Saturday, October 4, 2008

ID/Entity presentation in Belgrade





The presentation was a part of the "B-link" festival of new communications in Belgrade (www.b-link.org). Neither of us was physically present. Danica's part was pre-recorded and I did mine through a video-link.

Comment and discuss on B-link blog www.virtualme.b-link.org/?p=81

interesting links: further reading

Growing a Commons Worthy of Trust

The Diachronic Self: Identity, Continuity, Transformation

Jon Udell: The semantic web, digital identity, and Internet governance

Towards the Identity Society


Digital Identities – Patterns in Information Flows

Identity, Reference, and Meaning on the Web

The Augmented Social Network

Exploring identity on social network: Flickr

Flickr is the biggest Web 2.0 social service that enables you to share photography and interact with others. One of the interesting groups on Flickr is 365 days project where one explore self in everyday context (365 days) during a year by publishing a photo (of self) per day. This is great way not only to share and interact the aspects of yourself with others, but also denotes intimate dialogues with (your)self. Outcome is fun, amazing pro photographers you meet, ride per se, and maybe a book.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Identity artwork

Here are some examples of my artwork where I dealt with the issues of identity:


Human after all (v. 2.00), 2007
"Human After All", an ambience set-up from 2005, was recreated in the form of a printed screen for the Telenor foundation's art collection.

http://aleksandarmacasev.blogspot.com/2007/12/human-after-all-v-200.html
http://aleksandarmacasev.blogspot.com/2008/05/telenor-collection-exhibition.html

Human after all, 2005
An ambient consisting of wallpaper with human outline patterns and social-realism style furniture. Visitors are invited to draw the features onto the human outlines on the wallpaper. In filling in the blank outlines, people project their own vision of idols, politicians, stars or just themselves. They create a complex society map and childish fun turns out to be serious business. Be careful what you wish for and whom you choose as an idol. Sloba (Slobodan Milošević) didn't fall from Mars. He was created by the Serbian people.
Postcards with the same pattern are offered so you can distribute your idol around.
http://www.the-mighty.com/art/human-after-all/aleksandar-macasev-human.html


Personal Cards, 2004-2008

Series of personal cards designed for friends. Just a few features added to a generic ginger-bread man figure.
http://aleksandarmacasev.blogspot.com/2008/09/personal-cards-update.html


Danse Macabre, 2002

This work was presented at the VIDEOMEDEJA video festival in Novi Sad , Yugoslavia under the female alias Aleksandra Zivanovic (later Aleksandra Macasev). VIDEOMEDEJA is basicaly female oriented festival that promotes "female art discourse". The author constructs new (female) identity and simulates the "female art discourse" without anyone knowing about the hoax. Organizers accepted the entry and it was exhibited in CD category. Gender identity as a complete social construct that can be manipulated at will.
http://www.the-mighty.com/webart/fishnetart.htm

Fe/Male, 2001
This work deals with the relativity of gender. My portrait transforms in two minutes in my female portrait and vice versa. It repeats ad infinitum. It uses some elements of web iconography (real time clock, loading bar,e tc.). It' s a study of a human face and tiny differences in gender distinction. It was shown as an ambiental work in Belgrade gallery of the Student Cultural Center in December 2001.
http://www.kontrola.co.yu/portrait/portret1.swf

Folie A Deux, 2001
Folie à Deux is a web art work that simulates a test of cognitive reality! It is a simulated test of perception. The authors of this work (A.M. and Andrej Dolinka) are the test subjects that react to basic categories of reality. The reaction is in for of an art expression. The whole work points out the complete disparate perception of reality as well as the noise in Internet communication .
http://www.kontrola.co.yu/follie/1.htm

AM Wikipedia case

Before my lecture in Seattle in 2006, a friend of mine decided that it would be cool for PR purposes to make a Wikipedia page about me.
It was pretty short article and was marked as a stub, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aleksandar_Ma%C4%87a%C5%A1ev&diff=153082625&oldid=110765556

Two months ago, I realized that it would be nice to lose that "stub" tag and to expand the article to a proper length. I gave my material to a writer that I know and he has written a new article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aleksandar_Ma%C4%87a%C5%A1ev&diff=236527517&oldid=236511758

Here are the changes made by "Wikipedia editors"
- "LGBT visual artist" tag is immediately removed. I provided a plenty of citations and proofs and they removed it again.
- "Atheist" category remained. Although they changed it to "Serbian atheists" where I found myself in the company of only two more persons. Slobodan Milošević, infamous president of Yugoslavia during nineties, and Stevo Žigon, an actor known for his loyalty to SPS (Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia)
- After a while I've found myself in another category: Former Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was added by a guy with a nick "Vojvodaen".

Here's his user page:

Hello!

I am vojvoda from Serb wikipedia and I'll write articles about Serbian history. Visit my site [1]

I am interested in history, Christianity and arts. I believe that conflict betwenn science and Christian faith doesn't exist.

About Wikipedia I think that it is not only source of informations but also guide threw literature.

Here's the final version of the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandar_Macasev

Conclusion:
- it's easier to mark yourself "atheist" than "gay". I suppose you need to work your ass off to prove that you are gay (as I am). But being an atheist is easy because apparently it is still an ideological slur. Equal to communist. That's kinda American point of view, as I see it.
- On the other hand, Vojvodaen who's a Serb, quickly lumped me into a
Former Eastern Orthodox Christians category. Because if you state that you are an atheist you must be a traitor of the Christian faith, I suppose. Even if I am actually and officially still a member of the Orthodox Christian Church (I was christened as a kid).

All in all, loads of ideological bulshit. That, need I say, has got nothing with truth.

ID in the networked social media

Virtual ID in this context implies social identity that Web users create and manage on web sites and online communities. Majority of Internet users prefer to identify themselves via pseudonyms, which reveals certain information that identify the person.
Coyne emphasizes that whenever we interact in social sphere it denotes the mask of self - identity. There is no difference in online world if we have in mind that she/he has to respond to certain questions in their profile (age, gender, address, user name, etc.), which makes "identity" in social networks.
As person publishes and (re)presents to the networked publics, she or he are making and adding layers to their masks (in writing style, vocabulary and topics). After all, does mask really hide the identity? When one chooses certain kind of mask, it shows and reveals something about the subject that's behind the mask. Online mask does not reveal the real identity of the person. Even if person decides to hide her/himself behind totally fake identity, this shows fears and the lack of self-esteem. By creating and setting up the identity mask people create safety net/work, facade.

Identity plays very important role in virtual communities. Virtual communities give people freedom in representing themselves, and this results in new possibilities for the society, especially the person's ability to explore new roles in the way that's safer, more interesting, sometimes useful. Virtual identity enabled possibility to feel more comfortable in wide range of roles, which some of them can be underlying life aspects of that person who is not being able to present it in real life (Goffman).
Social online networks (as My Space or Facebook) facilitate to maintain online identity within overlapping dual contexts: online and real world. In these social networks identities are presented as profiles (of the users). Those are often formed identities aiming to reflect certain aspect or the best possible version of -self -I (handsome, over-paid, great income, gym is "the must", high-education, etc.) Representations include beside profile, photos, communication forms with other 'friends', and network members. Goal is to be 'cool", and to receive everyday feedback's through validations of the colleagues, allies, 'friends', fans. In general, people are projecting their identity by demonstrating their relations with others.

This is very short overview as research in the field of social media give us precious insight in human behaviour, society structures and processes of cultural dynamics. This phenomena brought significant changes, not only for people in IT area, but for people in education, business, everyday users. It is necessary to understand what is happening in this context since Web 2.0 reconstructs many key elements in society, create the awareness of information ecology and provide insight for the future innovations.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Virtual Identity


`I am my body to the extent that I am,' - J.P.Sartre, Being and Nothingness

Comparing to physical, virtual world is different, made of information, bits and bytes. Although in everyday life virtual denotes quasi, pseudo or fake, in different contexts this term we perceive in different ways.

For example, in philosophical context, virtual is 'unreal' entity, though can imply the qualities of real. Many sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers use term virtual for the facet of reality that is not material, but despite everything is real (Deluze).

One of many aspects points out on virtual as surface, facade, mask, created by realistically caused interactions happening on material level. When you are using computer, the image projected on the screen depends on physical interactions happening on hardware level. Here, virtual is possibility that stays fulfilled in concrete, actual. It's not yet material, but it is real. Michel Foucault advocated the idea that identity isn't stable component of the humanity, but something that is constantly changing.

On ontology level, actual, potential, virtual - denotes something that isn't [ physical ] realistic but owns all qualities of real.

Prototype primer is (self) reflection in the mirror.