Influenced Identity
Description:
Students will take a critical look at how identity is portrayed in society. Students will explore their own identities in order to figure out what influences society has had on how they view themselves and their own identities. Artwork from the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s will be shown in order to show students how artists of the time used art and self-portraits in order to question societies influence on the identities of women. Work from Laurie Simmons pertaining to gender roles and society and work from Barbara Kruger criticizing societal norms will be shown in class as examples of artists that question societies impact on identity. Students will choose one aspect of their identity that was influenced by their environment or their society and create their own ID card highlighting that aspect of their identity. Students can decide how to portray their chosen identity trait, either criticizing it or appreciating it. Students must utilize Photoshop skills and picture manipulation in order to complete the project. Students can create their ID cards by manipulating ID cards that already exist or by creating a new kind of ID card specifically for their chosen trait. The big idea of this lesson is society’s impact on personal identity. Through this lesson, students will learn how to think critically about social constructions and identity. They will also learn about the work of Barbara Kruger and Laurie Simmons and the artists involved in the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s. Students will use this knowledge and critical thinking in order to create a finished product that emphasizes an aspect of identity that is influenced by society. Students will learn how to use Photoshop in order to manipulate digital images, text, and photos. Students will learn more about their own identities by taking a closer look at what factors influence them.
Potential Activities:
-Students will contribute to a class discussion about what makes up someone’s identity. They will begin by thinking about their own identities and writing down a list of words that represent aspects of their identities. Students will then be asked to separate their list into two different sections, one being aspects of identity that they were given inherently, and the other being aspects of identity that were developed later in life. Students will then be asked if they think the society they live in influences any of the aspects of identity they have written on their list. Class discussion continues on this topic.
-Students will look through magazines, television commercials, social media, etc. in order to find examples of things that influence how they see themselves. Students will be asked to share three examples of ads or media that they think have shaped or could shape identity in some way.
-Students will choose one aspect of identity that they think is influenced by society and create an identity card for themselves criticizing or appreciating that aspect of identity. Students will use journals in order to plan out and brainstorm what their finished project will look. Students will use Photoshop in order to create their own personal ID cards and will use layers and other images/text in their finished product. Students will then write an artist statement explaining the aspect of identity they chose to represent and the choices they made throughout the process in order to portray their idea clearly.
-Students will display a printed copy of their ID cards and their artist statements in the classroom. There will be a classroom critique about how effective each student was at getting their idea across using Photoshop and their chosen aspect of identity. Students will complete a self-evaluation sheet after the classroom critique saying how they thought they did on their project and what they feel they could improve on for the next assignment.
My ID(entity) Card
The ID card that I created is meant to address the issue of our identities being transformed into numbers. I used my University of Kansas ID card as an example of how many institutions in our society deduce our identities down to a series of numbers. We are constantly being given numbers to remember in every aspect of our lives in which we are then supposed to “identify” with. When I go anywhere on campus, such as the health center or the library, the first question I am asked is what is your student ID number. This is a perfect example of how institutions take away our personal identities and replace it with an identity they have made for us in numerical form. I decided to leave all of the numbers that were originally on my KU ID in the finished ID card that I made, but I began to erase my name and the title “STUDENT” in order to show the slow removal of our true identities, giving way to more numbers. I used the eyedropper tool in order to get the correct color of the background of the ID and then I used the paintbrush tool, on a little over half transparency, in order to give the look of erasing my name and title. I completely erased the icon of a Jayhawk in the lower right corner of my ID and replaced it with an image of a fingerprint found from the Internet. I opened the picture of the fingerprint in a separate document in Photoshop first and used the quick selection tool in order to select just the parts I wanted to include in my ID card, cropping out the background of the image. I then copied and pasted the fingerprint image into a new layer on my ID card and resized it to the correct size using the free transform tool and the shift key. I then used the same method mentioned above with erasing my name, in order to erase a part of the fingerprint, further showing a removal of identity. I decided to use a different portrait for my picture on the ID than the one that is actually on my KU ID, because the one that I decided to use shows my face looking more emotionless and without much hint of personality. I used the rectangular marquee tool in order to select my picture on my original KU ID and used the delete key in order to get rid of the original picture. I then copied and pasted the picture I decided to use into the image and used the free transform tool and the shift key in order to resize the portrait to the correct dimensions. I then cut out the background of my new portrait, in order to show an even more sterile background of just white, further diminishing personal identity. I cut out the background of the portrait using the quick selection tool and then using the eraser tool. After I got the background completely removed I went over the edges with the blur tool in order to smooth out some of the pixels. I decided to also crop out my eyes because I believe that eyes show a great deal of a person’s soul and personality, and removing them allows for very little to be known about an individual. I removed the eyes using the same process as I did to remove the background. I then put a white rectangle behind the ID card in order to make the background of my new ID picture and my eyes stark white. I did that using the rounded rectangle tool and then using the “Fill” option in the pop-up menu to make the color white. I decided to make my portrait black and white for two reasons, one being the obvious lack of color adds to the idea of lacking personal traits and identity, and two because it contrasted with the colors of the KU ID card, blue and red. I left the blue and red and the “KU” in large letters on the ID because I wanted to make it clear that the university wanted you to take over the identity they made for you, giving you their colors and name and taking away yours, metaphorically speaking and literally speaking when it comes to my ID card. Lastly, I added a relatively transparent layer of random numbers over the entire ID in order to really stress the idea of your identity being comprised of numbers. By putting numbers over the entire ID, including my face, it shows that the numbers are the important thing and the portrait is an afterthought.