Ugo/iwasbornwithoutaface

i was born without a face

Started 19.09.2018

Aims:

Short 16mm colour/bw film max 8-10min Series of photographs 6-10 large prints A short text

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF IMAGES IN THE CONSTRUCTION / DECONSTRUCTION / RECONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY and NON-IDENTITY?

THE FACE AND THE IMAGE?

THE FACE AND THE CONCEPT OF IDENTITY?

NATURE / SPACE / FACE / IDENTITY Poetry / voice over? / Subtitles? /Text on screen? Researching within Hantology cinema / japanese ghost / Using reflective materials Flashing light / strobes Medium format photography ---Focal camera results? (flash light as a shutter and continuous ?)

Subject is moving through a dark space. Body is made of highly reflective grey clothes. A flashlight/Strobe illuminate the body. Subliminal. Ghost.

1- Experimenting with continuous photography and flashlight shutter 2- Extracting an aesthetic direction from the photographs 3- Designing a character / form 4- Applying the process to moving image 5- Writing a story within Montage par correspondances / Check soviet era 6- Writing Production plan / shooting schedule 7- Find a performer / or multiple

Words: Identity in mouvement / Changing /

A Come with the dust

B I was born without a face

C Gone with the wind

FIRST ELEMENTS OF REFLEXION

"Any use of the notion of identity begins with a critique of this notion" (Lévi-Strauss)

The notion of identity has multiple definitions, each depending on the context of production and enunciation. Claude Dubar retains four approaches: one "essentialist, of philosophical origin, which makes identity what remains identical over time"(Aristotle). One "psychological approach that recognizes the plurality of identities as definitions of Self” (Erik Erikson). One "interactionist approach for whom identity is in relation between assignment by others and claim by self" (Ervin Goffman) and a "nominalist approach for whom identity is an inseparable discursive form of biographical interpretation"(Paul Ricoeur). The construction of identity is rooted in the interdependence of the social and the individual.

By taking up some of the questions raised in my earlier works, Layered Identities (2017) and Nature Morte (2017), I propose to explore the processes of identity starting from these three questions:

• - How to explore the processes of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of identity through an artistic practice centred on portraiture and memory?
• - What is the legitimacy and potential of the photographic portrait to question, represent, transmit and (re)construct identity and non-identity?
• - What are the limitations presented by the medium of photography? What techniques might help to overcome these limitations?

How to explore identity without approaching non-identity, the denial of identity, the objectification of humans in contemporary society (Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe)? As Christian Bromberger stated: “not everything is identity”. Can identity be interrogated and explored through the elements that are not part of the composition? In which extend a conscious denial of identity helps construct who we are and what we think of ourselves? What is identity in the digital era?