Blog Response #23

In what ways do you “construct” your identity? In what ways do you “perform” in your daily life?
I think everyday we are performers in some sense. Each of us have a "professional" identity, a "school" identity and a "personal" identity. Each of these roles comes with different slices of who we are and we must construct them to become one person. As we go through our day, we use different constructs of this framework as we interact with the people and things around us.

Describe some ways in which your personal culture and social environments are “constructed”.
My personal culture is constructed with many different people and interests. For me, some of my culture is made up of things that I do on my own. An example of this is photography - this activity forces me to approach the world and consider things in new ways. This same mentality flows over to my professional life - How can I can what some consider a hobby, such as photography and apply that same type of thinking to my work life. When it comes to social constructs, I find that I am really good spending a lot of time on my own... I have a few great friends and people I trust and then many people who I enjoy, but wouldn't necessarily depend on. To take a different perspective, this social environment is one that is such a mixture of people and places - it is almost a canvass.

Describe some ways in which your physical environment/space is “constructed”.
At its most basic level, I live within the confines of an apartment... I have to have everything in its place! I organize and reorganize to make sure I know where everything is. But from a different perspective, I float between spaces really... There is school... and then there is home... Each of these environments bring my mind to different places. When I think school, I think fast paced, hard surfaces... it has a 'sharpness' to it. When I think home, I consider the softer side of my life... where Im comfortable and at ease.

In your daily life, what would you consider to be “real” and what would you consider to be “constructed/fabricated”?
As a cynic, I think almost everything in life has some construct... at least in our modern world. As we approach life, we are surrounded by things that are always telling us where to go, or what to do. However, we have great opportunities to forego the pression that is implied by these things...I find that it is really important to go camping and leave the "constructs" that we have in our life. It always give me a chance to realize that there is so much more meaning to the world out there than some of the insignificant things we place so much value on.

Describe a narrative tableaux that you might create to be captured by a photograph. A narrative tableaux can be defined as “Several human actors play out scenes from everyday life, history, myth or the fantasy of the direction artist” ( Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler , 34).
I see several small characters in my tableaux... They are miniature.. and they travel about using small scooters. Their world is one that we all take for granted, but they see it from a much different perspective... They are looking at the world as if it were huge! A living room for them is like the globe for a human. Regardless, there are hundreds of them and the scene they live in is under the kitchen sink. Each of them has a "home"... many times it is in a small crack or underneath a pipe. The society they embrace has humans as an annoying but survivable enemy. They realize that humans dont want to hurt them, they just dont know better. At one point, there was a huge massacre caused by a human... When a pipe burst underneath the sink, water began flowing into every home they ever made. Many where able to survive because of their ability to grab on to the sides of cabinets... But many other drown.

Describe an idea for a photograph that includes a miniature stage or still life. A description of such an image is “The tableaux reconstructs events as in the narrative tableaux, but in miniaturized format, using dolls and other toy objects” (Kohler, 34).
I think a great set of photographs takes a small small character, alone, and puts him in many different strange locations... One might be in the bathroom, another might be on a dumpster, etc. Each of the locations creates a unique and strange relationship between the seemingly unfitting character in the scene.