MIRROR IMAGE
ONES ALTER EGO OR HIGHER SELF
SELF PERCEPTION
‘The notion that man possesses, in addition to a physical self, a symbolic self is widespread, perhaps universal. A mirror corroborates this. It does more: it reveals the symbolic self outside the physical self. The symbolic self is suddenly explicit, public, and vulnerable. Mans initial response to this is probably always traumatic.’
(Ewing, W. A. and Herschdorfer, N. 2006. P. 18)
Ewing, W. A. and Herschdorfer, N. (2006) Face: the new photographic portrait. United Kingdom: London : Thames & Hudson, c2006. P.118.
Looking at herself every day in the mirror of photography, Andree Chaluleau dispassionately takes stock of her myriad personas, each of which is as real and valid as the next. She explains: ‘I am myself and another, myself and my sister, myself ten years ago, myself in twenty ears, myself tired, myself depressed: day after day, emotions and anxieties model my face…’ This singular multitude allows her to become a composite being, and on the other, to stand outside herself, like a stranger wondering, ‘Just who, really, is this/that woman?’
Ewing, W. A. and Herschdorfer, N. (2006) Face: the new photographic portrait. United Kingdom: London : Thames & Hudson, c2006. P.p. 46 & 47.
...A real body, a girl or woman, holding a mirror to her face for protection. We cling to the old adage that the face mirrors the soul. Give us your face, and she resists.
First impressions: a broken doll, a gaping void in its back, tossed into the street… Then: a mirror, a face like blank slate, reflecting nothing…
Ewing, W. A. and Herschdorfer, N. (2006) Face: the new photographic portrait. United Kingdom: London : Thames & Hudson, c2006. P. 118.
Notes from book:
The daguerreotype was therefore a mirror in a double sense: literally, a polished silver- coated metal plate (‘it is nature herself which reproduces herself as a reflection’), and figuratively, a ‘mirror with a memory’, a mirror of nature, a permanent mirror, even a magic mirror. Photography therefore represented a double novelty: a chance for many people to see what they actually looked like, coupled with the opportunity of recording their appearance for posterity.
Ewing, W. A. and Herschdorfer, N. (2006) Face: the new photographic portrait. United Kingdom: London : Thames & Hudson, c2006.
REAL BEAUTY CAMPAIGN
People were asked to look in a mirror and describe what they saw. There were strangers on the other side of the mirror, giving their first impressions.
Asked questions about themselves, spoke about their imperfections and what they would change about themselves.
-Self conscious of his bodyshape and round face, cheekbones… Strangers thought he had nice cheekbones and looked happy.
-Strangers thought the opposite of what the subject did of himself or herself. The footage was played to the subjects so they could see what the strangers thought of themselves. The idea is not to trust the mirror, you are better than who you think you are, be kind to yourself.
BuzzFeedVideo. (2014). What do strangers think of you?. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg-O7f_1Ngc. [Accessed 3 April 2015]
One Beautiful Thought:
Two actresses were hired to act out what other women thought of themselves in public, in front of the women (their thoughts were turned into dialogue).
The women were able to hear out loud what they thought of themselves and they reacted in a natural, shocked sense. They came to realise that they bully themselves with negative thoughts and the reality is a lack of self esteem which effects every day life.
One woman explains that she still has two baby teeth and when she smiles she looks like a mouse, in reality, she is a beautiful woman.
Dove, France. (2015) Dove, OneBeautifulThought 2'20. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tM2Z0-zFcw. [Accessed 3 April 2015]
THE TEN FACES OF MICHAEL JACKSON
The Ten Faces of Michael Jackson. Episode 4. (2015). Channel 5. 11 February. [Television]
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He wanted to sculpt himself so that his image could be perfect. He denied having multiple plastic surgerys, can you honestly say that you haven’t had multiple operations, he answered “Two”. Leading cosmetic surgeons
He said ‘Can you go in and take all of the mirrors down’
The Jackson five had been performing since Michael Jackson was five. During his teens he grew to greatly dislike his looks, he started a lifelong addiction to changing his looks.
At the age of seventeen he developed cystic acne, a common teenage affliction. A cyst underneath the skin which you cannot break, it has to be treat by a dermatologist. His entire personality changed, he became withdrawn and shy. Along side this, he was becoming depressive and severely unhappy with his nose. His father used to call him big nose, along side his brothers.
He did not want to look like his father, he wanted to become independent and this started off his want for surgery. He asked his sister to get her nose done first and asked her to be the ‘guinnie pig’. Plastic surgeon explains: ‘it looks like he has had bone added and some cartilage removed, the nose bridge appears to be thinner’ during his first operation.
In 1982 his image was developing, with the transformation in thriller, this resembled what was happening on the inside. During the filming of a Pepsi commercial Michael Jacksons hair caught on fire. He had to have skin grafts taken fro his shoulders to close the hole at the back of his head- bringinig the hair back together. The agony of the skin graftation affected his hair and face for the rest of his life, he started off wearing extensions, then lace front wigs and there was a lot of tattooing done to the scalp both to the front and around the back. He then had another nose job, the bridge was shaped in a narrower fashion
He had a cleff chin implant and at first he downplayed the surgery. It is a difficult procedure and can look false, his skin tone had noticeably changed. He never fully revealed how many cosmetic procedures he’d had.
Touching performance on the bad tour 1988, as the 80’s come to a close he becomes more and more white. Vitiligo is a disease wich affects the melanin pigment in the skin, treatments to de-pigment the skin further. For years people commented on his skin and this distressed him, in an interview with Oprah Wimphrey he distressingly explains ‘I don’t like it when people say im unhappy with myself’ There was so much consoldation that he created a music video ‘black and white’
He would go through extreme lengths so thwat no one would see his nose, including himself. He would smash mirrors and ask to have them taken down. His changing image reflected his psycho analytical personality. If there is no blood supply then the tissue would inevitably die. Dr Stephen hopman was his long life surgeon, when Michael was questioned about surgery he was clearly agitated in his response. He denies his surgery and says ‘he has had two operations’
In reality he couldn’t hide his image, in his art he could hide his dismorphia but in reality he ccouldn’t. The person is not perceiving themselves in the mirror as we would, he never publicly displayed that he had body dismorphia (self perceived ugliness) but this was obvious in hiding his face in the public eye.
Im starting with the man in the mirror, im asking him to change his ways. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change. Lyrics exemplify his emotional distress and the person he seen in the mirror.
Statisticslearningcentre. (2014). Designingaquestionnaire-statisticshelp. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkX-t0Pgzzs. [Accessed 20 March 2015]
QUESTIONNAIRE AND FEEDBACK
michaeljacksonVEVO. (2009). michaeljackson- maninthemirror. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAi3VTSdTxU. [Accessed 1 April 2015]
I am not wanting to find out a generality but more so an insight into self-identity and perception of self, through others and myself. Feedback from tutors and different research into writing questionnaires has both informed my decision to remove it. However, the questioning of the individuals will remain similar as the answers I require from them in order to cast their features will vary.
JOHN CROOSE FEEDBACK
I want to find out from the people whose features I cast: What their favourite feature is, and why? I wrote a questionnaire, which I felt best suited this and would give me the answers I’d need to know.However, after researching further I have came to understand the purpose of the questionnaire and I do not feel it is necessary for my project. Instead, I will question the individuals whose features I am casting and ask them personal questions under discretion. I will also question myself about my appearance.
Questionnaires have to be well designed. However, if the questions are just being used to engage the individuals who you are using then that will be fine.
Using them as a way of engaging the people who will be in the film, it will help you identify. Questions were affirmative
How would you feel if your nose was three inches longer? Or if you had acne? Turn some of the questions around and you might get some more interesting responses. Ask the opposite question, sometimes you will get a more interesting answer.
Advise not to because it is very rarely representative… Google scholar Sociology body image questionnaire
Questioning the select individuals, rather than questionnaire. Published information from another source.
“Tell me what you don’t like about yourself” is the surgeons catch phrase from Nip/Tuck, The US television satire. Sean McNamara, the programmes fictional surgeon, argues:
'To succeed these days you need self confidence and self-esteem. If you can change a face and change the way someone feels about themselves., that’s very satisfying. It’s a good thing that were moving towards a society in which the ways of improving life are available, be it health, life expectancy, or yes, ones looks' (Kemp, Bruce and Linney, 2004 p.80). Soon the cosmetic surgeon will be regarded as no more than a GP of the aesthetic side of well-being.
camus21. (2009). Nip/Tuck: What Don't You Like About Yourself? . [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjYl2WiImC4. [Accessed 8 April 2015]
RELATION TO DESIGN IDEAS:
The above sentence as said by Sean McNamara in ‘NipTuck’ has manipulated my thinking of a questionnaire, instead I will question the individual whose facial features I am casting and ask them what their preference is. Afterwards, I will ask them why, and how they would feel If that feature was distorted with some form of disfigurement or general change in structure.
The reason for this is to discover self; the final features taken from individuals with different ethnic backgrounds will be painted to match the natural skin colour of an Asian model ‘Marcella Chan’. In relation to the research carried out by Scott Chasserot on the ‘Ideals in modern culture page’ on my website; I will photograph the model with different facial features in place of her own and the result will be a series of images with slight changes in the shape and colour of her features. I will lay the photographs next to each other after the seemliness have been dissolved in Photoshop and ask her of her preference. I am hoping that the final looks will all be of the same model but unrecognisable, as her natural face will be masked beneath other faces.
THE HUMAN FACE. Episode 2. (2001). BBC. 10 March. [Television]
-Cherobism, rare genetic disorder from the age of four years old.
-How much information is our face actually giving out, and why does it look like it does anyways.
David Attenborough: We don't rely much on smell, it is less important. For humans the dominant sense became vision, we rely on what we see. Our face is natures name tag. It tells you the race of the person.
The clinical neuro-physiologist Jonathan Cole also argues that it is very difficult to know our own faces, even with the help of photography and, more recently, video. Because we usually see our own faces mirror reversed, they have a more complex and elusive image to us than to other people.
Nor can we be certain that our image of ourselves is the same as the one that our friends and loved ones have of us. (Kemp, Bruce, and Linney, 2004. P.63)
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THE UGLY FACE OF PREJUDICE: NOTES TAKEN
This new beauty fascism is not only breeding a generation of women who are dissatisfied with their looks, its feeding the prejudice faced by anyone who does not fit the conventional idea of beauty.
“People will literally stop and stare, literally, stop, and stare!” “He obviously thought I was wearing a mask and started tugging at my face.”
If you focus solely on your looks you are always going to be dissatisfied because your looks will continue to change.
Quest for perfection: Media imaging and pressures for how people should look. Procedures such as lip fillers accounted for 90% of the UK market worth 2.3 billion pounds.
Louisa Day, 21 from London. She is wrestling with deep insecurities; she regularly spends hundreds of pounds on fillers to smooth out the fine lines on her face and fillers in her lips, her dependency on make up will lead her to spend thousands on her looks.
Do you think that you are beautiful? “I would not consider myself as beautiful, I see beauty as being something physically natural, you don’t need to put make up on or wear hair extensions or anything like that.”
Are you happy with your regime, doing this, it seems like a phenomenal effort? “I don’t think its healthy, for someone to depend on something that bad, its an addition and really excessive I know it is.”
Dr Laxmi Kathuria, Psychiatrist: She has a lot of what we call cognitive distortions, she has negative assumptions about herself, she has negative feelings towards herself and these manifest in her behavior.
The people that are the most symmetrical are deemed more beautiful. When fashion advertising and entertainment exclude disfigurement, there are consequences. Neurofibromatosis is a genetic condition causing tissue to constantly grow on nerve endings.
With make up you are covering up your identity and not showing who you really are, to me, my identity is who I put on every morning.
Below: I took part in a COG prejudice survey on disfigurement. The survey questioned how often you had seen a perseon with a facial disfigurement and whether you would presume their personal happiness based on their condition. The questions were very direct and lead me to question my own thoughts towards the sensitive subject. I have learned, like most, am prejudice and uneducated towards disfgurement.
Above images: COGResearch. (2011). COGresearch. Available at: http://www.cogresearch.com/people.html (Accessed: 10 April 2015).
The survey was previously run among a national sample of UK adults to find the average score. The result of my test was that I am 7.804% slower to associate positive values with disfigured faces. The average for the UK in the recent tests is 27% slower to associate positive values.