to those i talk with often, the self is a subject i imagine they tire of. it's been something i've always been thinking about
'self-gaze', name based off the Gaze, a figurative term for collective perception, a prominent example being the 'male gaze.' typically used in terms of objectificasion
realizing how hard it is to look as the self. an article that keeps coming back to mind is On Rejecting Narrative Identity. It's a good read but the passage that keeps coming to mind is:
You start with a desire to show yourself to others, and this seems to require introspection: you have to reflect on who you are, in order to know what story to tell. But in forming this story, and making inferences about how other people see you, you change the way you see yourself. Further, you begin to model your actions after this self-image that you’ve created. I’ve often found myself on the cusp of saying or doing something, wondering “does this reflect who I am? Is this how I want people to view me?” In this way, we risk becoming caricatures of ourselves.
"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth." (Alan Watts)
been writing a bio for applications to sfpc, which resurfaced the thought. there are some terms that i believe are reserved for other's judgment and opinions. 'humble'. 'talented'.
in a conersation with a friend, she had mentioned offhandedly on how she wished that she 'had a style', while commenting that 'what [i] show [her] tends to feel very kiki'.
it was interesting to me because i've never really thought of myself as having a particular 'style.' what i create does tend to have some continuity but i view that as a matter of taste, rather than style.
it bothers me because it feels like it comes back to this idea of self-view
self-gaze being a mix of self-esteem, self-perception. trying to perceive the self feels like trying to see the shadows or trying to see distant stars: too dim to see directly, only bright enough to see in the periphery yet blurry. i notice when it's there, when something feels right or when it feels wrong. it guides me, yet is invisible. when i try to see it, it disappears.
wanting to do a self portrait series at some point
taking pictures of myself seems so challenging. it's made me realize how little self-gaze has to do with the self, in a sense.
a conversation with my friend where he said that photographers' series of self-portraits tend to 'not be very interesting'
because we are uncomfortable with what we see. when we create selfies, share things of ourselves, it passes through our own judgment of what is acceptable. we are biased based on __? (how we want to be perceived, how we perceive ourselves), things that drastically limit what we can show based on our own filtering.
i'm interested in the different ways of exploring self, i think both connect to 'self-gaze' and 'self-noise'.
self-gaze: portfolio self-noise: personal site
how we view and portray ourselves how we live our lives
it's exploring something i'm calling the 'self-gaze', deriving from the social concept of the gaze. i want to explore what it means to look at the self, to perceive it. it's inspired by a number of things, in no particular order:
trying to write about the self is like trying to cast light on shadow
wanting to make identity as consistent as possible across mediums
how do i make this about more than just "talking about yourself for work?"
it's about how what we live affecting how we view ourselves, that aspect is just one manifestation of that dynamic