All the World's a stage, and all the men and women merely players"
William Shakespeare- As you like It - II 7
Many artists have chosen to stage themselves in their works, in an artistic approach that goes beyond simple narcissistic enhancement. Some wonder who they are, seek meaning in their existence, in a sometimes cathartic approach. Literary or pictorial self-portraits punctuate artistic production and question the very notion of the subject and its identity. Some artists or writers skilfully orchestrate their appearance by becoming fahion icons . Others create
alter-egos and avatars
In most case, the staging of oneself is not only an expression of the self but also a means to control the posterity of one's own name through the staging of a figure especially with political leaders' autobiographies . What's more, self-portraits enable artists to show the role they played in an era . For others, it is also a question of reflecting on, or commenting on their own person, or their relationship to their art, sometimes choosing fiction as a more sure or more modest in the staging of oneself or of self-revelation. On the other hand, designing a work around its own existence can be a way of being the bearer of a collective identity. Autobiography, journals, but also architecture, sculpture, painting, photography or music can serve to stage a collective self, whether it is intentional or not. Conversely, some artists take the stage to question commonly accepted representations.
Therefore, we can ask ourselves why artists and writers feel this need to stage themselves and question the messages conveyed by the different ways self-representation is achieved.
alter-egos and avatars
In most case, the staging of oneself is not only an expression of the self but also a means to control the posterity of one's own name through the staging of a figure especially with political leaders' autobiographies . What's more, self-portraits enable artists to show the role they played in an era . For others, it is also a question of reflecting on, or commenting on their own person, or their relationship to their art, sometimes choosing fiction as a more sure or more modest in the staging of oneself or of self-revelation. On the other hand, designing a work around its own existence can be a way of being the bearer of a collective identity. Autobiography, journals, but also architecture, sculpture, painting, photography or music can serve to stage a collective self, whether it is intentional or not. Conversely, some artists take the stage to question commonly accepted representations.
Therefore, we can ask ourselves why artists and writers feel this need to stage themselves and question the messages conveyed by the different ways self-representation is achieved.
Me, Myself and I
In the following documents, how do Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Vivian Maier lay emphasis on the theme of self-identity and to which purpose (s) ?
|
|
|
Many artists have chosen to represent themselves. First read the article published on the warhol website to find out why we are attracted to self-portraits and how and why the artist portrayed himself.
Then, in pairs chose one of the self-portraits underneath? Do some researches about the artist's life and career and get ready to make a short presentation to the class highlighting the artist's technique and intentions.
Then, in pairs chose one of the self-portraits underneath? Do some researches about the artist's life and career and get ready to make a short presentation to the class highlighting the artist's technique and intentions.
andy_warhol.docx | |
File Size: | 15 kb |
File Type: | docx |
The art of inventing or reinventing oneself
Listen to dancer and Choreographer Martha Graham talking about performing .
drive.google.com/file/d/1D1DhPwMLiSLtA3-gpGA4MC_TNoxeFa2O/view?usp=sharing
How does she define the relationship between the artists and their characters?
What is required of an artist before and during a performance ?
Then listen to ( and watch the photos) Mick Rock talking about his role as a photographer and his relationship with his models. To what extent did he help rock stars create a new identity or avatars.
drive.google.com/file/d/1cXpm1mxnuD4XT8LmTeeJw_v99IRjty-U/view?usp=sharing
David Jones- who became known as David Bowie at the end of the 60s- built his whole career as a chameleonic performer constantly reinventing himself through on-stage personas.
- Watch the Vittel commercial .drive.google.com/file/d/17_FRdV7bY9RYdOaB59JfPNw2n4c8N9AN/view?usp=sharing
- Sum up its contents and list all the avatars present. What does the commercial suggest ? Why ? How?
- Then listen to Bowie's interview and explain the reasons for this artistic choice. drive.google.com/file/d/1jlX4T3loW9qMoWPm7rKtZqEOv3eI2DYL/view?usp=sharing
- Finally watch one of his live performance or video clip to understand why he so widely influenced the arts over his five-decade career. Be ready to report to the class.
Extra materials : https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/david-bowie-images-of-an-icon + https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/david-bowie
Ziggy Stardust :drive.google.com/file/d/10Cns5OkYaKivG-ZMIIbsZ-M87Tskq-nN/view?usp=sharing
The Man who sold the World :drive.google.com/file/d/1yoGyiOTCwdST1NClZF186gCrsdtOGbrc/view?usp=sharing
Rock'n'Roll suicide : drive.google.com/file/d/1CqkjbE4nUfL7fJCuF5RDa65o1AQ5NhnP/view?usp=sharing
Time : drive.google.com/file/d/1sgQR5ReWghgD6n_sQlL-dxTxXM0cfEKN/view?usp=sharing
Life on Mars ? : drive.google.com/file/d/1e6LZFbylaMn6b0016KZZZHfP4G8rGMaS/view?usp=sharing
Rebel, Rebel : drive.google.com/file/d/1aDZz-ZEzAAm20452V6zjnYBeaxjEkpzu/view?usp=sharing
Changes : drive.google.com/file/d/1PJ1dJs0FIh0w0yBOg7vn4A0lomIdny0s/view?usp=sharing
Ashes to Ashes : drive.google.com/file/d/1jRmVzJHitQesM1c5QUku8Hx7tN22MnYb/view?usp=sharing
Never get old : drive.google.com/file/d/1VTzV71h1Kn3b-lWaurLb-KSUjj99KxLI/view?usp=sharing
The Man who sold the World :drive.google.com/file/d/1yoGyiOTCwdST1NClZF186gCrsdtOGbrc/view?usp=sharing
Rock'n'Roll suicide : drive.google.com/file/d/1CqkjbE4nUfL7fJCuF5RDa65o1AQ5NhnP/view?usp=sharing
Time : drive.google.com/file/d/1sgQR5ReWghgD6n_sQlL-dxTxXM0cfEKN/view?usp=sharing
Life on Mars ? : drive.google.com/file/d/1e6LZFbylaMn6b0016KZZZHfP4G8rGMaS/view?usp=sharing
Rebel, Rebel : drive.google.com/file/d/1aDZz-ZEzAAm20452V6zjnYBeaxjEkpzu/view?usp=sharing
Changes : drive.google.com/file/d/1PJ1dJs0FIh0w0yBOg7vn4A0lomIdny0s/view?usp=sharing
Ashes to Ashes : drive.google.com/file/d/1jRmVzJHitQesM1c5QUku8Hx7tN22MnYb/view?usp=sharing
Never get old : drive.google.com/file/d/1VTzV71h1Kn3b-lWaurLb-KSUjj99KxLI/view?usp=sharing
Task
Other artists have also engaged a reflexion on self-identity by focusing their work on themselves and posing in the guise of different characters.
Develop the identity of a character in one of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (artlead.net/content/journal/modern-classics-cindy-sherman-untitled-film-stills/). Alternatively, you can choose one of Chris Smith's self portraits (www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-elaborate-transformations-in-his-childhood-bedroom) :
What is the person’s name, occupation, and personal history? What happened just before the scene pictured and what happen just after? (200 words)
Develop the identity of a character in one of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (artlead.net/content/journal/modern-classics-cindy-sherman-untitled-film-stills/). Alternatively, you can choose one of Chris Smith's self portraits (www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-elaborate-transformations-in-his-childhood-bedroom) :
What is the person’s name, occupation, and personal history? What happened just before the scene pictured and what happen just after? (200 words)
Sometimes , the limit between a fictional character and a film director can be very thin , especially when the director himself embodies this
character, thus giving fiction an autobiographical dimension and creating an ambiguity as to the status of this I narrator . This is particularly true of Woody Allen's films where the dichotomy between fiction and reality is blurred as the narrator, author and character are presented as one entity.
character, thus giving fiction an autobiographical dimension and creating an ambiguity as to the status of this I narrator . This is particularly true of Woody Allen's films where the dichotomy between fiction and reality is blurred as the narrator, author and character are presented as one entity.
- Consider the 3 comic strips underneath : how is Woody Allen presented ? Which aspects of his personality are highlighted?
- Then watch the opening scene of Manhattan (1979).
- drive.google.com/file/d/1yLV6PKauvwDSfMyaSi9AQ_mFYatkg-g5/view?usp=sharing
- Sum up the extract and comment on the choices made by the director. Compare the similitudes between the comic-strip character and the voice over . How does the equation narrator/author/character influence the spectator's reception of the film, his/her involvement and projection in fiction ?
Strangely enough, Woody Allen doesn't appear in A Rainy Day in New York (2019). Yet, we can easily identify the film as a typical Woody Allen movie. Which elements contribute to create this feeling?
drive.google.com/file/d/1z9S9Z5Si0wLkvGLOy0Y7D38rZwEU8Qc2/view?usp=sharing
drive.google.com/file/d/1z9S9Z5Si0wLkvGLOy0Y7D38rZwEU8Qc2/view?usp=sharing
However, most of the documents studied so far also suggest a redefinition of the relationship between the writer, artist, performer, director and the audience or reader. Which techniques are used in The Art Critic or in the extract from The Purple Rose of Cairo ( 1985)?
Are the painting and movie so different from Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater ? Or from Bridget Jones's Diary ?
Are the painting and movie so different from Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater ? Or from Bridget Jones's Diary ?
The Art Critic
Describe the painting, focusing particularly on the characters' gazes. What makes the situation odd ? Say what the artist suggests about the link between the observer and the observed . The Purple Rose of Cairo. Sum up the situation and explain what makes it so original. How is the mise en abyme illustrated in the scene? What does it reveal about the relationship between spectators and characters? drive.google.com/file/d/1idFJzpZoZIvqdw4WLPURUJUi6EQ2rfHd/view?usp=sharing |
Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater was first published in 1821 in the London Magazine. It professes to tear away the ‘decent drapery’ of convention and present the reader with ‘the record of a remarkable period’ in the author’s life, beginning when he ran away from school at the age of 17 and spent several months as a vagrant. It is the sections that describe his opium addiction, however, that have become the most famous. De Quincey began to take the drug as a student at Oxford, to relieve a severe bout of toothache, and remained dependent on it for the rest of his life. He describes, in vivid detail, the visions and dreams he experiences, conjuring up a world of contrasts that was both a ‘paradise’ and a place of ‘incubus and nightmare’.
De Quincey wrote his Confessions while unknown and in debt, but the work caused such a sensation that his literary fame was secured, and his account of his addiction has become a central Romantic text. Source : https://www.bl.uk/ |
|
"All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies; I mean deliberate lies. No man is bad enough to tell the truth about himself during his lifetime, involving, as it must, the truth about his family and friends and colleagues. And no man is good enough to tell the truth in a document which he suppresses until there is nobody left alive to contradict him."
(George Bernard Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches, 1898)
Looking back and reinventing one's life
What is an autobiography? What is a memoir ? Why do writers decide to write about their past ? Do they always tell the trut as they often claim it ?
Study Chapter 2 from Doris Lessing's Under my Skin . Compare the contents ( and style) of the chapter to the postscript of Ripley Bogle. Then turn to the extract from Thomas Wolve's Look Homeward, Angel. What does heavily insist on ? Why does he address the reader? Explain why the incipit of the novel is really unusual ( genre/ layout/ style/ narrative voice...). Finally read the closing page of The Things they Carried and explain why writers decide to look back and write autobiographies or memoirs.
Study Chapter 2 from Doris Lessing's Under my Skin . Compare the contents ( and style) of the chapter to the postscript of Ripley Bogle. Then turn to the extract from Thomas Wolve's Look Homeward, Angel. What does heavily insist on ? Why does he address the reader? Explain why the incipit of the novel is really unusual ( genre/ layout/ style/ narrative voice...). Finally read the closing page of The Things they Carried and explain why writers decide to look back and write autobiographies or memoirs.
|
|
|
|
|
Task
Write an entry for a collection of essays on self-representations.
In groups study excerpts from memoirs , autobiographies and autobiographical novels. You can use the following guidelines to help you .
In groups study excerpts from memoirs , autobiographies and autobiographical novels. You can use the following guidelines to help you .
- Read a short biography of each author and select the most useful pieces of information to study your documents. Which recollections do they use?
- Explore the relationship between the writer and his/ her narrated self & its presentation.
- Consider the notion of truth in the excerpts.
- Determine the reader's position(s) and role(s)
- Define the purpose of the writers ( how do they present themselves) and study the devices used to create or recreate the past.
Education and construction
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Social dimension
|
|
|
|
Maya Angelou: drive.google.com/file/d/1myyd8CbY4JPp4f2GatA0Dvvt6NYuOgC0/view?usp=sharing
Digging :drive.google.com/file/d/1yXMR-jsaBAx1aFJ2g2noop3VY7ewJj8J/view?usp=sharing
Digging :drive.google.com/file/d/1yXMR-jsaBAx1aFJ2g2noop3VY7ewJj8J/view?usp=sharing
Legacy & posterity
|
|
|
Settling Scores
|
|
|
The historical perspective
|
|
|
Militancy
|
|
|
Final task
Using all the knowledge acquired in this chapter, write a 300-word article to explain why the video clip underneath is the perfect illustration of the art of self-reflection.
drive.google.com/file/d/157Zv70Bv8FbbLMofJ80dvWYqvADO00PI/view?usp=sharing
Support your assertions with precise examples from the video.
drive.google.com/file/d/157Zv70Bv8FbbLMofJ80dvWYqvADO00PI/view?usp=sharing
Support your assertions with precise examples from the video.
Extra materials
Definitions
Autobiography :
Memoirs :
Diary :
Fictional autobiography :
Autobiography :
- Self-written life story. For this reason an autobiography is not complete work because in it the narrative comes to its end before the death of its hero
- Tend to chronicle the writer’s entire life, or a vast majority of it.
- The autobiographer selects only those events which help him to establish the growth of his personality and drops other artistically less meaningful ones. Thus autobiography becomes a creative blending of facts and fiction, which needs to be analyzed and interpreted carefully to avoid misunderstanding of the main concern.
- While presenting a truthful account of his life, the autobiographer also presents a truthful account of his society
Memoirs :
- Generally written in the first person poin of view.
- Do not include the writer's entire lifespan.
- Tend to be written by politicians, military leaders & businessmen.Often deal with public matters rather than personal.
Diary :
- A record with entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or a period.
- May include a person's experiences, thoughts or feelings, including comments on current events outside the writer's direct experience.
- Generally written not withthe intention of being published as it stands, but for the author's own use.
Fictional autobiography :
- Novels about a fictional character, written as if the character were writting his/ her own autobiography .
Click to set custom HTML
507043426-sidonie-smith-and-julia-watson-chapter-9.pdf | |
File Size: | 89 kb |
File Type: |