I want to look into how people pretend to be something they are not. This can occur in different ways, some good and some bad. For instance acting as a different character in a play or TV show for entertainment. Or changing your personality/beliefs to conform to society's norms and expectations to be accepted by the majority. Many people use social media to present themselves as rich and famous when in reality they are the same as everyone else. I want to explore why people feel the need to do this and how does it help them. Additionally, i want to explore the fear of expressing one's true self. This could be peoples dislikes and likes, for instance favourite song or TV show. Why do people judge one another on these factors? This also links to how people pretend they are fine when in reality they are hiding deep amounts of stress and emotional problems.
Whilst thinking about where i could take my art and what i could explore i realised many of these link to fear of judgement by others.
Rogers believed that feelings of self worth developed in early childhood from interactions with parents; as they grow older interactions with other significant people affect feelings of self worth. Positive regard is needed to feel valued and loved. Rogers made a distinction between two types of positive regard: Unconditional Positive Regard and Conditional Positive Regard.
Conditional positive regard is when the child is only loved when they achieve goals expected. They are not loved who who they are. For instance, parents only showing approval and affection when the child achieves high grades at school. Usually, due to this the child tries to be what everyone whats them to be, leading them to forget their true personality and overall lose who they really are.
When researching in to Rogers positive regard i came across this research by Harter. I was really interested in the quotes used at the beginning as they display the feelings of losing one true self, especially "I'm a nothing, i have no personality" and "I'm not living up to the kind of person i want to be". I thought these quotes were very revealing as people usually pretend they are fine. I thought i could ask people about how they really feel and combine those feelings into my work as i explore.
This led me onto looking into personality and how they develop as we grow up. I found this extract from research called "Personality" by Gardner Murphy. His research looks into different types of personalities and how they develop. I found his research to be very descriptive and interesting, however it was published in 1945 so is very outdated and not valid for what we know today. Although i do find it very insightful for how people understood personality back then, compared to now. Another type of personality i a aware of is the authoritarian personality created by Adorno. The authoritarian personality is developed through strict parenting, causing the child to resent their parents. Due to being unable to express these feelings towards the parents the child learns to release them by lashing out to people who they see as lower authority. Usually people with authoritarian personality are racist, sexist, homophobic and are submissive to a strong leader. They bully other people to release their resentment towards their parents. Both research into personality and Rogers positive regard show how our experiences during childhood shape who we are as adults and how we cope with the world.Through my art i want to explore different personalities and look into childhood to see how they connect. I would like to ask people questions to learn about their experiences and how they coped with it, also relationships with parents and how they reflect on their self worth.
This video is a talk about imposter blindness. It helped me to understand the other side of what it is like when being the receiver to an imposter. The media romanticizes the idea of an imposter which is something i will look further into in books and films. However, in a small group people tend to despise the idea of an imposter like in religion, race, sexuality and gender. It also helped give me an insight into the anxiety of people believing they are presenting a fake version of themself to the world, i feel this would identify more with most people, especially myself. Lastly, it gave me the idea to look into the history of people who have famously been imposters, for instance when women have pretended to be men in order to join the war etc.
This email exposes the feelings of young artists ripping off others because they are uncreative. It ties into the idea of pretending to be someone you're not. To me these feelings make sense to popular music artists who are uncreative with basic songs and lyrics. Yet they are more hyped up when they all sound the same, compared to many underappreciated and original artists.
I looked into animals that use camouflage to appear as part of the habitat. I find nature really interesting and the textures that theses creatures look like when they are camouflaged. I would love to experiment with this within my work using body art, and i enjoy the idea of doing something that appears 2D from the front but is actually 3D from the side. Creating illusions to deceive the viewer would be interesting to try as well as present the idea of appearing as something it is not.
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