Self Representation

In the Age of Information, humanitarian aid campaigns targeted at donors are carefully planned and executed. Competing with the burgeoning figures of other agencies for limited donor money, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – our case study – has employed photos of vulnerable populations as pivotal items in their attempt to convey narratives of urgency and disempowerment. This campaign format is not new. In this paper, we flip the coin from humanitarians to vulnerable populations, approaching the impact of such images as disempowerment devices. The voices of those portrayed cannot be heard, even in digital times. After the Internet revolution, it is said, unprecedented access to information fostered a “do it yourself” culture. However, as we argue here, access to the World Wide Web, as well as the capacity to define your own image,are notreadily available to those silenced, silently portrayed in humanitarian campaigns. We proceed by analyzing current approaches to the possibilities of Internet as communication, in order to map where humanitarian campaigns fit in the overall picture. In this sense, we pose the question: are we witnessing the prologues to a politics of silencing?

The mistakes we make about ourselves result in our deepest sufferings. Philosophy, meant to be a remedy for our souls’ affliction, claims to offer both a diagnosis and a cure. I look to ancient India, where Buddhists and Hindus alike grapple with this fundamental human quest for peace of mind. For Indian thinkers, a philosophical treatise about the self is meant not only to lay out the truth, but also to embed itself in a process of study and contemplation that will lead eventually to self-transformation. By combining attention to philosophical content with sensitivity to skilfully crafted literary form, I try to deepen and enrich our appreciation of some of the greatest intellectual works in history. My survey includes the Upaniṣads, the Buddha’s discourses, the epic Mahābhārata, and the philosopher Candrakīrti, whose work was later to become foundational in Tibetan Buddhism. I show how the figures of the Buddha, the sage, and the epic hero mediate the reader’s relationship with the text. I go on to reveal that many contemporary theories of selfhood are not only anticipated but developed to an extraordinary degree of sophistication in these works, and that there are other ideas about the self found here which modern philosophers have not yet begun to explore. In the Appendices, I begin to disclose some of the paths along which Indian ideas about the self have migrated throughout history to the West.

Identity orientations refer to the relative importance of various identity attributes in the construction of self-definitions. For Cheek and Briggs (1982), social identity orientation referred to the importance of James’ (1890) social me:  one's popularity or social reputation deriving from interpersonal relationships. Abrams (1988), however, criticized their social identity scale for failing to capture European social identity theory’s emphasis on sociological aspects of self-definition (for example, cultural or ethnic group membership; Tajfel, 1981). To avoid confusion between these Jamesian and European meanings of social identity, some psychologists have argued that the term collective identity should be used to capture the parts of self-definition encompassed by social identity theory (e.g., Ashmore, Deaux, & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2004; Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Cheek, 1989). We report a factor analysis yielding distinct social and collective identity orientation scales (N = 511), ethnic group differences for collective but not social identity orientation (N = 441), and differential correlations with relevant self-concept measures that support maintaining two separate scales. Moreover, relational self-concept is clearly distinguishable from both social and collective identity orientations, indicating the need to measure all three of them as distinct aspects of interdependent self-construal in future research.

"This project involves the design, construction and performance of an “architecture of being” that expresses selfhood in virtual space and real time using: (1) physiological data as its building material, (2) architectural design as its expressive intent, (3) digital space as its medium, (4) screen projection as its enveloping and viewing technique, (5) user interactivity and performance as its partner, and (6) interdisciplinary collaborations among Architecture, Choreography, Modern Dance, Music, Bioengineering, Medicine and Computer Science as its creative and technical contexts.

The paper presents the implementation of the cyberPRINT during a series of techno-media performances at the Rose Wagner Performing Art Center in Salt Lake City, USA, in May 2000.  This work is believed to be the first of its kind in the world.  The cyberPRINT is building a new area of creative inquiry in Architecture by means of collaborations with the Arts and Sciences."

The cyberPRINT is a digital architectural visualization of an individual's physiological data in real time.  It is both a probing and representational system that brings together science and art through architectural design.  Architecture provides the conceptual and visual tools for expressing the complexities of an individual's physiological state. Visualizing the intricate nature of organic life, awakens the unfolding nature of our being.

"The cyberPRINT is a multisensory re-presentation of the fluctuating body in real time. It uses physiological activity as its energetic input,architectural design as its expressive will, and digital space as its context.

The cyberPRINT explores the ancient fascination with the depiction of the self and the body. From philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and sociology to the visual arts and architecture we look at ourselves in search of who or what, why and how we are. The cyberPRINT attempts to look at the humanistic and artistic traditions associated with the self and the body in the light of new technologies, mediums, cultures, and worlds. In this sense, the cyberPRINT contributes to the ongoing aesthetic experimentation with digital environments by investigating the expressive making, communicating, and sustenance of virtual, yet life-based, ontologies. The cyberPRINT recognizes and celebrates reality as the source of life, for the fluid life of cyberPRINT is completely dependent on a real individual's physiological state. Biofeedback informs and sustains the virtual environment.

This virtual reality (desktop and/or immersive) based "architecture of being" creates a self-atmosphere, giving form to a language previously only perceived by the medical profession. As such, cyberPRINT calls for (1) a new set of conventions, rules, and techniques for expressing life, the body, and the self in cyberspace (i.e., syntax and vocabulary); (2) defining the relationship between design intentions, data content, and the expectations of the audience (i.e., the world of meaning: semantics); and 3) looking at the aesthetic responses it elicits (i.e., pragmatics)."