self as an/other: identifying as ‘I’ that which is not me, defining as ‘not-I’ that which is myself.

photography on remote with Rachel Petersen, 2012.

http://www.thingspowerthemselves.com/selfasother

life activates thought; thought in turn affirms life, recalling something essentially forgotten. the most powerful tool is withdrawal of consent, non-cooperation. awareness folds in upon itself and the senses become mere adjuncts to an isolated and abstract mind. the individual becomes so grotesquely alienated that the self must disguise itself as an extraterrestrial in order to not cause alarm with the truly bizarre dimensions it encompasses.

confusion is a very important space to be in.

it's completely necessary to get confused to have an idea about a solution. 

until the hammer is not useful anymore, all problems are nails.

 

behind the superficial roles of original and copy there is the mark of an original trauma which can be revealed through the tracking and repeating of symptoms - each iteration, in a sense, a revised translation of the initial condition that was its source.

 

 

atsuko kudo, test shoot

in death there is variation and new beginnings. the universe continually provides us with physical systems that never run out of variation – which, like a fractal, create infinite numbers of the same patterns expressed differently. these systems must adjust and adapt to ever-changing conditions while entropy continuously permeates all aspects of existence. systems and conditions in this universe are always in flux with no absolutes outside of our own abstract thinking. for the human energy system, though, perhaps it is not the final condition that defines a life, but rather the process of becoming as a whole.

energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed.
the form when we start does not matter; the form when we end does not matter.

our energy is simply transformed into something different.

Paolo Minissi, 02071957 - 11232011

evasion is a good weapon for avoiding all familiar paths. if you know the way, its not the way. calculated disruption followed by incalculable vapidity quickly degenerating into the merely silly and then toss in a few offensive banalities just to make sure you are judged. now an important question arises wanting what? my advice is to go on immediately to another topic. 

 

 

from a transpersonal perspective, as individuals mature, the sense of self expands. the term transpersonal, or literally "beyond the mask," refers to self-transcendence and an evolution of the self-concept from a sense of identity which is exclusively individual to one that is deeper, broader, and a more unified whole.

at each stage of transformation, our self-concept proceeds through a process of differentiation, transcendence, and integration. once mental, emotional, and physical representations of the self-concept have been differentiated, the self transcends or dis-identifies from them. "masks" or iterations that are transcended are not lost or discarded, but subsumed in a more complex and inclusive organizational structure. ultimately, self-transcendence calls for the integration of both personal and transpersonal definitions of one’s self.

the individual who pursues this dimension of identity never arrives at a destination, because who one thinks one is turns out to be only an illusion of a separate self that ultimately dissolves into the larger whole.

the term 'nym' refers to the pseudo-identity that arises from anonymous digital activity, for use as a proxy for the individual. the relationship between a nym and the underlying entity may be 1:1, or an entity may have many nyms. additionally, multiple entities can share a singular nym. under such arrangements, a person sustains separate relationships with various organizations, using separate identifiers, and generating separate data trails. these digital trails can be designed to be very difficult to link; or they can provide a mechanism whereby the veil of pseudonymity may be lifted, subject to appropriate conditions being fulfilled.

in the contemporary contexts of data-intensive relationships and internet-mediated communications, pseudonymity and multiple nyms have become important facets of human identification and information privacy.

finally updated
http://thingspowerthemselves.com

Iris Van Herpen, 'Capriole' Collection F/W 2011
inspirational laser cutting

 

the point of the game can be generalized: to play.
the game is playing us and not the other way around
our concern is with limiting and also liberating the initial conditions of play

all significant truths are private truths; as they become public they cease to be truths and become facts. treating facts with imagination is one thing, but imagining the facts altogether is quite another. it is interesting how some can claim to be knowledgeable about situations that don’t concern them, without any more than their own opinions and imagination to construct a deluded perception with. the greatest ignorance is the assumption that one's own opinions are infallibly correct

Observation is itself a projection, dominating the perceptual plane while remaining limited by the measurement capabilities of it's instruments, a barely navigable psychosis of contemporary culture.

Seeing is itself seeing itself - releasing the deep ambiguities inherent to all open experimental systems -
the observer becoming the observed.

Language leads knowledge to a state of paradoxical ambivalence in which the locus of interpretation connects all distributed semiotic fields to such degree that no system of oppositions retains its capacity to accurately describe the conditions of the living.

Create your own sense of vision - editor-surgeon prying deep into the folds of the real.
The viscera, spilled out as in dissection and cut away from its context, reanimates itself.

fantasy_edit   HDR toning visual comparison. click image for larger view

new space, in progress. white walls

Synthetic Twin collaboration, 2011.
reprise of 2008 thesis project, Self and Other.

photography: Scout Pare-Phillips
creative concept/ direction: Rita Minissi

retouching: Scout Pare-Phillips
mesh-edits, fantasy-edits: Rita Minissi
models: Scout Pare-Phillips and Rita Minissi

Commercial Web 2.0 platforms are attractive because they allow us to explore and build knowledge and social relations in an intimate, personalized way. In this dynamic, the commercialization of users and information is one of the central factors through which this enrichment takes place. As a consequence, alienation disappears, and within the Web 2.0 world there is no separation between the marketing of user information and the subjective enrichment of users: what used to be two separate processes are now one in the augmentation of social and cultural factors.

This double movement allows alienation to seems like its opposite. The process of restricting our identity to its articulation on social networks appears to us as an opening up of possibilities, thanks to automated recommendations, archiving, and the facilitation of immediate feedback on our broadcasted gestures. The commercialization seems like authentication, proving at the institutional level that our selves have social value. It also seems like an escape from old-economy impersonal market relations, because all transactions are deeply personalized and specific, and thus seem identity-validating. This gives the impression of a community, in relation to a now-outdated sense of what consumerism was once supposed to imply — mass conformity. Consumerism is now the inverse, hyper-personal identity oriented, with the “unique identity” as the ultimate product being sold and resold to the same individual subject.

The expansive range and variations of social network users demonstrates how processes of Web 2.0 worlds are both highly personalized and standardized. That is, the representation of ourselves takes place through a platform’s universal algorithmic logic. As users, we input personal information into the platform, and in turn, the platform represents us on the user-interface as the aggregation of bits and pieces of images, texts, sounds, videos, and links. The user-interface becomes a site where the exploration and extension of ourselves is continuously negotiated through a techno-cultural mediation.

there should be a clear separation between evidence and the interpretation of evidence, with the limitations of interpretation kept in mind. through the advancements in human sciences disciplines, there has been a growing awareness that almost anything can be constituted as 'data' and the problem lies not so much in gathering data, but in managing and interrogating it in original ways. generalizing broadens the implications of comparisons and propositions, whereas personalizing restricts their relevance to a self-target relationship. without taking a postmodern position that judgment depends solely on the position of the observer, it is nevertheless true that observers and audiences vary.

if forced to make deductions based on information that is incomplete and out of context, the perciever will draw very generalized, abstract, and sometimes inaccurate knowledge. drawing personalized formations from content that has been specifically generalized is obviously not an ideal system for impression formation. it is always important to distinguish between content that is general and that which is personalized, without immediately assuming what it is about or in relation to.

performance tuning

profiling
optimization
adaptive control

what-happens-to-a-society-that-cannot-distinguish-between-reality-and-illusion

2 horses, 2010. 28"x44" spliced scan for reproduction.
half-size and low-res for the internet. original NFS

falling horses, 2010. 28"x44" spliced scan for reproduction.
half-size and low-res for the internet. original NFS

new drawings available soon in limited editions of 10 reproductions per drawing

full-size high resolution scans
color-matched to original
archival quality media