University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Identity re-constructed

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Identity re-constructed

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type o f computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back o f the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IDENTITY RE-CONSTRUCTED by LouAnne Greenwald A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF FINE ARTS (Studio Art) August 1996 Copyright 1996 LouAnne Greenwald Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DM! Number: 1381588 UMI Microform 1381588 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOO L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA S0007 This thesis, •written by LouAnne Greenwald__________________________ under the direction of h$X. Thesis Committee, and approved by all its members, has been pre sented to and accepted by the Dean of The Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts________________________ Dtam Dafc-Augus!_Lt_l£21 THESIS COMMITTEE Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 figure 10 LouAnne Greeenwald, “Relic,” 1990 page 2 LouAnne Greenwald, “Encasement,” 1992 page 2 LouAnne Greenwald, “Reinforced Comer,” 1993 page 4 Hannah Wilke, “S.O.S.— Starrification Object Series,” 1974 page 6 (Joanna Frueh, Hannah Wilke, a retrospective. Columbia: University of Missouri Press 19851) Mary Kelly, “Interim,” 1989 (Mary Kelly, Interim. page 8 New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art 1990.) Jo Spence, “Industrialization” 1981-82 (Jo Spence, page 11 Putting Myself in the Picture. Seattle: 'the Real Comet Press 1988.) Chantal Akerman, “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du page 11 Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” 1975. (Ivone Margulies, Nothing Happens; Chantal Akerman’s Hyperrealist Everyday. Durham: Duke University Press 1996.) LouAnne Greenwald, “WF Seeking” 1996 page 21 LouAnne Greenwald, “WF Seeking” 1996 page 23 LouAnne Greenwald, “WF Seeking” 1996 page 23 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Self identity is a complex and constantly fluctuating phenomena. It is affected by both internal and external influences. To have a sense of oneself is to experience a moment of recognition, a confirmation of one's self perception. Yet identity is more than that One is constantly redefined according to his/her surroundings and according to the perceptions of others. While one may be aware of one’s self as a subject one is also always subjected to the perceptions of another. One is rendered the object of the other’s gaze. This dual identity, that of being both subject and object is inherent to the nature of being. In these pages I would like to explore the evolution of my understanding of self identity through the history of my artwork. Looking back at my work dating from the early 90's, I would summarize my investigation as being focused on my physical self: my body as a model of physical substance and structure for my sculpture. For example a work called “Relic” (figure 1) dated 1990 is a cast of my head, a bowl-like form that was exposed to different processes; filled with honey, set on fire, buried in the ground.1 I saw the work as a representation of myself focussing on the mind as a repository of experience. “Encasement” (figure 2) dated 1992 is a work that used the imprint of my body as an image of female sexuality. As my work began to involve images and forms that specifically referenced the female body, the work’s content called into question the conditions of the cultural and the gendered body. I was confronted with a discourse on the politics of representation. The question then became: What are the constructs of female vs. feminine identity? My investigation shifted to a focus on the conditions which coded the female body according to a feminine identity. I considered female identity to be rooted in the biological and evidenced in the body as sexual difference. Feminine identity seemed to me to be the result of gender specific conditioning that takes place in the process of socialization. The mass media and commodity culture 1 For complete artist’s statement, see “LouAnne Greenwald,” Artweek: Volume 24. Number 7, April 8, 1993 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 1 Figure 2 / / Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. provide persistent images and products that prescribe ideals for men and women and equate such ideals with gender. I became interested in the commodification of the feminine and the idea of asserting the presence of the feminine in the realm of the masculine in order to render ambiguous the cultural coding of sexuality. A body of work produced in 1993-94 employed the material of pantyhose, a commodity from the feminine beauty-products market, in a variety of minimalist and architectural forms. “Reinforced Comer” (figure 3) creates an architectural space for the viewer to step into while its materials remind its participant that he/she is penetrating the intimate space created by legs that have been splayed open.2 While these works were visually appealing and addressed topical issues concerning women and feminism, they did not specifically address my self identity. I wanted to investigate my identity not simply as a female, biologically and socially constructed, but also as an individual, a personal subject. This provoked a questioning of my concerns about the construction of women’s identity and feminist identity based on their origins in my own personal experience. Two years ago I began a series of investigations that posited notions of identity and its constructs as hypotheses to be proven or disproven through my practice. Such an investigation of women’s identity has its precedents in feminist art of the 1970’s. The feminist movement in the early 70’s was committed to exploring the problematics of women’s identity and defining a feminist identity. Women challenged traditional notions of femininity by displaying their desire for sexual and cultural equality. Many women artists were reclaiming the female body by creating their own representations of women’s experiences, thus creating a new genre, feminist art From this emerged various discourses of feminism. Some embraced what was 1 For review of exhibition of these works, see Tobev Crockett, “LouAnne Greenwald at 1529 Wellesley/domestic setting”, Art in America. December 1994: 107 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 3 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. later deemed an “essentialist” approach by proclaiming women’s biological, procreative function as central and empowering to her identity. So called “Goddess worshippers” embraced the relationship of women and nature often using the nude female body in their work to create new meaning that would contrast with traditional symbologies established by a patriarchal society. The work of Hannah Wilke is exemplary of this tendency. Wilke’s work challenged the exclusivity of the male gaze, as defined by Laura Mulvey, through representing herself nude in photographs and performances in which she would stage herself in various gender based roles for the pleasure of her own self expression. (Figure 4) Hers was a desire informed by patriarchal conditioning; a desire to be the object of the gaze. Simultaneously, hers was a narcissistic desire to represent herself as desirable for her own pleasure and to empower herself through the seduction of the male gaze. Hannah insisted that her image was necessarily informed by her subjectivity and that empowerment could be achieved through the provocation of erotic desire. Lucy Lippard speaks of the practice of using the female body as follows: “When women use their own bodies in their artwork, they are using their selves; a significant psychological factor converts these bodies and faces from object to subject.’ 4 Lippard implies that the female body can be represented outside of the male gaze and thereby not be subjected to objectification. She links the body intrinsically with a sense of self when it is being used by women. Her philosophy did not however allow for the ambiguity of Hannah Wilke’s work which Lippard condemned as being flirtatious. Yet another group of feminists perceived the female body as overly invested with the implications of procreation and fetishization and refused to contribute to the archive of images of the female nude. One such group 3 Joanna Fnieh. Hannah Wilke, a retrospective (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989): 45 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 4 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. based in England was largely influenced by Laura Mulvey and the influx of psychoanalytic discourse into the realm of film and cultural criticism. They believed that the focus on women's bodies and their sexuality did not provide a productive critique, thus they sought out signs other than the body for signifying a female subject outside of patriarchal representation. Often language served as a substitute for imaging the female for such feminist artists. The work of Mary Kelly is a case in point. Kelly’s work relieves the viewer of being positioned as a voyeur by substituting visual representations of women with textual representations. Her project, “Interim," (figure 5) examines women’s desires, familial roles, feminist history and women’s relative lack of power in the social structure. The project includes narratives of women contemplating their personal relationship to the ideological roles that have been constructed for women in society. Kelly is interested in the gaps between women's lived experience and the psychoanalysis of their experience, particularly Freud’s and Lacan’s analyses of women and their sexuality. Undoubtedly, women are socially conditioned to be both surveyor and surveyed. Feminine identity is objectified and commodified so that women are constantly made aware of themselves as a sight to be gazed upon and a site for the location of masculine desire. At the same time they are encouraged to be their own surveyor, constantly watching and evaluating themselves. In “Ways of Seeing,’ ’ John Berger writes “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked a t This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male; the surveyed, female. Thus she turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision, a sight.”4 This notion of the surveyor as an exclusively masculine construct is confirmed by Laura Mulvey in her influential essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” She states that because the female body is a visual spectacle, an object of 4 John Berger, Wavs of Seeing. (London: the British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972): 47. 7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 5 C T r e f tM f tf r f her jn d she tw antiffilftfher dathes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the male gaze, therefore the pleasure of looking must be destroyed/ This argument leaves little room for the possibility of a female subject within the image, or for a female spectator. Such strict sexual politics of looking emphasized binary oppositions of subject/object; surveyor/surveyed; active/passive; empowered/disempowered. It positioned the female body as a site of struggle in which women could be neither the gazing subject nor the subject occupying the body to be gazed upon. The shift in feminism from the 70’s to the 80’s was most evident in the decline of activism and the propagation of academic theory. An emerging strategy was to appropriate media images of women and to deconstruct them by analyzing the multiplicity of meanings evoked by the context of their surrounding sign systems. Such work distanced the artist/subject from the image/object that was deemed representative of “every woman.” However, in speaking of “every woman,” the works tended to position women not in an identity infused with their own subjectivity but in a position of other, opposite and subjugated by that of the dominant masculine force in the patriarchal social structure. Yet seeing the body through women’s eyes was crucial to women’s self- actualization. In the late I980’s there was a resurgence of female performance artists who insisted on their right to represent their own female bodies. This time, however, the body was not informed by a relation to the Goddess image, rather it was informed by an insistence on women’s rights to self representation. By presenting the body object for their own pleasure and identification, and under their own authorship, women hoped to challenge perceptions of the female body as an image exclusive to masculine desire. Further there was an impetus to create realistic images of women as opposed to the highly idealized images that dominated the mass media. The disparity of self/other within women’s identity was propagated through such social conventions s Broude and Garrard, The Power of Feminist Arc The American Movement of the 1970's. History and fmpacc (Mew York: H.M. Abrams, 1994): 190 9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and norms including femininity, virginity, heterosexuality, domesticity, motherhood. These ideological models endorsed the regulation of female sexuality. The psychological disjunctures of women who could not conform to such traditional roles became topics for the debate surrounding the representation and absence of representations of various female identities. Jo Spence, a British photographer, committed her work to an examination of the way in which photography constructs not only women’s identity but also personal and cultural identity. Creating images modeled after various photographic genres she represented social conditions which are usually absent from photographic archives. (Figure 6) She examined her own family snapshots to determine how she had come to know herself through other’s representations of her. Her work made visible the influence of class, race and sexuality in the formation of a self. Acting as both photographer and model, she inscribed herself into a photographic history. Feminist artists since the 70’s had been focusing on the subjective experience as a means of compensating for women’s exclusion from history. This gave rise to an autobiographical model in art. Some of these artists worked in a documentary style, recording the seemingly banal activities that constituted everyday life. Their events were not the heroic acts that would merit documentation in the annals of a cultural history invested in patriarchal values, rather they were the real life acts of individuals; women whose participation and contribution to culture remained unacknowledged. Turning the private into the public through their art, women claimed that the personal was political. In the Modernist spirit of breaking down illusionary space and narrative time, real time was introduced in art and film. The films of Chantal Akerman, a Belgian filmmaker, are exemplary of this notion. Making use of the tableau shot, she focuses the spectator’s attention on the non spectacle of space and time. Changing shadows, opening doors, passing traffic are “events” in her films. She pictures women as de-centered subjects: characters at odds with the strictures of their identities. (Figure 7) Situated at the edge of the frame in a 10 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 6 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tableau, her characters are both constructed and deconstructed by the space in which they are situated. These women are subjected to the gaze but are also gazing subjects looking knowingly back at the spectator. Further Akerman’s films do not endorse a compulsory heterosexuality, rather they propose bisexuality and participate in the lesbian continuum by representing intense relationships, both sexual and non-sexual, between women. Such strategies propose an alternative to women’s sexuality and to same sex relationships. In articulating the nature of my own self identity, I began to question the origins of a feminist philosophy in my life experience. I wanted to understand why and how I came to call myself a feminist, and to determine how my personal experience affected my concerns surrounding women’s identity. For several years I had been employed as a nude model for art classes and artist’s studios. I took pleasure in the creativity of using my body as a sculptural object transformed through poses. Further I felt affirmed by the sight of myself represented in the tradition of the female nude in the artists’ works: This constituted my identity according to a patriarchal model as an object of beauty and of masculine desire. My pleasure was however problematized by the feminist discourse that I was reading at the time. According to some feminists’ ideology, I was perpetuating the objectification of women by contributing to this tradition. I wanted to investigate this dilemma through my work. Having experienced the role of the model as a creatively expressive one, I knew that it could not be reduced simply to the passive role of “object.” Feminist discourses such as that of Laura Mulvey articulated in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, posit women in the disempowered position of the object of the male gaze and prohibit them from an identification with their own bodies. A Cartesian split, the separation of mind from body, is thus encouraged. This notion has been translated in feminism as the declaration, “I am not my body,” and yet such a split is impossible. Identity, while largely culturally coded and constructed is necessarily informed, 12 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contained and translated by the body. While women’s identification with representations of the female body is problematic because of their relationship to masculine desire, the desire of the female subject to identify with her own image should not be subverted. E. Ann Kaplan has stated, “We have (rightly) been wary of admitting the degree to which the pleasure comes from identification with objectification. Our position as “to be looked at” as object of the (male) gaze, has come to be sexually pleasurable.”6 Indeed this is one of the difficulties in women’s self representation. Further, I would argue that the gaze of the spectator on the spectacle is informed by a far more complex dynamic than simply heterosexual desire. The works from this investigation that I began in 1994 were all titled “Subject; Object.” The title came from my own sense of conflict in being both the gazing subject and the passive object The first work was a series of framed polaroids, pictures of myself as the nude model, taken by various artists during the course of a class. The photos are accompanied by captions which describe my perception of the photographer who took the picture. Thus the work depicts both the gaze of the artist through the photograph and the return gaze of the model through the text The caption was intended to render the photographer as anonymous as the model in a representation. In this way I hoped to confuse the diametrically opposed positions of the model/object and artist/subject who by virtue of my gaze would become objectified. The second series of images were drawings of myself by various artists. These works were selected by me and curated into the exhibition as representations of myself. The drawings exhibited were those in which I could point to a representation of myself such as an expression or gesture that seemed to signify me. I considered these to be part of my work for though I had not made the drawing, it was my subjectivity that had informed the image. Further, the installation served as a self 6 E. Ann Kaplan, “Is the Gaze Male?” Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera (New York: Methuen, 1983): 33-34 13 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. portrait in that it reflected my self perception through the images that I had selected for exhibition. The third series were photographs of me taken by a boudoir photographer. These images pictured me in various guises of heterosexual male fantasies. I had been made up and costumed by the photographer who collaborated with my own desire to be pictured. The photos were spilled across a model’s podium, and presented as objects to be handled and looked at. The pile of 19 photos was intended as a narcissistic display of my pleasure in being the object of the gaze and my narcissistic need to be affirmed as such. A second presentation of these images was called “Candy Colored Nudes.” These were post-it note sized pads of candy colored monochromatic images of the boudoir portraits. The pad was intended to facilitate distribution to the viewer. Rather than limiting the experience of these images to that of voyeurism, I was interested in releasing them as fetish objects. In this way once the images were taken out of the context of the exhibition, the presence of my subjectivity might be problematized. For example, the viewer who had not seen the images in the context of the exhibition which linked them to a complex subjectivity, might read the images as softcore pom. I wondered if the effects of being perceived as a fetish object would affect my subjectivity. It happened that in most cases, the images were fetishized not as softcore pom but rather as works of art The recipients tended to keep them protected and preserved. On one occasion, I personally distributed them, handing them out at an exhibition reception. I was most struck by a response of disbelief. “That’s you?” one person asked. This seemed to reinforce the sense that I had of myself as having multiple identities and a malleable appearance. While, I was pleased to discover that my identity remained elusive in this appearance, I was also disappointed. I had fantasized about the image as a representation of my identity and I desired to have this identity confirmed by another. Nevertheless, this masquerade was empowering to me for it created yet another identity for me as a subject that could evoke desire in 14 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. another. It confirmed my identity as an object of desire. This seemed to be a unique capability of the medium of photography; to create an image of a subject that could suggest an identity and validate its “truth” at the same time. This suggested “truth” or evidence of the photograph became problematic in other respects. Despite photography’s documentary role as witness to an observed truth, photography also abstracts reality. My original intention in the project expressed in the title, “Subject; Object,” was to investigate the oppositional states in my identity as both artist and model. Photography seemed an appropriate medium in that it involved positions of power between the photographer and the subject that were equivalent to those between the artist and the model. However whereas the artists’ drawings were informed by both subjects, the artist and the model, the photographs from the project were more distanced representations of the photographer’s subjectivity and a more direct representation of the model’s objectivity. Photography had served as an efficient means in the project of “looking” at myself and allowing others to ‘look” at me, but it became problematic to speak of those images as perceptions of me. A photograph is informed not only by the photographic subject and the photographer’s point of view, but also by the lighting, the framing, the surrounding conditions; elements that are not necessarily taken into consideration in the novice photographer’s shot, I became wary of attributing any innuendo of patriarchal constructs in the photographs to the photographer’s gaze. In my project “Subject; Object” the artists who photographed me were for the most part novice photographers. They were responding to my request without necessarily considering the frame. A photo of my body cropped closely in the frame may seem indicative of a more intrusive viewer when compared to a photo taken from a distance and including the surrounding room. Yet both images may have been determined simply by the position in which the photographer happened to be seated in the room. In a critique of subject/object relations corresponding to empowered/disempowered, 15 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. discourse lends itself too easily to assigning oppositions to relationships between two positions, artist/model, photographer/subject, male/female, etc. Rather than equating these relationships with empowerment and disempowerment, one should articulate them as different states of being. Perhaps hierarchical structure is ingrained in Western thought thus perpetuating axial relationships rather than acknowledging coexisting states. Nevertheless, identity seems to demand that one be both subject and object The demand is inherent in the language by which we communicate for one does not remain “I” for long before being transferred in address to “you” or “she.” To have one’s existence audibly marked means not only proclaiming oneself as a subject but also to be claimed in relationship to others. This body of work confirmed for me that the diametrical opposition of subjectivity and objectivity was inherently flawed. In acknowledging a notion of identity in which one is necessarily both subject and object, I became interested in exploring the constructs of subjectivity. I began a documentation of myself that was intended to inscribe my identity as it is internally driven rather than externally determined. The activity of recording my “self” through the activity of writing proposed to locate a centered subject or self within the context of my unconscious, my conscious and my “hyperconscious” ( a term I use to describe an overactive self consciousness that made me hyperaware of how I am being perceived by others). This centered self was expected to reveal its presence through parallel references within the three layers of text. For a period of one month, I recorded on a daily basis my dreams, my journals, and a record of my activities as if seen through the eyes of another. After compiling a month’s worth of documentation, I began to pour through the texts looking for consistencies between the layers. When a fragment or a proposed identity was suggested in the text, I would seek its reinforcement in the other layers. If such a reinforcement was not discovered, I would disregard its validity. 16 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. While the first two layers of writing translated directly as the unconscious (my dreams) and the conscious (my journals), the third layer of writing was problematized as a representation of the superego because of its filtering through my self- consciousness. Finding no appearance of a centered self aligned within the layers, I began to feel as if I had deconstructed myself to such a degree that I was left with nothing but a sense of paranoia. I determined to surrender the role of the third person observer to a psychotherapist As the observer, the therapist makes connections through the first two processes, thus she provides not simply another record of my self but she also forms a screen through which to view the conscious and the unconscious. In fact it could be said that she becomes a mirror of the self. Week to week, she reflects a psychological representation of the self in its present state back to the subject It is not a process that leads to the ‘ fixing” of a centered self, rather it seeks to explain the constructs of the present self. One’s “self’ is continually the subject of analysis and it is subjected to analysis. The subject comes to know his/herself by looking into the mirror at his/her reflection. This seems to confirm a notion mentioned previously: Identity necessitates that one is always both object and subject, both self determined and subjected to the determinations of others. My most recent project, “WF Seeking”, is predicated on a notion of identity constructed by desire. If it can be said that identity is constructed by social norms and structures (i.e. class, race, sexuality), then it would seem that some editing or balancing must take place and that perhaps this editing system is the basis of an inherent self. In the Fall of 1995 I began the second year of my investigation of self identity. I began to notice how frequently my own identity was formed by other’s expectations of me. It seemed as though I often became the image of what someone else wanted me to be whether it was in the workplace or in personal friendships. My desire was to fulfill their desire. Further I began to question my identity in relation to 17 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. my recent marriage that had taken place in the summer of that year. While I considered marriage to be a rite of passage marking a stage in one’s life, I also viewed it as a formative factor in one’s identity in that it positioned one within a socially sanctioned relationship, one that carries with it much ideology. I began to question the role of marriage in a patriarchal society in which heterosexuality is compulsory. I wondered if I too had complied with the institution in order to mark my own passage into a new decade of my life, the 30’s. I contemplated a model of identity in which bisexuality is inherent but subverted by the institution of heterosexuality. While such considerations of my own sexual construction inspired my questioning process, I was also leery of any experimentation that might threaten my marital relationship. It was through my art that I was able to construct a safety net and label this investigation a process. It is in this way that art and life often cross over in my work. Issues that I am unable to confront in life become the subject of investigation in my art practice. Through such a distanciation I am able to render my identity as that of an object for analysis and living under such an identification becomes part of the process. While my work is personally motivated, it also provides a broader commentary on the conditions of socialization and the formation of identity. “WF Seeking” examines my identity according to my narcissistic desire to be like my ideal other, a fantasy identity. I began by reviewing the personal ads as an archive of descriptions of identities which also were informed by the desire for another. It seemed as though I had a kinship with the subjects of these ads in that I was also a desiring subject acknowledging a lack and trying to fill it. The personal ads are categorized according to sexual preference: Women seeking Men, Women seeking Women, the Alternatives (women seeking participants for unconventional sexual experiences). Most of the ads provide a description of the subject including physical appearance, personality and general interests and a description of what she is seeking in a mate. I approached my research with an attitude that if identity was a construct, then it was plausible that I could take on the 18 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. identity of any of these women with some physical limitations acknowledged. Idiosyncraticall y, I came to identify with particular descriptions of physique and personality. Each week I would examine all the personal ads placed by women and evaluate them based on my degree of identification with them. While the ads could be read as many stereotypes of women modeled after stereotypes of masculine desire (the majority of the ads are heterosexually oriented), they could also be deconstructed to reveal what I considered to be the subject's self perception. Often reading between the lines, taking note of what was not included in the description, I would select the ads that I identified with and/or found desirable as plausible identities for me. Each week as my self-perception changed, I found that I would respond differently to the same ad. One week I might identify the following ad as a description of myself (with some editing): BRIGHT BEAUTY Educated, adventurous, fun! passionate DJFr - 36, artist/writer/singer, 5’7”, slim, long - dark- hair, big eyes, big smile. Love dancing, the arts, hiking, romance. Half time-mom-of-two-boys 7 and 44-. Seeking sweet, successful, good-looking, cultured WM, 32-45, 5’10”+, n/s/d,to feast at life’s banquet. Call Box #71055 and the next week I might select that text as a description not of myself. Similarly sometimes I would select an ad as a description of myself and the next week, feeling that I did not have certain of those qualities after all, I would edit the ad and categorize it under desirable descriptions edited to plausibly describe myself. Ads placed in this category indicated that the text represented qualities or an attitude that I found desirable but that I lacked. This seemed to indicate that identity was not a fixed entity understood through self-knowledge but that it fluctuated according to one’s self image at any given moment. The last category, descriptions not o f myself contained ads with which I identified often based on physical similarities, but which I 19 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. also found undesirable, containing qualities or an attitude that I did not want to assign to myself. The ads in this category also shifted from week to week. For example one week I selected the following ad as a description not of myself: HEAD-TURNER SEEKS SAME Courageous, kind, warm, athletic, extroverted, book-woman: inner/outer beauty. Seeks like,unequivocal man, for intellectual, spiritual, psycho-analytical, and eventual physical passion/compassion. Multi-level friendship first. Call Box #31216 Previously this same ad had been selected as a desirable description edited to plausibly describe myself. After several months of this process of selection and categorization, I began to contact the subjects who had placed the ads that I had selected. The message that I left for the subject invited them to participate in my project by joining me for lunch or coffee and an interview. Initially the response was slow: Approximately one out of every 10 calls I made would be returned. After several weeks I also ran an ad of my own requesting participants in the project In writing my own ad I described myself according to both physical appearance and personality: fair-skinned redhead, adventurous, intelligent creative. When contact was established, I would meet the subject for lunch. In preparation, I would attempt to dress and present myself in such a way as to match them. I would read their ad again and select clothing and makeup and jewelry for myself that seemed to be appropriate to their description of themselves. Upon meeting the subjects, I would conduct an interview composed of questions which were intended to deconstruct their identity according to its formative constructs. (Figure 8) The areas of concern in the interview were modeled after my perception of my own identity and how it was constructed. In this way, I became the model against which each of the subjects were compared. As we conversed, I took 20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 8 < _ & 5 rfaXdflQ w ndi bdir p. an *vcpz(l~ Pitterse ir\ fo re sts. Ob&&, j^M^of^^cffaaor/ v b r i g t ; ' Lm^Mo^an ^■'r^KJb'r'^WiruL n g g sy iE w fb id ^ n a d by&fytnence.- < * 4*$°r& efr)CsH & ) Name: 2. Review of d e sc rip tio n in ad: fax/5 0/7 1/alXS, flp c fc . IfiSk) tOO&flgL - F freh ^ andfandt/ide&[es ■h.ur.ity' Someone who 'kr/w & sf, cawttuukiCa^K open toCO H H AifM en-*-. dftfnq f t7aycii fetxdirA .coUorr, 1 aGrt’V/J A. Physical c h a ra c te ris tic s : , 4 ^ /. On~ aths- ,, J, I • B air c o lo r/len g th f t f / f o n g , a . N atu ral colors i f d iffe re n t from a b o v e jtLller~ 2. Eye c o lo r g/(/C- ‘---- ' a . D o you wear glasses? A© 3. H eight/B uild 5 *?" sMrjejft+e, , . 4. R acial/E th n ic Background Irjsfq, ^eTMAA 1 AifStDOA 5. Age 2-*? fftifsw tm«t £/ rtsh) — fftpftjx otAcMd f npvd. a.doH~ sneral d e sc rip tiv e q u a litie s : General I n te r e s ts : *>6 ^ ^ | r t 3 5 U W fcrf H&d, fte/gpod.seff hafp, cO orfc-refcL fost, w , a r tis t? /v a • 0 7 /O y s creative, hcb& cs ( x * iirid ,0 u e.{ry) CapV erected in the art* ? Explain. ' A. Are you an B. Are you in te re s te d in the a rts? Cdor-Bltte. C. F avorite book, movie, song+ D. L ist a d d itio n a l in te rests/h o b b le s 4. 5. r o r M s ^ ffc '1 ^ lozscdnayoo " "Memtif&'fteato b ie s: rj< tenvfiap vitoJtd I ike, -fo be s t ^ r —s d ^ e ^ d i ^ r lik e Bnrkaja S ftc e r s a r d . Career/Employment: E sd C T C S S . ~~ G tifo fftc M arital S ta tu s: A 6 f yCS -<fiCO(C^llk£fa. A. I f m arried, how long? Any children? B. I f divorced, dod former mace not possess the q u a litie s described in au? R e lig io u s/S p iritu a l background: ‘ R a IS cA. S t r i c t COjAClid CjOfTO\til/ MCtlpfOd" ' i A. Are you a member of an organized re lig io n o r recovering from HOfia yj such a membership? fCH fti fS f£-itrf&pfctlpttCffCSZ. - Dld./'Cf’ Q plo ' ^ ?. ^ily^B ^^L d: < /tO K S flv to • S f = °r'fe' A. # of s ib lin g s and po sitio n in fam ily 2-OtcJCT CJfOS., I '/W P i ° - __ frth erS tro . * a x = e k P A d w fffS 8 . Educational Background fbtOioSCbojl, lOyola^AJWYMrf- T£x& 9. £ ^ a p $ ? 2 & 'M l g r ^ f d A. Location o f childhood home (AfeSHdyieV(IlO P ^ /C A ■ B. Location of cu rren t home QKSflfaJoOdt '-'ftnc-v'eftfii- 1C. Physical/M ental Health — ' c~iiyaxt.ax/iieiiuax ncaxt.ii — “1 S /? " tS 5 /w w w v ','y o i - i* ,___ ,__, A. Do you s u f f e r from stre ss/a n x ie ty ? OJ&OSLk/ nu'C'&fyt'E&Pi FrdAetK&yOICif/y^ B. Have you ev er seen a th era p ist? I f yes, fo r how long? yGS, S S eS S & x s 11. A stro lo g ical sig n and b irth d a te C anC J Z T 7 / 5 / G & ^(c^lA,/V/W 7*<C/,'56 W S /^ ty ■ w dhatqU y 1 12. M iscellaneous n o tes: . . . - ________ female idtotttfy-irauUliVM}, coteznaflite cfOTfe'*a . AfmCl^rr tGfcnsefo '1/otiier passive. onHl /scswp- kdafiw&iiPS I rdainshf>, otter win .MfOcfedto ofcfcr r*cn^. Czetf-<anC\dcocej') imfer i£C PM Jw w dih£ ngf/fe. w 21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. notes, recording the subject’s responses to each item of inquiry. Immediately following each meeting I would draw a portrait of the subject based on my memory of them. These were small pencil drawings that had the character of police sketches, idealized representations of various types. They also often reflected aspects of myself through an emphasis on particular features of the subject that I identified with or found desirable. A written record was also made of my reflections on the meeting. I would make note of any moments when my identity and the subject’s identity seemed to match and also when differences became apparent. In presenting the project in the form of an exhibition, the portraits became the primary visual element (Eguie 9) Photographed and presented on colored wall panels, the portraits were sized according to the degree to which I finally identified with the subject. Ranging in size from 32”x48” to 5”x7”, their hierarchical significance was determined by evaluating all of the data that I had collected and measuring its value subjectively. The background color of the wall panel was determined by my memory of what the subject was wearing on the day that we met. Each portrait was accompanied by a chart which graphed my identification with the text of their ad over the period of time that the ad ran. Fragments of text taken from my records of the meetings were printed on the walls and floated between the portraits in the exhibition. A separate reading room was provided for reviewing the full documentation of the project (Figure 10) This was a dimly lit room with burgundy painted walls and a velvet sofa intended to evoke the sensuality of a boudoir and to provide opportunities for meetings between the viewers. Also displayed in this room were the enlarged texts of the ads placed by the corresponding subjects whose portraits hung in the gallery. The wealth of information within the book of documentation lent itself to further study and speculation. I wish to elaborate on some of that material here. Of the 12 subjects who responded to my message and participated in the project, 7 were 22 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Figure 9 Figure 10 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. from the category, descriptions o f myself, indicating that the strongest interest in the project came from women whom I had selected because I identified with their descriptions most strongly. 2 of the respondents were selected for contact from the category, desirable descriptions edited to plausibly describe myself, 1 of the respondents was selected from the category, descriptions not o f myself and 2 were subjects who had responded to an ad that I placed. While I met with 1 1 of the respondents, 1 of them preferred to perform the interview over the phone. This subject, Margo, could not be represented in a drawing. While I was never struck by any strong likeness in physical appearances between my self and the respondents, the portraits that I drew of them from memory often emphasized aspects with which I did identify or which I found desirable. In the portrait of Kathleen, her double chin is rendered specifically in comparison to the more idealized jawline of Maruschka. Kathleen was in fact “not petite” (her words), and her tendency to overeat was something with which I identified. Maruschka, the subject who had described herself as alluring and glamorous, was striking in appearance. Her portrait appears more idealized. In the case of Jenna, her directness, a quality I admired, and her tendency to control, a quality with which I identified, seemed perfecdy articulated by her chiseled cheek bones and short hair. I emphasized these features in my drawing of her. In fact, after our meeting I was so taken with her that I got my hair cut short. Having gradually embraced the description of myself as a “fairskinned redhead, glasses optional” it is interesting to note that of the 12 subjects, 4 were redheads, 3 had blue eyes, 7 wore glasses and/or contacts and 2 had ethnic backgrounds (Irish and German) similar to mine. I had not considered age to be a prominent factor in the construct of my identity and indeed it did not seem to be a prominent factor in my results. The respondents came from a range of age groups. Three were within a five year span of my own age, 28-32. Two were between 33 and 37. Two were between 38 and 42. Three were between 43 and 47. One, Maruschka, was 48 years old and she was the subject with whom I identified with most strongly. 24 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The first subjects that I will discuss will be those that were selected for contact from the category, descriptions o f myself. Maruschka and I had several phone conversations before we met for lunch one afternoon. Because she was my first respondent, I felt both nervous and excited the day of our meeting. She had described herself as alluring and glamorous. In preparing to meet her I tried to make myself appear as alluring and glamorous as I imagined her to be. This was in part to transform my self into my narcissistic other. By this I mean an image of myself as the manifestation of the ideal identity that I desired in her. My narcissistic other is a reflection of my self based on my desire yet it is removed from me; manifested in the presence of an other who is not myself. My attempt to transform myself in her image might be described as a masquerade performed to insure my identification with my subject While the constructs of femininity are often spoken of in terms of a masquerade, this was not an attempt to deconstruct feminine identity. Rather than a display of various feminine stereotypes, my masquerade was the means by which I constructed my self identity. Creating an image of myself as my ideal was the first step to transforming myself. In this case, it was a matter of proving that I could be alluring and glamorous and that such characteristics were a part of my identity. As I stood waiting on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, I fantasized about the imminent meeting. My friends had advised me to be careful: I wondered what her friends had told her. Maruschka was the subject of my investigation and yet I relished a fantasy of being the object of her desire. Perhaps it was the thrill of the adventure that allowed me to entertain a lesbian fantasy. Having never met her, I did not know what to expect. I kept my eyes peeled for a woman with long red hair, black jeans and a blazer. Every red-haired woman that passed by caught my eye. She had told me what she would be wearing so I knew what to look for. Finally I spotted a woman with long red hair and Hollywood sunglasses striding towards me. She was dressed in black jeans and a biazer and her mane of straight hair swung rhytnmicaiiy 25 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. from side to side as she walked. We shook hands and were led into the restaurant to a quiet comer table by a window. We sat down. She ordered an iced tea: I ordered the same... She told me I had pretty coloring and lovely blue eyes. I told her that she was alluring and glamorous, and she was. The above text is an excerpt from my written journal record of our meeting. From this point and throughout the remainder of the project there seemed to be an overlap between the narcissistic desire implied in my search for a confirmation of my self identity and the sexual desire provoked through the actual meetings with the women. Perhaps it was stimulated by the likeness of the ritual to the blind date: a sense of mystery tends to inspire intrigue, romance and lust. The component of fantasy began with a fantasy identity, a desire to be like the subject, and extended to a sexual fantasy, the desire to have an affair with a woman. Perhaps my sexual desire for women was inspired by my discovery of my self in the role of the aggressor, a role I don’t usually assume. I was pursuing them. Or perhaps as Adrienne Rich suggests in her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” the heterosexual understanding of eroticism has been limited to its patriarchal constructs.7 According to Rich’s model of a lesbian continuum, woman-identified experience (not simply genital sexual experience between women) can unveil a notion of the erotic within female terms that are not limited to the body. She quotes Audre Lorde who claims that the erotic can be discovered “in the sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic.” Further she describes the empowering joy that “makes us less willing to accept powerlessness or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.”8 Perhaps the fantasy and anticipation was inspired by the bond I was forming with my subject, a woman whom I had constructed myself in resemblance to and who confirmed my sense of myself in her image by mirroring me as I studied her. In considering this attraction I came to question the constructs of sexual desire. 7 Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” Blood. Bread and Poetrv: Selected Prose 1979-1985. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1986): 23-75 26 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. According to the model of my investigation, I was attracted not to my opposite but to my likeness. Rather than being founded on sexual desire, my attraction was founded on narcissistic desire; an attraction to the image that was a reflection of myself. Over the course of lunch with Maruschka, the mirroring process between us became uncanny. We both ordered iced tea and nicoise salad. We both used artificial sweetener in our tea. At one point during our conversation, we reached simultaneously for our beverages, I with my left hand and she with her right. It was as if I was looking in a mirror. These occurrences seemed to reinforce a likeness between us. At our meeting, I experienced actual physical confirmation of her identity in my self. Our likenesses went beyond the original textual description of her ad. At the end of our meeting we embraced and said good-bye. I walked away feeling elated and slightly embarrassed about my earlier sexual fantasy. I spoke with her several times afterwards. She had a very endearing manner, maternal almost. Often she called me honey. Considering this, it would seem that my attraction to her might also be reminiscent to a child’s desire for the mother. While my relationship with my own mother has always been distant, the desire for such closeness is familiar. It is said that one’s sense of self is largely affected by their relationships with their parents and that we replicate the dynamics of those relationships throughout our lives. Maruschka’s interest in and support of me may have resonated psychologically in terms of maternal love. Perhaps my evaluation of her as the one I most identified with was grounded on the fact that she provided me with what I most longed for. Five days later, she came to an art exhibition that I was having at a nearby college. I had mentioned to her that I was having a show of my artworks and I invited her assuming she would not come. She arrived around 8:00, stepping into the gallery arm in arm with a man much shorter than herself. He was stout and balding like my husband. She looked ravishing in a long black dress and high heels. I wished that I had dressed up too. After a few moments of observing her from a distance, I went over to greet her. Up close I 8 Audre Lorde “Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power in Sister Outsider (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984) 27 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. noticed her long painted nails and the glitter of her jewelry. Her perfume had a strong almost pungent scent. She introduced me to her date who I felt acquainted with already having heard all about him at our lunch. I asked them for their impressions on the exhibition. “It’s interesting,” she said, and then we talked about other things. I was disappointed having expected a more enthusiastic response from her. I thought that she would identify with the work and want to talk about it. Instead I got the impression that she just didn't get it. This second meeting with Maruschka seemed to have a strong impact on my final evaluation of my identification with her. She turned the tables in effect so that she was watching me. I began to feel like the subject of her investigation and was flattered by her attention. Simultaneously she did not meet my expectation of her. Her identity became less desirable as a model for my own. Yet this was ultimately outweighed by my infatuation with her image and the emotional bond that had been fostered between us. Thus it would seem that my desire to identify with Maruschka was based on her willingness to acknowledge me. The second subject that I met was Lynn. Lynn’s ad began with the phrase, "IJl RED OF THE SAME OL’ same oI’?”, a phrase I often use in conversation. She went on to describe herself as an eclectic, educated, bohemian which was a description that I felt applied to my self as well. My identification with her description was inconsistent wavering from week to week between a description of myself and not even being selected. We met on a Sunday afternoon. She had said that she would be coming from exercise class and would be dressed in sweats. I too had dressed in workout wear, a black bodysuit with a flannel shirt over top. In her voicemail message she had said “my friends say that I’m attractive,”. I assumed therefore that she was not attractive and thus did not bother trying to beautify myself with makeup. We met at a restaurant I ordered a salad and iced tea. She ordered a glass of wine. I began the interview first reviewing her physical characteristics. I asked about her eye color and she removed her tinted glasses. Looking at her without the large round spectacles, I found her to be very cute. I was surprised that she didn’t find herself attractive, but rather had said that her friends say that she is attractive. 28 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I became aware of my attraction to women who embraced their beauty and declared themselves beautiful. I found myself wanting to do the same thing. After having confirmed my alluring and glamorous identity through meeting Maruschka, 1 noticed that I took more care with my appearance. While cosmetics and fashion are often dismissed among feminists as constructs of femininity that ultimately subjugate women, I found that through the use of these things, I gained a sense of self esteem. Through the course of my conversation with Lynn, we discovered that we shared an attraction to older men. I asked her if she had any children. She replied that she was ‘fixed” when she was 21. It seemed that Lynn and I shared an early sensibility of our identities as women who would not have children. I recall telling my mother at the age of 19 that I wanted to have my "tubes tied” for my birthday. 1 noticed that Lynn used her hands a lot when she spoke; this was a habit of mine also. Further, when I asked her if she had ever seen a therapist, she said that she had been seeing one for approximately a year. In fact, the date she began her therapy corresponded to the date when I began mine. By the end of our meeting, I felt that I had gained a friend, but that I had not found a facet of my self. Lynn had mentioned that she was running another ad in a publication that I had never heard of, the Pennysaver. Several days later I received in the mail a copy of the Pennysaver. It seemed more than a mere coincidence. I examined all the ads trying to locate her description of herself that by extension would correspond to my self. Finally I selected three ads as possibilities though I did not have strong feelings of identification with any of them. When I contacted her to inquire about the accuracy of my selections, she said that in fact none of them were hers. Karen’s ad had fallen into the category, descriptions o f myself, for three weeks until a shift in my self perception placed it under the category desirable descriptions edited to plausibly describe myself Karen described herself in the third person as if 29 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. she were the narrator, writing “SHE SAID SHE’D always been a dancer...natural redhead (and curls to boot).” This distancing of oneself is a strategy that I often use in describing myself. It also seems reminiscent of Lynn’s manner of speaking about her attractiveness as a quality not known to herself but known through others, her friends. Karen described herself as educated and grownup. Her interests included film, dancing, rollerblading and yoga; all things that I enjoy. When she returned my call she told me that she too was a USC graduate. In fact she had received her MFA there. When I asked her to meet with me, she complained of her busy schedule saying that between yoga, her women’s group and her career she had no spare time. This convinced me that 1 had met my match. Nevertheless she was reluctant to make an appointment. She said that she had called me back because she thought that I was probably having a hard time finding participants. Also, my message was the only response to her ad. She thought that this indicated that her ad appealed to women rather than men. She was not willing to commit her participation but she asked me to call her back in a week. The following week she did not return my call. Several days later I selected my descriptions again from the archive of personal ads. One of my selections was an ad that described the subject as a “SMART, SEXY redhead” with interests in movies and yoga. When I contacted the subject who placed the ad, 1 recognized the voice of Karen. Despite the fact that she had changed the text of her ad, i still identified with her description. I felt that this was an undeniable confirmation of our similarity. Finally she agreed to meet. Comparing the 2 ads placed by Karen, it is interesting to note their differences in relation to their effectiveness in soliciting the attention of men. In the first ad, the subject speaks of herself in third person narrating a description of herself. “She said she’d always been a dancer...” This notion of describing oneself as if already described through an other seems reminiscent of John Berger’s words regarding the female body as a site of masculine desire. He states that the female body is so often the object of the male gaze, that it has come to be defined as an image. Women are 30 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. always already seen.9 The fact that Karen felt that her first ad appealed to women more than men might be founded on this notion. Heterosexual women have come to identify with images of masculine desire: their identities are affected by the typologies associated with physical appearance and vice versa. Physical appearance can be altered in order to encourage an association with a particular type. In contrast to the first ad, Karen’s second ad was written in first person and was less assertive in its statement of her identity: “...love movies, do yoga and like to have fun.” It mentioned a description of her body type, “curvy” which was not included in the first ad. The general tone of it is more playful than the previous ad and her expression of her desire is quite different In the first ad, she is “seeking smart savvy, happy professional. In the second ad, she writes “I’d love to find kind, witty, brave, confident man.” The description of the man in the second ad is much closer to the stereotype of a prince charming than the description in the first ad. The fact that four men responded to the second ad and none to the first would seem to suggest that men too respond to identities modeled after masculine stereotypes of feminine desire. Regardless of how brief and abstract the description (i.e. short dark curly hair, dark complexion) I always managed to recognize the woman I was looking for. In Hilary’s ad she had described herself as an attractive artist: this corresponded with how I might describe myself. When I prepared for our meeting, I tried to gauge what her self perception of an artist might be. I opted for light makeup, jeans, and workboots. Later as we walked to our table at the restaurant, I noticed that she too was wearing blue jeans and workboots. The following was taken from my journal: I noticed a woman by the door who had just looked away from me. She had dark curly hair but it was medium length. As I gazed at her, she turned around looking briefly in my direction, glancing away then back again. We stared blankly at one another for a moment. Then I said “Hilary?” We were seated immediately and menus were thrust into our hands. It was a good thing because conversation was strained. I got the sense that she was suspicious of me and was being very guarded. I began to feel uncomfortable. We looked nothing 9 Berger, Wavs of Seeing. 31 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. alike. She was dark, with dark hair though she told me that she had colored it redder at one time. I wondered if she misht have had a fantasy about being a redhead. She described herself as quiet and thoughtful, a thanking person. She said that she enjoys silence and that she knows who she is though sometimes she cannot find words to express herself. These were all things that I identified with. She began to tell me about her years in therapy and I felt like we were beginning to bond. We both ordered die cobb salad. She listed her favorite music which included Billy Holiday, one of my favorites. It turned out that she was a figurative painter and assisted in a life drawing workshop. I told her that I was a model and I handed her my card hoping that she would call me one day. We had several common acquaintances and we talked about the artworld. After an hour I was relieved to be finished with the interview. As I walked away, I felt as if I had confronted the image of my private side. This was the first time that I had encountered in a subject a reflection of my self that I did not want to see. Hilary’s ad had fluctuated between the categories, descriptions o f myself and descriptions not o f myself and one week it was not even selected. While Maruschka’s persona of allure and glamour ranked highest on my identification scale. Hilary’s privacy and hesitancy, traits that I see in myself but find unattractive, resulted ultimately in a low ranking. Not only did I identify with what I perceived as Hilary’s feelings of privacy, but also I recognized that because of her feelings I did not get the recognition and attention that I wanted from her. I could not easily slip into an identification with her because I felt self conscious about my inquiry. I became aware of her discomfort with my inquisitive gaze: I was the gazing subject and she was the object unwilling to let herself be exposed. The dynamic that I am describing is reminiscent of my earlier descriptions of the artist/model relationship only I’m not the model, I’m the artist. Yet I find myself wanting to be her model in order to show her who I am. I want to reveal myself to her. Like all the women I had met up to that point, Hilary was also Jewish. At the conclusion of the project, 2 of the subjects that I met were raised Catholic as was I and 6 of them were Jewish. I began to wonder if perhaps I could be Jewish. My last name, Greenwald, was a Jewish name and I recalled reading about a Jewish man who 32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in 19th century Germany was concerned with the prosperity of his children and thus raised them as Christian in order to assimilate them into mainstream German culture. I wondered if perhaps a similar fate might have occurred in my father’s family. If so my cultural identity with Judaism would have vanished by now, but perhaps some subliminal identification with it still exists. In the interview, Hilary described herself as quiet, strongwilled, centered. She said that she “knows who she is” and I asked her how she had come to know that. "Therapy,” she said. Of the 12 women that I interviewed ten of them had seen a therapist at some point in their life: seven of them were currently in therapy. One was involved in a 12 step program. I began to wonder how much identity is informed by psychotherapy. I could recognize the language of the therapist speaking through the subject, as I often hear it in myself. Occasionally I have suspicions about therapy as an institution that is forming the psyches of individuals according to a certain model. Such formations reveal themselves in the consistent and audible language used by its subjects. When I read Laurie’s ad “MODIGLIANI LOOKS,” I was struck by the fact that this woman identified with the image of the model in Modigliani’s paintings. While I did not specifically identify with Modigliani’s models, I did identify with the role of the artist’s model. Further, this subject had mentioned her Midwest roots which was something to which I related, being from Ohio originally. It turned out that she too was from Ohio and that she grew up in a town not far from mine. When Laurie had returned my call she mentioned that she had been an interviewer. She asked me numerous questions about the project and told me that she was taking notes as we spoke. She sounded young and smart and articulate. We arranged to meet and she described herself to me as having short, straight hair and cat’s eye glasses. I told her that I too had short hair and cat’s eye glasses. 33 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In her ad, she listed her interests including walks in the rain. Coincidentally, the day of our meeting, it was raining. I was seated in the waiting area of a small cafe anticipating her arrival. I saw a woman with an umbrella and dark glasses heading for the door. She had medium length hair and wire-rim glasses. She looked right at me and smiled. It had to be her but she was not what I expected. Somehow I imagined that she would look like me. When we sat down, she removed her jacket. An off white lace top circled her long thin neck and clung to her torso which was concealed by her vest She looked sexy and conservative at the same time— a look that I find desirable. When we spoke about her experience with the personals, she said that she didn’t expect to meet anyone, in fact she was doing this in collaboration with a friend who was hoping to meet someone. She believed that men who sought dates through the personals probably had some problem that prevented them from meeting women. “Would you consider having a relationship with a woman?" i asked. “I'm nui gay,” she replied. I began to wonder how one knows that one is not gay. If a model of inherent bisexuality (as opposed to a “natural” heterosexuality) is acknowledged, then one’s sexuality is a conditioned decision. It seemed to me that if a woman held no hope for finding a relationship with a man that would provide the emotional support that she was looking for, then the logical strategy would be to seek a relationship with a woman. Most of the women that I spoke with acknowledged having emotionally rewarding relationships with women friends. Many of them also acknowledged that they did not expect to find a relationship with a man that would be as rewardingas their relationships with their women friends. I wondered what prevented women from pursuing a relationship with another woman in which they could ideally have both an emotional companion and a lover; their mate wouid be not their other but rather their like. It seemed to me presumptuous to assume that one’s condition of heterosexuality should prevent one from having a same sex relationship. Heterosexuality, as I view it, is not natural. It is conditioned and further I would call it 34 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. an institution protected and perpetuated through social norms such as gender, marriage and family structure. As I mentioned earlier, two of the women I interviewed were selected for contact from the category, desirable descriptions edited to plausibly describe myself. Both had physical characteristics that were inconsistent with my physical identity. Their texts described themselves as having characteristics dissimilar to mine. I edited these details, crossing them out of the ad. In the case of Caroline's ad, her description of herself was one that reflected a great sense of self awareness, something that I lacked but found desirable. Her ad ran under the category, Women Seeking Women. Thus she too in a sense was seeking her likeness in another woman. Caroline described herself in such a way that emphasis was not placed on the physical but rather on the emotional and spiritual. NATURALLY BEAUTIFUL artist multi-dimensional, soulful, bohemian, savvy, highly communicative, emotionally present, inner explorer, ardent mind, playful, adventurous, outspoken, caring. 32, 5’7”, wild - mane, fit. Seeking self-aware/present beautiful, womanly kindred spirit GF. Call box #71689. The words that Caroline used in the above ad to describe her fantasy female (self-aware/present beautiful, kindred spirit) seem to be in keeping with the way that she described herself (soulful, emotionally present inner explorer). The focus was on her own description. In some of the other ads, the subjects did not even describe what they were desiring. Hilary’s ad simply read: 35 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ATTRACTIVE artist, 32, SWF. Enjoys music, evenings out (dive bars to classy restaurants,) long walks, silence and laughter. Call Box #71711 In contrast to both, Maruschka’s ad barely described herself, focusing mainly on the description of her desire: ALLURING, glamorous redhead desires tall, handsome, cosmopolitan SWM 39+, n/s with savoir-faire and joie de vivre who appreciates quality, heart, beauty and brains. Call Box #31601 While it is problematic to speak of a masculine desire as if there is only one, according to a heterosexual paradigm, feminine and masculine are opposites that attract Thus the ideal heterosexual male would be attracted to femininity and the ideal heterosexual female would be attracted to masculinity. It is interesting to examine the text of the ads placed by women seeking men and women seeking women to see if their desires reflect gender based values. Maruschka’s concise description of herself reads like a stereotype of a fashion model, “Alluring, glamorous redhead.” This is a type that caters to masculine and feminine desire. It represents an ideal of masculine desire but also by extension evokes a feminine desire to be the object of desire. In contrast, Caroline’s ad does not describe herself as a stereotype of masculine or feminine desire. Her elaborations on her personality and interests attempt to define her as an individual, a unique subject. The language of her ad is iess inflected with stereotypical references to femininity than it is informed by her own personal value system. I had selected Caroline’s ad as a desirable description and edited it to plausibly describe myself, crossing out words that were inconsistent with my physical 36 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. appearance. When I spoke with her on the phone, she immediately responded with confirmations of our similarities. She too saw a therapist; she had done nude modeling; she was an artist; her rising sign was Virgo; her moon was in Gemini. I was excited to meet someone whose description I had selected as a narcissistic identity, a desirable other, and who herself was seeking her desire through her like. Once we were seated in the restaurant, she began to tell me about her experience with the personal ads. She spoke frankly, sharing intimate details with me. She seemed to be completely uninhibited and in touch with herself. I began to feel very different from her, as if we had nothing in common other than our height and our astrology. When I told her how i described myseif, i was embarassea to use the word adventurous. Compared to her, I didn’t seem adventurous at all. This recollection from my journal record of our meeting seemed to point to the gap between our identities. Her sense of assuredness elevated my sense of insecurity. Confronting the manifestation of my desire, I became very aware of my lack, my inability to be like her. While I had determined to use the interview as a way to deconstruct the subject’s identity, it began to appear as a means of constructing their identities in a manner like that of my own. In Caroline’s case, the interview pointed out how she was not like me. When I inquired about her educational background, Caroline’s response was ‘1 dropped out of high school and into my own reality.” I realized that my expected response was in regards to higher education and that I hadn’t even taken into consideration that education might not be a significant construct for someone. I became more aware of how my race and class history was informing the project and how they informed my identity. These conditions of race and class history are significant factors in one’s identity and they are fixed rather than in constant flux. I realized then that I knew myself better than I thought I did. While I had set out to find my self in others, I was also examining them according to the influences that had affected me. When I asked Caroline about her relationship to feminism, an important construct in my identity, she denied any identification with it I was surprised at her response. I expected that a lesbian 37 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. woman would have some opinions regarding feminism. I pressed her further. She said the she thought women were reclaiming the feminine gender for themselves and that there was power in the intuitive nature of femininity and in women’s ability to see the whole picture. “Women,” she said “see the world in a non-linear way, and with that vision, they have the potential to change the world.” Her views sounded very reminiscent of goddess-based feminism. I was interested to hear her articulate a stance after her initial rejection of the word. I wondered how prevalent this attitude was among women and why. I myself had struggled for years to articulate a feminist identity for myself and it seemed vital to me that women not take their feminist predecessors for granted. I was surprised in the end to discover that of the seven women that I asked only two of them were willing to call themselves feminists. Margo, a 32 year old Mexican woman, said that she felt inclined to speak out for women and that anything that was representative of the white male was opposite to what she was. Sara, a 36 year old Jewish woman, said that women should be free to make choices and should be respected for them. Responses from those that declined to be associated with feminism included: “I’m a humanist; I believe in equality.” (Kathleen, 29 year old Caucasian woman) “I’m not a man-hater.” (Cindy, 29 year old Caucasian woman) “I believe in equality. Women’s groups marginalize women. Exemplary behavior is proof positive.” (40 year old Caucasian woman) It is difficult to draw any statistical conclusions about the above opinions. Nevertheless it seems evident that feminist identity for some is not about the empowerment of woman- identified experience rather it is about the stigma of feminism itself. From the category, descriptions not o f myself, I selected for contact an ad placed by Diane. The headline on her ad read: HEAD TURNER, a term with which I did not identify. However, she also described herself as a book woman, a term with which I did identify. When I called her voicemail, I was struck by the tone of her message. It was full of expectation. I knew that there were traces of myself in that 38 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. voice and that it was probably those very traces that attracted me to her ad. When she called me back, I was struck by the biting tone of her satire when she spoke about men. At the same time, she sounded like a very well educated, nurturing older woman. Following is an excerpt from my journal record of our meeting: She had told me that she would be wearing a denim shirt and jeans. I was meeting her directly after work and could not dress as casually as she. Rather, I modeled myself according to how I imagined she might present herself on a work day. I selected a sensible brown skirt and a tight fitting off white top with a sweater thrown over my shoulders. I wore my glasses. We were to meet for coffee at 4:30. I stood in line at the counter waiting and watching for a woman with long blonde hair dressed in denim. Finally a blonde-haired woman with sunglasses popped her head around the comer. Pulling her glasses down her nose, she looked right at me and waved. It was as if we were old friends. “You look pretty” she said coming up to me. I thanked her, explaining that I had come from work. “I know” she said smiling. I wondered how she knew. She declined my offer to buy her coffee. We sat at a small table and shared a scone. She had some concerns about her hair which she had just lightened that morning. I assured her that it looked fine. She was attractive in a 70’s kind of way-long hair, barrettes. She had huge breasts that seemed to be stuffed into the front of her snug sleeveless shirt. A turquoise cross donned the space just below her neck. Noting her concerns about appearance, I inquired about her cosmetic preferences. We talked for 10 minutes about our favorite makeups and cleansers. Finally getting down to business, I began the interview. She spoke in a very animated way, telling stories, jokes and laughing. She told me about her failed marriage and her abusive childhood, turning each tragedy into a hilarity. Before long, I determined that she must be hysterical. When I asked her what she did for a living, she responded with a series of stories describing the 7 or more careers she’d had thus far in her life. She was 45. I have often thought that I was an overachiever but here was a woman who was ten times my rival. I thought about my tendency towards perfection and the influences that formed this tendency in myself. Diane had already analyzed the formations of her tendencies for me and they were quite different from mine. She was the oldest child in the family: Both the hero and the scapegoat, as she said. Her parents were mentally and emotionally abusive towards her. It would seem that her sense of self was highly informed by psychoanalysis. The language of that practice was part of her vocabulary. I recognized the tendency to laugh when something is 39 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. too painful to discuss seriously. It was as if I was meeting an embodiment of my own unexplained tendencies toward hysteria, yet the conditions which affected her were quite different from those that affected me. While I initially had contacted her as a subject whose description was not equal to my description of my self, I ended up identifying with her as if she were an amplification of my paranoia. While some of the subjects corresponded with fantasy identities that I had, Diane seemed to embody a part of myself that I was perhaps in denial about. I encountered in Diane some tendencies that I found disturbing and that I recognized in my own behavior. The tendencies towards control and perfection which were suggested in the text of her personal ad were amplified in real life. That which I initially recognized as a similarity became overwhelming in reality. I discovered a possible identity for myself that was not tied to some fantasy but rather suggested the culmination or manifestation of some of the traits that I already had. Identity is made up of a multitude of factors, some of which are fixed and some that are constantly shifting in response to one's context. One is both a subject, self determined and an object subjected to the determinations of one’s situation. The experience of being is temporal in this way. One is constantly in flux, responding to the conditions and perceptions that surround oneself. Yet there is an urge to locate oneself within the experience of existence; to define one’s self as an individual; to identify with or to have an identity. To identify is defined as “to become the same; to combine in interest, purpose, use, etc.”1 0 The definition implies an urge to join with another, to be confirmed by another that is like oneself; a need to be mirrored or a need to mirror. To be identified as a subject seems to require that one first be a desiring subject, longing for another with which to identify. Through the course of my investigation, I have found that it is through our desires that we can best know ourselves. 1 0 Jean L. McKechnie, Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 40 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bibliography Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, London: The British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972. Broude, Norma and Garrard, Mary P., The Power ofFeminist Art: the American Movement of the 1970’s, History anJTmpact, New York: tl.N. Abrams. 1994. Frueh, Joanna, Hannah Wilke, a retrospective, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. Kaplan, E. Ann, “Is the Gaze Male?” Women and Him: Both Sides of the Camera, New York: Methuen, 1983. Kelly, Mary, Interim, New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990. Marguiies, Ivone, Nothing Happens: Chantal Akerman's Hyperrealist Everyday, Durham: Duke University Press. 1996. McKechnie, Jean L., Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. Rich, Adrienne, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985, New York: W.W. Norton And Company, i98o Spence, Jo, Putting Myself in the Picture, Seattle: The Real Comet Press, 1988. 41 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Creator Greenwald, LouAnne (author)

Core Title Identity re-constructed

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Studio Art

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Fine Arts,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychology, personality,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Bunn, David (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Weisberg, Ruth (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-5028

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Legacy Identifier 1381588.pdf

Dmrecord 5028

Document Type Thesis

Rights Greenwald, LouAnne

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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