A brief history of my own net identity

Ok, I started using the Internet in 96-97. At first it was just emails, chats and forums. No online communities as we know them today.

At fist I started using my high school nickname Moćko. It was given to me by a friend of mine who was referring to my, let's just say not very masculine body type. It was a kind of a meat pate too. During my college days it turned into an English version, Mighty. Being an artist I also wanted a cool art moniker, with a little touch of irony.

In gay circles I used Ambrrose, which is a hybrid between Marcel Duchamp's female alter ego, Rrose Selavy and a character from my favorite computer game Undying, Ambrose. It was a perfect hybrid: arty, pop, dandy (Oscar Wildish) macho but feminine... The game is made by Clive Barker, a famous horror writer known to be openly gay.


Rrose Selavy ............................Ambrose

As for the avatar I used an old photo of mine that my friend has taken in 1996. It is a take on M Duchamp's Rrose Selavy.

Ambrrose

Gay culture is known for the usage of nicknames. At fist it was to conceal your own identity, but it just got stuck as a habit. So, I was playing with this elusive gender identity for a while.
I even made and artwork about it "Danse Macabre" where I used totally constructed female identity to take part in Videomedeja (female video) exhibition in Novi Sad, just to prove a pont that a man can make a female video.
http://www.the-mighty.com/webart/fishnetart.htm

In my professional representation I used Mighty or The-Mighty (I still own and use www.the-mighty.com).

In 2005 I rejected all my virtual identities and introduced my self as me. Aleksandar Maćašev.
Although I use very polished-cool photos that a student of mine taken of me. Pale, overexposed... kinda pop/goth... it's actually a try to look young and without wrinkles. At the age of 34 you start to think about things like that.


photo: Tijana Bulatović


a drawn variation

Recently I started to play with my own name. Like a Russian version (my family came from Russia few centuries ago).
Александр Раикович Матяшев
Or in the United States where people have trouble pronouncing my family name Maćašev. It is always written Macasev, and people think that I'm Scotish.
Alexander MacAsev