My Identity Collage!

My finished collage. This is some of the stuff that makes me, well me. My hobbies, job, and a loved one.

Artist research for Identity

My artist was Nikki S. Lee. We heard a little on her in class, as being the person who changed her appearance and lived with people that fit that "costume" and acted like them and learned from them for long periods of time, actually becoming one of them.

This picture is from when Nikki Lee took the approach of fitting into a group of skaters for a while. 

To get a little more background information on her, Lee is a korean artist and filmmaker who lives in New York City. She moved to New York from Korea when she was about 24. When she got here, she was introduced to a wide variety of cultures when being welcomed. Nikki went to collage and received an A.A. in fashion as well as a B.A. in fine arts. She used those degrees to master her "projects" in an exceptional fashion, as she needs it to dress, walk, and talk like the groups of people she conforms with.

This is from her "Hispanic Project", when she spent some time in an urban area of hispanics.

On a site I was looking up, it brought a couple good points; it asked a couple questions which were:
     Do we choose our social groups consciously?
     How are we identified by other people?
     Is it possible for us to move between cultures?
Were those thoughts of hers when she started each project? The website also quotes her saying "essentially life itself is a performance. When we change our clothes to alter our appearance, the real act is the transformation of our way of expression—the outward expression of our psyche."

The Yuppie Project, where she took her place in a high-end community.

Nikki S. Lee has gone into her projects with just a eye for fashion and a camera, developed her movements and actions into that of those around her, and come out showing we make ourselves what we want.


Here are some links for those who want to look up a little more on Nikki S. Lee. They have good pictures of her projects, some information on her, and other things:


http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/lee_nikki_s.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_S._Lee
http://www.artnet.com/artists/nikki+s.-lee/biography-links
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/design/01kino.html

The "Real" talk:

So today's lecture was on the topic of what is "real". Well I will start off with the definition of real.
Real- existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary,ideal, or fictitious
Beauty- the quality present in a thing or person that gives intensepleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.),a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest)
These two words have such simple sounding definitions, yet such a complex "reality". What is real? What makes real things real? If it is always real to me, is it always real to someone else? We used an example of a plastic rose in class and was asked if it would be real. By using the given definition of real, it says "not imaginary". Well the plastic rose may not grow, but you can see it, you can hold it, therefore it is not imaginary. Does that make it real or is it still not? What is real, and reality, is not a set fact of rules, it's what each person makes of it. Beauty is another word of specific-to-each meaning. Beauty is what gives one person satisfaction, so ones meaning of beauty is theirs, not someone else's. 
Try putting the two words together and you go from having two words of many meanings to one term of no meaning. This is because those words have opposite and not specific definitions. They are contradictions. We all (probably) saw those skittles commercial about the contradictions (Timmy the albino lifeguard and The scotch-korean!)


My beauty is the real beauty of my own reality and no one else's.