Deconstructing consciousness in contemporary hyperrality: the multiphrenic self and identity

Abstract

This study is a practice-led research that visually examines how the sense of self and identity are experienced within the complexity and multiplicity of selves in a technologically saturated culture. This dissertation, “Deconstructing consciousness in contemporary hyperreality: The multiphrenic self and identity”, is the theoretical component of this research which underpins and discusses the visual works that comprise of three multimedia installations that focus on images of the fractured self, the re-imagining of faces behind facial recognition programmes, and the embodiment of space and aesthetic significance within re-appropriation of images within social media platforms. The practical component falls within multi-media art often associated with video art and installation art within contemporary art. By recognising postmodern identity theories, this study investigates the postmodern subject’s concept of self and identity formation within a world that is influenced by the constant glare of technology and viral1 media exposure. How the development and proliferation of technology in the contemporary world, shapes one’s sense of self and identity. The fragmented postmodern subject exists within this context of “viral media” that describes the endless parasitism and dominance of media, where information is perpetuated as part of representation. Due to the perpetual state of virtual re-invention of the “self” within this realm, a digital footprint of identity and traces of personal information are available to others publicly and globally. This context generates a fractured postmodern self that globally exists within a perpetual sense of the present. This research visually and theoretically reflects on the concepts of postmodern schizophrenia and the multiphrenic self, in relation to identity and how participation on social media platforms can enhance a feeling of fragmented self. To address the main argument, it is the contention of the research to deliberate that identity formation is continually and compulsively shaped and reshaped through adapting to specific social environments. The study further argues that the multitude of digital networks (and the everyday practices occurring within and between them) form a different kind of platform and space that affects identity formation.