Blog Prompt #23

In what ways do you “construct” your identity? In what ways do you “perform” in your daily life?

People construct their identities to fit the people around them. Around your friends you are goofy, joke around, and let loose more. In front of your parents you try to be that responsible person that is focused on school and grades, or even the opposite, you act like a child again and argue with them at times. In front of people such as professors or your boss you try to be professional and hard working. For each separate circumstance people try to perform for the role, which seems most appropriate.

Describe some ways in which your personal culture and social environments are “constructed”.

My personal culture is constructed for the fact that I am mainly responsible for the atmosphere I put myself in. I chose Michigan State along with the culture that comes along with that. Therefore that culture in impressed upon me. If i had chosen a different college my social environment would be entirely different. I also choose my friends and the people I want to be around, which affect my culture and environment.

Describe some ways in which your physical environment/space is “constructed”.

We construct the places we live in because we choose the location we want to live and the environment around us. In addition, our rooms and our space are constructed by the way we decorate the area or the objects we place within these spaces.

In your daily life, what would you consider to be “real” and what would you consider to be “constructed/fabricated”?

I think most everything everyone does or says on facebook is constructed. Overall, in the back of peoples minds there is more going into what they say than the immediate person they communicate with. So many factors are contributed that I think it is impossible to say the things expressed on facebook are real. However, I think daily communication in person is real with people you are close with and on a level that you trust. Even most of time in person communication is fake. For instance, when it is with people that are not as close with you because there is a push to come off a certain way.

Describe a narrative tableaux that you might create to be captured by a photograph. A narrative tableaux can be defined as “Several human actors play out scenes from everyday life, history, myth or the fantasy of the direction artist” ( Constructed Realities: The Art of Staged Photography Edited by Michael Kohler , 34).

An interesting idea would be to have a family play out both typical family roles and roles that seem inappropriate for families. For instance, photographs of a family dinner or an evening at a proper families house. In contrast, it would be interesting to also takes photographs of people playing out a fight amongst a family or something on the lines of a family not functioning in a way that socially acceptable.

Describe an idea for a photograph that includes a miniature stage or still life. A description of such an image is “The tableaux reconstructs events as in the narrative tableaux, but in miniaturized format, using dolls and other toy objects” (Kohler, 34).

It would be interesting to have toys, not dolls, act out scenes that normal humans would do. Going off of that idea, also having them play a role like in Toy Story where they come alive when humans aren’t watching.