My final self portrait is about the part of me that tends to overthink. The subject of my self-portrait is me and its content is my unhealthy, almost toxic habit of overthinking. I decided to cover this “bad habit” of sorts because I’ve noticed that it is the root of my unhappiness. My ability to obsess over small details/situations until I drive myself insane would almost be impressive if it weren’t so self-destructive. I decided to do my self-portrait in the form of a video for three reasons: 1. I’m a video production major so this is my passion. 2. It’s my peace, sometimes my only peace. It’s one of the few things I don’t overthink myself into a hole about. Not to say it doesn’t cause me stress because it’s a craft I’m in the process of perfecting so of course it stresses me. And finally, 3. I thought it’d be interesting to depict my anxiety in the form of a first person point-of-view short. I started off with storyboarding my thoughts. The idea was, the character (myself) receives a subtle, alarming text that sends her into a literal state of panic (which can be seen when I switch to first-person). She then finds herself fighting against her own subconscious (who is the masked figure in the video) as she descends further and further into her thoughts. The process of shooting was tedious, as was editing. The masking effects and other effects took a decent amount of time. I decided to create three different frightful scenarios in which the main character is unknowingly fighting against her subconscious to emphasize how self destructive overthinking can be. I also decided to depict my subconscious as a masked antagonist to sell the punchline: Overthinking is a Killer. As aforementioned, I categorize this self portrait as a multimedia video. I drew inspiration from Barbara Kruger. I’m a firm believer in “less is more.” Subtlety and suspense are my best friends. Kruger’s ability to send a clear message while saying the absolute least makes her pieces extremely intriguing to me.
Her pieces leave room for the audience to make their own inference which is something I believe in.
My self-portrait conveys a very obvious message that overthinking is negative but it also conveys how individuals tend to be their own worst memory. My first self-portrait was about a situation in my life that took some time for me to overcome and affected me greatly. I went through a difficult major change and found myself pretty lost in life and very unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. It was centered on my journey to find my “umph” again. This self-portrait, on the other hand, is concentrated on an aspect of my social anxiety. I feel as though I dissected myself a bit more in this self-portrait, as the topic is more personal. The artists that we studied in this class influenced my decision to be a little more personal even if it was slightly uncomfortable and foreign to me. Artists like Kehinde Wiley, who care so deeply about their work that you can hear the passion and genuinity in his voice when he speaks about his pieces, inspired this change in my self-portrait. One thing about me is that I tend to resonate most with my ethnicity. Normally, I would have focused on my heritage because it’s a huge part of my identity. Instead I called myself out (despite it being so unpopular in the black community) : I have anxiety issues. The media and its images influence identity and self presentation through power. The media is apart of the spectacle so it possesses the power to influence individuals. The spectacle is what influences and categorizes all individuals...it is also the killer of individuality. In Debord’s words, the spectacle turns everything that once lived into representation. In a way, my project challenges the spectacle by speaking about something that society would rather ignore.
My Project : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgGmGAq2ge4
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