This
work postulates a question over the route of individual identity
in the digital age.
Numerous faces and identification numbers merge in a fast
and infinitive succession, generating an anonymous image of
a unique human being.
By merging different portraits peculiar signs of identity
get eliminated, and at the same time the notion of human as
a conjunction of different individuals get reinforced.
The vortex from which this essential image is generated metaphorically
names the speed as the factor under which the identity in
the post-biologic era is subjected and defined.
ID:00000000 / Our People
Jurij V. Krpan
BOUND/LESS BORDERS, catalogue of the exhibition
Goethe Institute Inter Nationes Belgrade, Belgrade 2002
Janez Janša resides in the depth of the physical and
the surface of a digital representation of the body.
In his recent work he themes the video-body in the same way
as we treat the data one. If our data body in data spaces
is submitted to identical complications as our body in physical
space, and we need to make our data body conscious with the
same attention as the physical one, Janša points at the
representation in video space, which is a privileged space
of electronic and printed media. In
the work ID:00000000 (ID stands for identity
number), Janez covers the picture of the face with other
pictures of faces, which are photographed identically so
that the centre of each face stands on the same place. Janez
produced twenty-five composite faces out of thirty-nine
images, and they exchange each second. The video produces
the impression that we see one face, which is blurred, and
we are not sure whether we see the video spot or a blurry
photograph. The digital counter id displayed on the monitor,
however, we can't read numbers, since they change all the
time and seem like a number eight, a kind of an abstract
number.
The question of identity emerges through the image of the
face, which consists of the series of photographs. It is
the domain of ideological fights in a consumer society that
tends to create the appearance of how perfect it is. Such
flattening of individuality and personalisation happens
on various levels. The creation of aesthetic norms in the
field of imaginary presents manipulation with attributes
of beauty, happiness, success, novelty ... Which all promise
and command that our everyday actions must be evaluated
in relation to these ideals. Consumers' mechanisms suggest
how to reach these ideals.
Janša's image can be observed from two perspectives.
The first is the image of a static average, where individuals
are reduced to a mere number or target group, they are depersonalised
and comprehended as a group, or sum. The second perspective
of the same image is the procedures of idealisation, where
all facial distinguishing features are blurry, and the face
is reduced to facial elements without any distinguishing
features (a nose, eyes, a mouth). Such image matches modern
ideals of beauty which depersonalised facial lines to mere
clichéd features. Depersonalised faces gaze from
the billboards, not tending to attract attention due to
distinguishing feature. The message mustn't be disturbed.
Such a face represents the avatar of a message.
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