ambiguity (and paying attention to art that does this) is a potential antidote to some of the contemporary problems around presentation/performance of the self (which also relates to much of what was described and anticipated by Debord in The Society of the Spectacle). The problem, in my opinion, is that the presentation of self has moved away from an exploratory gesture often present within art, into the everyday and has become so commonplace and heavily commodified that people seem reluctant to embrace the multifaceted-ness of self in favour of a flattening of self, a creation of a niche personality, a defined set of attributes that are presented to their audience, so that they (their “self”, their “image”) can be neatly categorised and monetised. There appears to be little room to present oneself as a contradictory being because this is too complex, too nerve-wracking, too confusing for an audience with a diminishing attention span, and too difficult for sponsors and advertisers to work with.
I mentioned to Maiko in my tutorial that I don’t want to come across as though I’m condemning the presentation of self online or condemning social media etc. She said that it’s okay to highlight something that I am wanting to be resolved and to focus on what I am advocating for rather than condemning something.
We also talked briefly about how in the case of Francesca Woodman, she is an artist who frequently has a mythical “self” projected onto her from other people. Her life was so short and so there is a not a huge amount of material that gives us insight into her thinking about her work. There are some letters and bits of journals and some back and forth correspondence with an interviewer but a lot of what we know (“know”) about her and how she worked and viewed art comes from the observations and opinions of her family and friends. And because she died by suicide, the circumstances of her death are often projected onto her work. Assumptions are made about her mental and emotional state and her images are often read through that lens. So there is a whole other layer around “self” in relation to her work, beyond just the fact that she made self-portraits. There is the “self” of her that is located outside of her that has been constructed by other people in her absence.
All of this feels like a lot to consider when writing a relatively short paper. But it still feels too early to be too contained. My focus for now is to write about Woodman’s work in relation to ambiguity and The Ethics of Ambiguity and keep going from there.
In class we talked about the research paper. I keep thinking that I want to write about Francesca Woodman, I have felt an affinity with her and her work for a long time. But I don’t know what I would want to research specifically. Some thoughts:
I relate to her interest in the body. I’m interested in using the body as one’s work, which she also did. And she often photographed her body in a way that explored/depicted physical interactions with her own flesh. Distortion. Subtle discomfort. Clothes pegs on her stomach and breasts, a telephone cord in her mouth.
Her photographs are often analysed through the lens of her suicide. Her death and cause of death are often projected onto all of her work, her work is read as her attempt to “deal with” mental illness or something. There is something compelling to me about the way people try to psychoanalyse her through her work, especially when she herself said that her main concern was composition not emotion.
When I look at her photographs I feel relieved. I think this happens because she was able to create this uncanny sense of balance or visual “rightness” but she did this through the apparent awkwardness and visual imbalance of the composition. She often privileges space in her compositions, she will photograph herself in an intriguing pose but her body will be positioned right on the edge of frame, with most of the photograph taken up by the room she’s in. Things are often off-centre but in a way that makes perfect sense.
I think she was interested in dreaminess, mirrors and angels, as am I.
I think often about what kind of work she would have continued to make if she had lived longer.
I perceive a kind of tension between a certain presentation of “candidness” and a very deliberate stylisation that she creates in her photographs and it’s something that I think comes up in my photographs too.
The blur and the glow. Her photographs have these. I’m also interested in these, my photographs have them too. I bought a monograph of her work from a gallery in Paris and when I read this quote from her my heart beat so fast: “And as Woodman herself wrote in an undated diary, ‘A while ago my pictures started getting smaller and smaller – now they are getting whiter and whiter and soon there will just be small … areas of glow.'”
Dignities – performing and selling the self to examine freedom and form.
Aims and Objectives
Dignities is about commodification, work, the body, performance of the self, money, exploitation, freedom, the intersections of these things and the art forms that sit alongside them. I am approaching the project from a personal and highly subjective point of view; it is directly inspired by my own experiences and inner life. Here is a link to a previous blog post containing some stream of consciousness writing that gives some insight into a few further thoughts and some impetus for the project.
The broad themes and questions of my project:
Commodification (of the self, of art)
Work and money and the body (impact of work on the body and mind)
Performance of the self and the blurring of reality and fiction (in everyday life, at work, in art and online, use of persona in art and life)
Intersections between work, relationships and interaction and the work of relationships and interaction
Working as a woman – pressures, expectations, experiences, choices
What happens when I use my body as part of my artwork? What happens to my feelings, my mental state, my body, the work itself?
What happens when I embrace the monetisation of my self, body and my art?
Is performing while “at work” inevitable? Is it possible to “be myself” while working? What is “being myself”? Is it possible to feel authentic or a sense of freedom while doing something I am being paid to do?
What levels of exploitation and autonomy have I experienced as an employee or while working and how has this impacted my attitude towards work and art-making?
Can selling the body be a work of art?
What does it mean to “sell myself”?
How has the internet and social media impacted the possibilities for recording and performing the self?
The key forms I’m interested in working with:
Self-portraiture
Online performance
Installation art
Conceptual art
“World-building”
Three key interests related to place and persona will inform the aesthetics of my work. These three places/personas all intersect and overlap and relate to my ideas of interest in different ways. They are aesthetics that I have long been interested in and when I began to think more deeply about them in relation to this project I realised that they all intersect with tropes relating to roles often assumed by or assigned to women. They are:
Corporate office aesthetics. Office interiors, the foyers of large office buildings. White collar worker. Good salary. Respectable work. “Sexy secretary” trope.
Wedding aesthetics. The concept or role of being a bride, a wife. Wedding venues, especially hotels. This aesthetic is connected to thoughts around the work of relationships and how work intersects with gender roles – the breadwinner, the housewife, emotional and mental labour, parenting, invisible labour. The performance of the wedding ritual, the performance of relationships and security.
Hotel aesthetics. Work and leisure. Hotel housekeeper. The “maid” trope connects with the housewife trope. The aesthetics of large city hotels often share characteristics with large city office buildings. These kinds of spaces blur together in my mind.
Aim One: To create a “body of work” using my body as the primary tool or element of the creating/creation.
Objectives:
Create a series of self-portraits (still photos and videos) throughout the course, using the notion of creating a “body of work” as my conceptual provocation – i.e. using my body to create a body of work. Both aesthetically and formally, these portraits will be used to explore ideas of commodifying the self, exploitation, autonomy, selling art and selling the body. I will also use these portraits to explore and inhabit the three aesthetics listed above. I’m experimenting with persona, playing roles, fantasy, tensions between facade and authenticity and a style of image that invites the viewer to project their imagination onto possibilities of character and narrative. Two examples of my self portraits:
To commodify my self and my body to make art. I am presenting my self-portraits online on OnlyFans to paid subscribers in order to monetise the work for my financial benefit as well as to experience the intersection of selling art and selling the body as a commodified object. OnlyFans is a subscription website for creators and subscribers aged 18+. It can technically be used to sell all kinds of content but is predominantly used and known for the selling of pornographic content (of varying kinds/degrees). This commodification of my self will create an outcome, a literal body of work, as well as constitute practice based research undertaken to discover what happens when selling my work is part of the work itself. What will I discover about my other themes of interest – performing the self, exploitation and autonomy, persona, relationships etc. through this act of commodification?
I will also present my self-portraits in exhibition/installation outcomes to experiment with how different presentation contexts influence the experience of “selling myself” and audience perceptions of the work.
Regularly reflect on how it feels to commodify myself using OnlyFans so that I can keep track of what I discover through this experience and use this reflective process to inform how the project develops. I am recording these reflections on my blog, organising them in a specific category titled Reflecting on OnlyFans so that I can keep track of my experience.
Aim Two: “World-building”. To experiment with form and the possibilities of form to create multiple outcomes of the project that are simultaneously individual entities and also combine to constitute the whole “world” of the project. I want different elements of the project to inhabit different online and physical spaces over time, each element comprising part of the whole “world”. I think I feel drawn to structuring or presenting my work in this way because I always feel so fragmented and as though the things I’m trying to explore go on tangents that can never really end, that are uncontainable. I also don’t feel much separation between “my life” and “my art” and I like the idea of my work infiltrating different spaces simultaneously, the way my art has infiltrated my life and my life has infiltrated my art over time. Creating a world of blurred lines makes sense to me as my work explores blurred lines between performance, authenticity, reality, fiction, persona.
Objectives:
Present one very small-scale installation during the course (prior to the final outcome) to develop my skills in working conceptually and with installations. The documentation of this installation and the presentation of this documentation via Instagram will also contribute to building and maintaining the world of the project.
Experiment with creating physical objects to be used in installations so that my ideas can take a more concrete form alongside the more ephemeral online content. An example of one object I plan to make is a hand-made physical book version of a poem I wrote in 2022-21, titled Sermon on the Body. Beginning on 11 April 2020 I created a new word document on my computer and every day for 365 days I contributed some writing to the document. The rule was that I had to contribute at least one line per day to the document. The style was free and poetic, I didn’t worry about grammar or cohesion I just wanted to record some kind of response to each day. After one year, I had a 5,913 word poem. The themes and images within this poem have informed some of the themes of this project and in particular the series of self-portraits. This excerpt: I think she is around the same age as me, But she is far more accomplished, Her skin has a natural glow She has a body of work – has directly inspired the concept of the portraits, creating a body of work using my body.
Allow myself to experiment with other kinds of image-making that could be presented in multiple contexts. For example, I recently began exploring the creation of images made from the text of the captions on my OnlyFans content. I view the captions on my OnlyFans content as poems and am going to keep experimenting with how I can create “images” using these texts. Here is a screenshot of one of my captions, for example:
Use my Instagram to document or “perform” the entire work as it unfolds. I view this documentation as an element of the work in itself, therefore contributing to building and maintaining the world. As well as documenting the actual work (i.e. self-portraits, objects I have made, installations) I will also include other photos and videos I make that contribute to this world-building. For example, the photos I regularly take of office building foyers, hotel foyers, etc. Here are some example screenshots from my Instagram grid:
Aim Three: Develop a deeper understanding of the histories and references that inform my interests and therefore where my work belongs in a contemporary context.
Objectives:
Research and reflect on the work of other artists who explore performing the self, selling the self and self-portraiture.
Research and reflect on the work of other artists whom I view as being “world-builders”; people who make projects that are composed of elements that inhibit multiple physical and/or online spaces at once or over time.
Delve into theories around performance of the self, selling the self, commodification of art etc. For example, Guy Debord’s concept of the “Spectacle” and Erving Goffman’s theories relating to “presentation of the self” in which he analyses human interaction through the dramaturgical lens usually applied to theatrical performance.
Consider the intersection of theory and practice. When is knowledge of theory useful to me as an artist? How does knowledge of theory or history filter down into my practical outcomes? In what ways is knowledge of theory beneficial or prohibitive to my work?
Context
Subjects I will research that relate to my practice and project:
History of self-portraiture
Contemporary self-portraiture, focusing on artists who use photography and video and artists who are not cis-male
Intersections of selling art and selling the body
Post-Internet art
The body in art, nudity in art
Performing the self – in everyday life, online and as an artist
Installation art
Conceptual art
Use of persona and the creation of fantasy in art
Relationships between art and commodification
Some artists of interest whose work I relate to through content and/or form:
Francesca Woodman (self-portraiture, the female body, performing and watching the self)
Petra Cortright (self portraits in video form presented on YouTue, performing the self, post-internet art)
Molly Soda (Tumblr, YouTube, examination of online performance including forms like vlogging, self-portraiture, persona)
Bunny Rogers (world-building, working across online and physical spaces, conceptual art, self-portraiture, installation art)
Leah Schrager (social media, Instagram, performing the self, persona, sexuality, the female body, self-portraiture, post-internet art)
Sophia Giovannitti (intersections of selling art and selling the body, sex, work, commodification, capitalism, autonomy, exploitation, conceptual art)
Marie Calloway (selling the body, selling sex, selling art, the female body and experience, commodification, performing the self, reality and fiction, desire, fantasy)
Amalia Ulman (world-building, post-internet art, social media, performing the self, persona, self-portraiture, installation art, capitalism, commodification)
Ryan Trecartin (post-internet art, lo-fi aesthetics, examination of abstraction of language and interaction, performance, reality and fiction)
Methodology
I will read books and articles that relate to my subjects of interest. Anything I read and want to reflect on will be recorded on my blog.
I will research and reflect on the work of artists who have made work that relates to mine through content and/or form. Anything I want to reflect on will be recorded on my blog.
I view my use of OnlyFans as a research method because it is an ongoing experiment of regularly creating work and there is a continual source of feedback from consumers/audience. It is useful therefore to keep a record of the kinds of comments and messages and questions I receive from my audience. I will regularly reflect on my process and experience of making self-portraits and presenting them on OnlyFans. I will record these reflections on my blog in a specific category titled Reflecting on OnlyFans. This reflection will encourage me to confront what’s working and not working with my images and videos so I can improve my process and strengthen the quality of the work. It will also mean that I am regularly considering my actual experience of commodifying myself in this way – how it feels to do this and what I’m learning from this about selling the self and selling art.
I will experiment with the creation of physical objects to explore how the themes of my work can be expressed in varied ways, especially beyond the online outcomes. I will be working with materials adjacent to the three key aesthetics that will inform my work. The materials I’m interested in or inspired by include: glass, mirror, carpet, white sheets, metal locks and keys, transparent plastic, chipped and cracked surfaces, marble, shiny tiles, lace, ribbons, pearls, diamontes, stickers, upholstered chairs, television and computer screens, canvas, paper, crockery, office supplies. I’m also interested in versions of materials that connote these materials for example, say, working with marble-effect paper rather than actual marble, pearl stickers instead of pearls. I want questions of authenticity and facade to be present in the materials I’m working with. I like things that might be pretending to be something they’re not or something more than they are. Diamontes, for example, masquerading as diamonds. The research will be in the making, as this is a relatively new way of working for me.
Outcomes
A very small-scale installation presented in a physical space. This will be an opportunity to create and refine a concept and practice delivering it in a low-stakes way. It will be both an interim outcome that contributes to the world of the project as well as practice based research. The installation will incorporate objects and self-portraits.
My series of self-portraits. My three key aesthetic interests (detailed in Aims and Objectives) will be explored through the portraits. They will be presented online on OnlyFans and Instagram and within exhibition/installation outcomes (including the interim show).
Various other images and objects. Including a physical copy of my poem Sermon on The Body, as detailed in Aims Two.
Final installation. I would like the project to culminate in an installation. I don’t yet know what the specific concept for this installation is. I don’t want to rush into trying to determine that, I want to discover it during the course and let my experimenting and research lead me to it.
Instagram. As mentioned in Aim Two, the entire project will be documented on Instagram. Using Instagram in this way is both part of my research and an outcome of the project. It’s important to note that my intention with this documentation is not to provide context or insight into my process to an audience. There is a performative element to the documentation. It’s like I’m presenting the fantasy world that I’m inhabiting while I work on this project. I have archived all of my previous Instagram posts prior to this project and have started posting only images related to my project with no explanation or context given. Using Instagram allows me explore blurred and overlapping boundaries through content and form. It also serves as a promotional tool for my art. Self-promotion is an idea I’m interested in in relation to work, selling the self and selling art; therefore utilising social media within this project feels natural and inevitable.
Work Plan
Week 1 – Week 10
Began taking self-portraits and experimenting with concepts, locations, costumes and editing techniques. Mostly focused on “Aesthetic One” – corporate office.
Began selling work on OnlyFans and reflecting on this experience.
Examined self-portraits by artists I liked and reflected on their aesthetics and affects.
Began researching the intersection of selling art and selling the self.
Began researching ideas around performing the self.
Experimented with ways to present self-portraits in the interim show.
Began documenting my project on Instagram.
Read Working Girl by Sophia Giovannatti.
Read Scammer by Caroline Calloway.
Re-read Ways of Seeing by John Berger.
Read parts of The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.
Re-read parts of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman.
Read journal articles.
Ordered sample print of self-portrait on canvas.
Week 11 – Week 14
Continued taking self-portraits and reflecting on this process.
Continued documentation on Instagram.
Read The Naked Nude by Frances Borzello.
Experimented with making images from text using the captions on my OnlyFans photos.
Ordered another sample print of self-portrait on canvas.
Week 15 – Week 18
Choose images for interim show and order the canvas prints.
Read and reflect on Seeing Ourselves by Frances Borzello.
Contact some places/spaces to see if it would be feasible to present a small installation there. I might present the installation in Melbourne not Adelaide (where I live). I am more familiar with venues and people in Melbourne. Or maybe I should try to do it in Adelaide for that very reason? I haven’t decided. I think I’ll contact the two or three places I have in mind in Melbourne to see if it would be feasible to present something there and then go from there. I’m thinking I’ll present it in around October 2024 but this is completely up in the air at this stage.
1 March – Arrive in London
Week 19 – 20
Interim show and low residency.
21 March – Arrive in Paris
My main focus while in London and Paris will be to take a lot of self-portraits. This will be a good opportunity to use my accommodation/hotels as new portrait locations.
I will also hopefully have time to read another book on my reading list.
Immerse myself in “Aesthetic Two” – the wedding/bride aesthetic and persona. Research around intersections of work and relationships, the ritual and performance of weddings and relationships, security and relationships, money and relationships, invisible labour, etc.
Take self-portraits with this aesthetic and persona in mind.
Begin documenting this change in aesthetic on Instagram. Until now my Instagram will have been focused on the office/corporate aesthetic. Now, it can start to develop into something else as well.
Experiment with object making including experimentation with creating a physical copy of Sermon on the Body.
Week 25 – Week 30
Focus on conceptualising a small installation.
Continue experimenting with creating a physical copy of Sermon on the Body and other objects and images.
Immerse myself in “Aesthetic Three” – the hotel/maid aesthetic and trope. Research around this – the work of housekeeping and cleaning, my own experiences of this, crossover of hotel and office aesthetics.
Take self-portraits with this aesthetic and persona in mind.
Begin documenting this change in aesthetic on Instagram.
Organise and present a small installation.
November 2024 – January 2025
Focus on conceptualising the final installation.
Continue experimenting with making objects and images.
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books.
Borzello, F. (2016) Seeing Ourselves. 2nd edn. London: Thames and Hudson.
Borzello, F. (2022) The Naked Nude. 2nd edn.London: Thames and Hudson.
Calloway, C. (2023) Scammer. USA: Dead Dad Press.
Calloway, M. (2013) what purpose did i serve in your life? New York: Tyrant Books.
Davis, A. (1981) Women, Race and Class. USA: Random House.
Debord, G. (1994) The Society of the Spectacle. 3rd edn. New York: Zone Books.
Giblin, R. and Doctorow, C. (2022) Chokepoint Capitalism. Australia: Griffin Press.
Giovannitti, S. (2023) Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex. London:Verso.
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books.
Le Conte, M. (2022) Escape: How a generation shaped, destroyed and survived the internet. London: Blink Publishing.
Sontag, S. (2023) On Women. USA: Picador.
Journal Articles
Avgitidou, A. (2003) ‘Performances of the self’. Digital Creativity. 14:3, pp. 131-138. Available at: 10.1076/digc.14.3.131.27874.
Riches, H. (2004) ‘A Disappearing Act: Francesca Woodman’s Portrait of a Reputation’. Oxford Art Journal. 27:1, pp. 97 – 113. Available at: 10.1093/oaj/27.1.95.
Bunny Rogers. (2017) ‘Processing Trauma: Artist Bunny Rogers on Using Her Work to Explore the Columbine Massacre’s Lingering Impact’. Interviewed by Caroline Goldstein. Artnet. 9 August. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/bunny-rogers-interview-1038647 (Accessed: 27 October 2023)
Some thoughts about the self-portraits of two artists.
Ahn Jun 1981 –
I love Ahn’s self-portraits in which she is posed on rooftops and window ledges of high-rise buildings. In some of the portraits the point of view is her own – we can just see part of her legs and her perspective of the street below her. In others we can see her whole body in it’s precarious position. Sometimes her surroundings are the focus and her body almost becomes part of the background, you have to search for it. In others her body is in focus.
Cityscapes are very appealing to me and I love the way Ahn places herself in these environments. There is a kind of discomfort that arises when looking at an image of someone doing something dangerous and precarious and unusual. But to me her portraits simultaneously contain a delicacy and serenity and this contrast is compelling. Something I find interesting about her work is that these self-portraits contain minimal awareness of an audience. I don’t get the sense within the image that she is hyper conscious of being watched by a viewer. I believe self-portraits are inherently performative, so her work therefore has an element of this but to a lesser extent than I’d usually observe in the self-portraits of other artists I’m drawn to. This is just my perception. Maybe it’s because the environment is so significant and specific and integral to the work.
I learned of Carla’s work recently because Tom sent me this article which he thought would interest me and he was right. Carla talks about discovering her father’s porn magazines as a child, stating that she was “in awe” of the women she saw in them and she thought “they had to be the baddest women in the world to feel free enough to pose in this manner”. She began taking self-portraits in college, citing the magazines as influences. She says, “I didn’t want to be in Playboy or Jet, but I wanted to be seen, and I wanted to be in control of what that looked like”. This reminds me of my own feelings about wanting to control my own image, even if I can’t control how that image is perceived.
I was fascinated to read about Carla’s work and about porn being an influence for her because I feel like women are both constantly sexualised and objectified but are also not allowed to be overtly sexual or be perceived as objectifying themselves on their own terms. We have to “respect ourselves”, while being disrespected from the outside. Reading that she openly owns those porn magazines as an influence was interesting to me, it feels like something a “respectable” woman/artist “shouldn’t” view as inspiration, especially if it’s in a positive way. I’m also drawn to her work aesthetically. Some of her photos have an ethereal quality that reminds me of Francesca Woodman, who I wrote about previously. The self-portraits I’m taking at the moment sometimes have similar qualities I think, in a digital version. I love blurriness and double exposure.
I don’t think there is any possible way for a woman to photograph herself and avoid projection from (most) viewers of those photographs regarding their judgement/assumptions about her levels of attractiveness and femininity and her sexuality or their assumptions about the absence of those things. Analysing her/their sexuality or lack of, or attractiveness or lack of, or promiscuity or lack of, seems to always be a primary way into the work of women/feminine artists who use their bodies at the forefront of their work. There will be judgements made about her/their level of exhibitionism and why she has chosen this apparent level of exhibitionism. Woman are always placed in categories regarding their appearance and the choices they have made (or are presumed to have made) about how to “present” their appearance.
She has a body of work. Using my body as work. I want my work to be lucrative. If my work is my body, what kind of body is a lucrative body. A lucrative body is an appealing body that can be commodified. How do I commodify myself. What does it mean to commodify myself and how does it feel. I’ve felt commodified in many ways before. Everyone is commodified, especially women, everything feels commodified.
There is a lot more to think about in relation to the above but I’m going to put that in a separate post.
Further thoughts.
Not long after I wrote the above, I opened Ways of Seeing by John Berger to a random page and read a little, including these parts:
… the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. If it small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. The promised power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual – but its object is always exterior to the man. A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sene that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises.
By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste – indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relations of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.
The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of women. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the paining Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.
I’ve known for a long time that I’m interested in capturing the self, performing the self, capturing the capturing of the self, capturing the watching of the self etc. etc. And I’m drawn to other artists who do this, especially women artists. I wrote this about Francesca Woodman’s work in a previous post: She both captured herself and captured herself capturing herself, or interacting with herself, like in the images in which she’s interacting with a mirror or the one where she has created an image of her own shadow on the ground while she sits in her chair. I also like to capture myself capturing myself. Many of her images contain a doubling up of her own self.
I’m trying to consider deeply and specifically about why I’m interested in all of this and I think I’ve felt a frustration lately about the why. I know that the why is to do with this: A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. This sensation is ingrained within me and very familiar to me and I’m continually fascinated by it. I guess I’m trying to figure out how I can channel that fascination into my practice to create something that is formally inventive. I know I can’t figure that out with only thinking, so I’ll be taking some more self-portraits today and then I’ll reflect more on how I feel about them.
I’m drawn to art that features people. Art that uses live bodies in some way. Especially self-portraits. I usually feel more emotional when I’m interacting with this kind of art. And I do want art to make me feel. I like art that makes me think too and the art I like most does both, makes me feel and think. But art that only makes me think is less compelling to me than that which also elicits an emotional response. Art that makes me feel something forces me to consider my soul.
I think all the time about the ways that people desperately try to connect with each other. I’m drawn to self-portraits that make me feel like the artist is trying to connect with themselves, or with me, maybe I’m having an experience of connection or attempted connection with the artist who is depicting themselves. They are wanting to be witnessed, I’m witnessing them, we are looking at each other.
A self-portrait automatically invites questions around crossovers of authenticity and performance, which is a key interest in all of my work. This tension is embedded in the form. Why are you capturing or creating an image of yourself to present to others. What choices are you making about how to present yourself and why. To what degree are you playing a character. Which version of yourself are you presenting and why. What level of awareness do you care to have about your own performativity. Are you creating self-portraits to try and discover something about yourself or have you discovered something about yourself that you want to share.
Some notes about artists I like for whom self-portraits have been an important part of their practice.
Francesa Woodman 1958 – 1981
I’m drawn to her photographs because they are mysterious and seem very personal but I don’t feel alienated by them. I like the way she used her body. The way she configured herself and her props. She both captured herself and captured herself capturing herself, or interacting with herself, like in the images in which she’s interacting with a mirror or the one where she has created an image of her own shadow on the ground while she sits in her chair. I also like to capture myself capturing myself. Many of her images contain a doubling up of her own self. A sense of confidence and defiance radiates from her work and I also view her as trying to figure something out about herself within the portraits. Like we are witnessing something active, we are witnessing her capturing herself in the act of trying to work something out about how she feels or what she wants. She seems to be curious about herself and she presents this curiosity boldly. Again this is something I relate to (maybe I’m just projecting the feelings I have when I make work onto her work). She seems to have a bold and playful vulnerability. There is a highly performative element to her photos, the scenarios and the use of props are very constructed and deliberate but at the same time she is able to infuse her images with an ethereal candidness.
I saw Petra’s self-portrait video Bridal Shower in a gallery a few years ago (I think it was in Amsterdam). This was the first time I had encountered her work and I was captivated. I felt disarmed and a sense of strong desire. I related to the figure in the video but I don’t know why, I just seemed to recognise her. I wanted to be in that room with her and I wanted to be her and I wanted to be friends with her. Her movements and expressions in this video are very performative, it makes me think of a child putting on on article of clothing from a dress up box and pretending to be a character. But there’s also an ease to it, it doesn’t feel forced. It seems so moving and deceptively simple.
Bunny Rogers 1990 –
Bunny’s work is so beautiful to me. She made a series of self-portraits called Self Portrait as clone of JeanneD’Arc. The clone of Jeanne D’Arc is a character from a television series called Clone High which is populated by clones of historical figures. Bunny made these self-portraits depicting herself as different iterations of the clone of Jeanne D’Arc. I love the layers of self-representation, they are not self-portraits in the most straightforward sense. Rather, she presents herself as different versions of a fictionalised clone of a real person. In this series she confronts the layers and complications of presenting the self.
Holly Brindley 