Lecture Three: Identity

In today's lecture we considered the historical conceptions of identity and how identity is viewed today, especially in the digital domain. We started by looking at the different phases of identity, these being Pre-modern, Modern and Post-modern. Pre-modern conceptions suggest that personal identity is stable and is defined by long standing roles, for example marriage, the church, work ete, whereas modern and post-modern views suggest that you are able to choose your identity and that it is constructed out of the discourses that are available to you.

Lecture Notes

We also looked briefly into Physiognomy and how this relates to identity. Physiognomy is the assessment of someone's personality or character based on their appearence, most commonly the face. This practice was accepted by ancient Greek philosophers but was revived and popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater from 1775. He introduced the idea that this related to specific character traits rather than general types. Similarly Cesare Lombroso proposed the theory of positivist/anthropological criminology which states that criminal tendancies can be inherited, and that "born criminals" can be identified by physical defects and characteristics.

This can relate strongly to stereotyping. A great example of this is Tracey Emin's "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1963-1995)". The piece was a tent that was lined with appliqued names of everyone she had ever slept with, and it is often misinterpreted as being a euphemism where the tent is indicating all of her sexual partners. At a first glance many would shame her for sleeping around as they would judge the piece on it's face value before taking a look inside and finding out what the work is actually about. Only a select few of the names mentioned in the tent she has sexual relations with, the rest are a collection of family and friends, merely people she has SHARED a bed with and slept alongside.

Tracey Emin - Everyone I Have Ever Slept With

I think these points are commonly addressed when it comes to character design in Animation. Designers *sometimes* tend to play on stereotypes when designing characters. For example, intelligent characters tend to have similar characteristics, for instance they will be depicted with large heads and faces that are very "straight" whereas "dumb" characters tend to be the opposite. They will be depicted with faces that tend to slant back, and have more asymmetric features. A good example of this is Pinky and the Brain. The two characters are laboratory mice who live in a cage in a research facility. Brain is constantly trying to take over the world, thought his plans fall through due to Pinky's idiocy (usually)

Pinky (Left) and the Brain (Right)

This example is clearly playing n stereotypes. The clever character has a large head and is generally quite stern looking, where as the "idiot" looks goofy and feeble-minded.