IDENTITY THROUGH MEDIA CONSUMPTION

Introduction

Self-portraits are a unique way to self-reflect. I originally wanted to create portraits that involved my family and important changes through my childhood. However, since we discussed that one’s identity isn’t only about one’s heritage, place of birth, or neighborhood, I decided take a different approach and show my identity though the media that I consumed through my childhood until now.

Childhood Self-Portrait

The first self-portrait shows an 8-year-old me surrounded by in all kinds of forms. My taste in music was mainly influenced by my fathers love of classic rock. Mind you, this was a time before there was such thing as Pandora Radio or Spotify, so we would tune into Q 104.3 and jam out to all the legends such as ACDC, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd.

At that time, I also had a Sega Genesis that my father bought right after we moved into a new apartment in North Newark. I had four games, but the most memorable games where Mighty Power Rangers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

A couple of years later, my father got his hands on a PlayStation 1 with a missing centerpiece that allowed the CD to spin. He quickly replaced it from one of his Walkman CD players and fixed the PlayStation. I mainly had racing games, but none could compare to the Dukes of Hazzard video game.

Along with the racing games, movies such as The Fast and the Furious fulfilled my passion for cars even more. The first of the franchise introduced me to the iconic Japanese sport cars and the tuner culture with cars such as the Toyota Supra, Mitsubishi Eclipse, and the Honda S2000.

Recent Self-Portrait

My second self-portrait shows me a little less than a year ago surrounded by more current media that I consume. I choose to stick with the same forms of media as my childhood self-portrait (music, TV shows, video games) to compare them side by side.

My more recent self-portrait shows how technology has advanced over time. Ditching things like the radio for streaming services such as Spotify. My taste in music has changed over the years as I started to discover old-school hip-hop artists, such as Notorious B.I.G, Wu-Tang clan, and more modern ones such as Travis Scott and Kanye West.

As for video games, the Sega Genesis made its way up to the attic and the PlayStation 1 was thrown out after my father found out that the PlayStation 2 was backwards compatible, meaning that it could play all of my original PlayStation 1 games. At this time, I got my hands on more violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. At first my parents where regretting letting me play these games. They worried that the violence depicted on the screen would do me harm, but I convinced them that I had a strong morality and was mature enough to play.

As I got older my parents got looser on me. I would spend Saturday nights watching Adult Swim over at a friend’s house. This introduced me to adult animated shows such as Family Guy, South Park, Robot Chicken, and most recently Rick and Morty. 

Future Self Portrait

This self-portrait is intended to show my predicted media consumption after graduating college. Using the three consistent forms of media, I’ve shown how my future responsibilities may prioritize my media consumption to other things.

New logos such as Google Chrome (the internet), Pinterest, Awwwards, Adobe Creative Cloud represent my key tools in my future professional career as a graphic designer. The MB Design logo shows my future plans to open my own design firm in the tri-state area.

Other logos such as Zillow, Robinhood, and YouTube represent other forms of incomes. Whether its investing in stocks through Robinhood, investing in real estate through Zillow, or building a YouTube channel, I will always make sure that I’m financially stable, one way or another.

Things such as my passion for cars like the Mazda RX7 and Porsche 911 (993), or my love with classic rock and video games are one of the many things that will stick around no matter how old I’ll get.           

Connections to Course topics

Throughout the course, we’ve discussed how our identity isn’t only shaped by where we come from, or what we physically look like. Identity can also be shown through the media that we consume. When we discussed about how sesame streets educational standards became more dynamic and not just be limited to teaching kids math and letters, I would watch other PBS programs such as Arthur, Caillou and Cyberchase that would go beyond teaching me numbers and the alphabet.

In my older more recent self-portrait, it shows how technology has modernized where I can choose what ever media I want at any given time. With the invention of the smartphone, the newer generations seems to be sucked into some kind of mind control because social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, as well as streaming apps such as youtube and spotify, give them the ability to consume all the media they could ask for on demand.

bitch. A Self Portrait Project.

Artist Statement: 

     Our discussions in class regarding the construction of an identity were the class sessions that I enjoyed the most. I was learning so much about all the different things people do to their identity whether they shape it, constrain it, mask it, etc, especially my own person. Aside from enjoying Erik Erikson’s reading simply because we share the same phonetic spelling of our names, I was able to resonate with myself as well as learn more about how I portray my identity as well as how I built that portrayal. The first thing that comes to mind when I hear portrait is a painting, so I thought to myself that I was going to have to paint for this project. Then, I heard the words self-portrait and I figured that I was going to have to paint a picture of myself. And so, I decided to paint my thoughts the best way I know how to paint, through video. 

     Coming up with the idea for my self-portrait video, titled ‘bitch.’,was far from conventional. My original plans were to create some sort of narrative that I felt best fit me but it did not end up that way. What I will usually do when making some kind of story for a video is I will record myself and speak my thoughts out loud on camera, and then I will review the footage later and try and bounce any ideas that come to mind while watching myself and form a narrative through those steps. While reviewing my footage I noticed how raw and uncut my thoughts looked and sounded on tape, and this led me to the realization that I was doing things all wrong. I was trying my hardest to make a story that I wanted my identity to fit into and take mold after but in reality, all the thoughts in my head that I was repeating to the camera was really how I saw myself and my identity as it truly is. 

     Making the video was a very weird yet eye opening experience for me. I mean this in the sense that my feelings have never been provoked as much as they were while editing this. My style of editing videos usually involves using quick, timely, and comedic cuts and transitions and that was exactly how I followed through with the video. This time however, I interpreted my video as a dramatic one rather than a comedic one. I relate it a lot to the structure of a play. My character is going through the crisis seeing my own view of masculinity as a challenged and misconstrued one. Although I am portraying myself as the protagonist, my troubled thoughts play as an antagonist. The quick cuts which bombard a viewer represent just how much in disarray my thoughts are about myself and my identity. Along with that, I manipulated my footage so it shows how my uneasy articulation of simple sentences are plaguing me as well as my psyche. 

Latinas and Split-Identity

My name is Noemi Mangual-Rosa. I was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and moved to the United States when I was 1.5 years old. As I've grown up, I got a lot of criticism from my family in Puerto Rico about how "gringa" I am living in Brooklyn and in Newark (which are not typical places where you find gringas anyway. Because I look a little ethnically ambiguous, I've always gotten the "where are you from" question all the time; especially when I speak. I've always been criticized for sounding "too white" to be from Newark/New York/Puerto Rico. Because of this, I struggled with assimilation; as many Latinas do. A popular Spanish phrase says "ni de aquí, ni de allá", which perfectly describes the story of thousands of Latinx who never quite fit in here or there. Identity is a particularly tough concept for Latino/as to grapple with, particularly first-generation Latinas who often find themselves split between two mindsets. I love hotdogs and hamburgers as much as I love tembleque and chuletas. My portrait represents how I am one individual under a split identity living as an American in the United States but still yearning to fit into my cultural identity back home. Additionally, being an Afro-Latina and not outwardly looking the part has also caused some further loss of identity that I had to take upon myself to learn and embrace. Through using tools such as Ancestry DNA to further identify who I am, I learned that I am 36% black, which means that my African roots hold a big part of my heritage.I stopped straightening my hair and started to understand that I am the intersection of being black and Latina and how to be unapologetic about my heritage and what it means to me. Being Afro-Latina means not having to choose; they do and should coexist.

Self Portrait Statement

As much as I try to identity who I am, my always turn to art. It always help me something that I can’t describe in words. Recently I look into more ways of using media to make work and explore those endless possibilities. Last semester, I took a motion design class where I was able to more more programs that will allow me to do use more visuals can be seen by other people through motion. I thought a lot about my past and how I learn for my visuals rather than writing. Visuals help people learn area that would most people wouldn’t understand. It becomes a universal language. I was also very fascinated with watching television and movies, especially cartoons and how each frame would move so cleanly that I couldn’t even imagine how long it took animators to create and 30 minute or an hour and a half long video.

In my self portrait, I believed it was the matter for your work that reflects yourself. I decided to do an animation, hand drawn stills and having them animate. I wanted to create a narrative based on the ideas of youth but also taken in consideration about people’s future. Erickson’s ideas of youth do fit in the preliminary stages on how people live through life. Hilma af Klint also brought ideas about what the purpose of being in the universe and how ourselves play a big role. As well as Kambui Olujimi and how he wanted to tell his narrative in a different media.

The video starts of with a boy who is riding a bicycle to somewhere unknown. He is shown going somewhere while he is also is in a room doing nothing. I wanted to show a cause and effect situation, where you see the character is done and what he did to do it. Throughout the film, you see A sort part of papers falling, the writing are notes; reminders that he has to do many task and  overloaded with work. The narrative is to shows the boy who is has a lot of tasks and starts to imagine what if he were to stop doing it, questioning what is his purpose in life if he is not going to do all of the tasks that are demanded. He believes that he will just ride around his bike and just explore life. At the end of the video, the viewer doesn't see what happens, they only see the boy looking at the bike and nothing else. I wanted the end of the film to be open ended, letting the viewer decide what happens.

The way the video was implemented was hand drawing about 120 pieces of tracing paper, scanning it and placing all the images one after another. I wanted people to see the amount of work put into the images. There's so many three dimensional video and movies popularized, due to it being quick and easy that i wanted to stick with a traditional route, seeing all the images placed one another and seeing the ending result.


LINK: https://vimeo.com/334020453

Jennifer

Jennifer Isaza

Professor Cacolio

May 3, 2019

 Semester Project

                                                            My Self Portrait

For my semester project I decided I wanted to show my growth as an artist over time. To me, myself identity is currently revolved on my achievements because it is something I’ve been working hard on in the last few years. As an artist, you will begin to experiment with different mediums to find one that compliments your skills. My perspective of this project was to picture my view on this project 5 years ago. If I was assigned this project five years ago I would instantly want to do a painting of myself because that is something I used to enjoy. When I think of painting I think about the very beginnings of my journey discovering I wanted to become an art major. I would have sat around with my acrylic paints and paint my self-portrait and add a special touch to make the painting stand out a bit. I would have also added something from the class trips and mention my cultural identity through flowers that their colors all together represent Colombia’s flag. During the museum trips, I have brought with me different perspectives on identities. I learned about professionally identify, cultural identity, and ethnic identity. I have also recognized how important it is to be aware of your identities and be proud of where you are and who you are. Since Graphic Design is a new part of my identity, I decided to create a piece that shows my new abilities. Instead of drawing and painting on top of a canvas, I sketched out the picture of myself in photoshop and began playing with my new tools I have to my advantage. In my digital version of self-portrait, I wanted to incorporate m cultural identity again with the flag colors. I also wanted to add a sign of my gender identity, in which I am proud to be a woman. It is not only to classify my gender, but to represent part of me which is a strong woman.  Since my professional identity overpowers most of my project, I also wanted to display what many artists know as creative cloud to represent the new tools I have in my art career. I am still a work in progress and will continue to grow in all of the aspects of my life.

Brandon's Self Portrait

Brandon Ramdayal

Professors Caçoilo and O’Leary

Imagery Identity and Culture

Artist Statement

The form that this self-portrait takes on is a short autobiographical story. The reason I chose to take on was that I feel that this is the best way to bring my personal narrative to life. As a journalism and video production major, this is a step out of my comfort zone since I haven’t written short stories since high school (which was many moons ago.) On the contrary, I feel that it is a necessary to help me become a better journalist and a better videographer (after all, screenplays do arise from scripts, right? [Case in point: Project Blue Book.]) The content of this self-portrait includes many facets of my life that revolve around the topics of identity, imagery, and culture. Throughout my life, I’ve been faced with a variety of challenges that define who I am today. Finding my identity was possibly the biggest, from trying to figure out what I liked to finding what I want to do with my life. I still have those struggles to this day, but it’s a little clearer now thanks to the help of this class and the artists that were discussed in this semester.

Another challenge that I’ve faced in my life was being in touch with my culture. Being born in the United States, I’ve always felt like I was separated from what my family knew and the values they embrace every day. However, as time progressed I began to feel more in touch with my culture and how to identify myself with that culture. As an American with Guyanese descent, I’ve always felt that there was a stigma that you had to follow a certain career path, and if you didn’t, then you would be judged a certain way within that community. Today, I’m beginning to learn that might’ve been the case for my mother and father and the people that came before them. However, that stigma is slowly fading away, and it starts with my generation, the generation that’s evolving to do bigger and better things every day.

This self-portrait is inspired by the many works of artists that we’ve discussed in this class. Some inspiration has come from Judith Howard’s SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF IDENTITIES. Howard writes, “Strong identification with a group need not, in principle, be correlated with out-group hostility. Only under conditions of intergroup threat and competition are in-group identification and out-group discrimination correlated (Branscombe & Wann 1994, Grant & Brown 1995). Social identity theory maintains that it is ingroup identification that causes out-group bias.” (Howard 370) Another inspiration was Renée Cherow O’Leary’s AGING, PASSION, AND DEATH: PASSION AS MEANING AND STRUCTURE IN THE FACE OF TIME AND CHANGE, who writes “Living with passion also requires liberation from rigid models of behavior, opening even to excess. It means saying yes instead of no to the wider world of choices. This, to me, is the key to living a passionate life—being open to the unexpected, embracing the enigmatic.” This is what my self-portrait was inspired by, and what it entails. I hope you enjoy it!


Finding Brandon

By Brandon Ramdayal

It was my senior year of high school, and I was filling out my college applications. As I get through each question, I got stuck on two questions, “What is your nationality?” and “Select your Major of Interest.” Unsure of what to put, as conversations about my nationality between my parents about my nationality and I began to ring in my ears. “You’re an American,” my mother would say. “No, Brandon you’re Guyanese.” Since there was no option for Caribbean, Guyanese or American with Guyanese descent, I just selected “Other” and called it a day. Unsure of what to select for the major question, I selected “Business Administration” to the schools that had business programs, and “Journalism” for the schools that didn’t. I thought it seemed appropriate to go into business since my father owned one and I would follow in his footsteps. However, I also had an interest in Journalism, I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling that it could be in my future. Once I got through the questions, I clicked submit and carried on with my life.

It’s still senior year of high school, just a few months have passed and I’m beginning to get my decisions from the colleges I applied to and I got into all into all of them. Excited to share the news with my parents, I run downstairs shouting “I GOT IN!” repeatedly from the top of my lungs. My parents smile and give me a hug and start calling my relatives to relay the message. Messages of congratulations and happiness for me flood the phone and my Facebook. Happy to be on the receiving end of all the good news I reply with a simple “Thanks” and proceed to have a conversation with them. After all was said and done, I’m faced with another challenge, picking a school to go to. I was always told to go with the school that’s giving the most money, which is a wise choice because then I don’t have to worry about student debt when I graduate. Then the big question came, “What do you want to study?” Every time this question came to me, I’d always say Business just to sound professional and like I had a grip on what I wanted to do with my life, but in reality, I had no idea at all. I was afraid of telling them that I wanted to pursue and face ridicule like “That’s for white people” or “You’re not going to make a lot of money from that career.”

Graduation is around the corner, and I’m set on going to NJCU’s school of business. The free ride there with some other incentives, and I’m going to be with most of my friends from high school. It’ll be great, or so I thought. I’m in the living room at home with my dad. On the television, I see CNN’s on, it’s one of my dad’s favorite things to watch. As I’m watching with him, he asked me, “Are you sure you want to do business?” Still not sure with what I wanted to do with my life, I assured him that this was what I wanted to do. “But you’re so much more happy with Journalism and Video Production, I see it in your face and the way you act, you’d be much better off at Rutgers. Think about it.” Afraid of the thought that there weren’t many journalists of my color, personalities like Don Lemon and Sanjay Gupta begin to appear on the screen as they report on the newest story, my anxiety gets alleviated. Normally, I thought my parents would want me to pursue something that would help me make a lot of money, like a doctor or a lawyer, or something else, but it was very reassuring that they were supportive of whatever I liked. At the time, I received a decision from Rutgers-Newark, because New Brunswick was too far for me to travel, and dorming wasn’t an option. I wasn’t too sure if this was the right path for me, as there weren’t too many people like me that have those degrees, but I figured I’d be the first of many. I’d have to sacrifice my free ride and pay out of pocket to go to this school, but it was a choice I was willing to take.

Finally, the big day comes, Graduation Day. The day was filled with nothing but excitement and hope for the future. The boring parts of graduation felt like the slowest, the speeches and the hours of sitting. Finally, the best part came along, getting the diploma. As our names were called, we walked up, did our celebration, got our hard earned piece of paper and walked off the stage. After that came the moving of the tassels or whatever it was called, and we were finally graduates. We then threw our hats in the air and walked out in the traditional way. When it was all set and done, I celebrated with the friends I made over the four years and my family with more photos than you could ever imagine, excited about the next fours of my life.

Myths, Home and Self-Portraiture

Hundreds of years ago people did not have the technology to explain different forces of nature. They created gods, each with separate powers, to rule their domains. Some of the gods were merciful, some were wicked, and others were merely servants of more powerful gods. Looking at the gods, it is easy to tell what the civilization most valued.Myths are a way that humans can explain the impossible or the unexplainable. Myths also help people through life by giving them hope, something to believe in, or my inspiring them. An example of a doctor telling a very sick patient that it is possible to get better or that a cure will soon be found for their illness. Myths can be used to explain the origin of life and many other things. The bible for example explains how lives begin on Earth.

The word myth is often mistakenly understood to mean fiction-something that never happened, a made-up story or fanciful tale. Myth is really a way of thinking out the past.There are many different types of different creatures of Greek Mythology. There are Centaurs, Minotaur, Pegasus, Sirens, Medusa, and many more. These creatures can either be helpful to the Gods and Goddesses or they can work against them. Some of the creatures’ stories even intertwine with the stories of the Gods and Goddesses of Greek mythology. 

Most of us were familiar with Greek Mythology which presents a coherent set of gods and goddesses. However, other mythologies such as African did not present a consistent set of characters, although many of the tribes tell similar stories. This makes the material more difficult because the stories often crossover into what would be considered folk tales and fables. However, I still didn’t have a feel for how to incorporate the materials until I read some of the conversations of Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers from “The Power Of Myth.” I believe that Campbell offers a way to view folk tales and fables as related to mythology.  Often Myths come from more than just fake tales and stories, the are base on real stories and traditions. Wendy Red Star works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures. 

He focus on the indigenous 

the importance of family and and crow mythology, most people know about the natives Americans beliefs about crow and omens. It is interesting that this early African myth has man and woman emerging from the water which is now thought by most scientists to be the place of origin for the earliest life on earth. Mostly due to the importance of water in their lives it is not surprising that they incorporated this into myth.

During the background phase of the unit the objective is for students to understand where Africa is and how its geographical characteristics affect the people and the stories that were told. The most difficult thing for younger students to understand is that Africa is not one big country but is in fact one of the seven continents. Africa is not one culture or people, but a myriad of peoples and tribes that now live mostly in the modern world with isolated pockets of people living the old ways of generations long ago, still following the old traditions and keeping alive the old beliefs and myths.

The African people and culture have survived in very difficult geographical conditions. A lot of the land is dry desert and wilderness. Most of the inhabitants were nomadic tribes who wandered this hostile territory. The Sahara is the largest of the continent’s deserts. It covers over sixteen million square kilometers. Other deserts include the Kalahari, Namib, Tarkana and Somali. The central part of Africa has tropical forests. It is here that the myriad of exotic animals exists on the continent. From hippos to leopards, chimps and the numerous varieties of birds, reptiles, and fish, the central part of the continents is the picture most of us form in our mind when we think of Africa. 

Most people believe that myths are fiction and folks tales but most of them are based on true stories and history.