Assignment Five

Cloned Identities

As stated by the former advertising photographer and, later, artist Paolo Vegas (Italian) in an interview in 2014 (accessed on 15/11/2021):

"Today we all live in a world made up of stereotypes where Social Networks like Facebook reign, where maybe you have 500 friends but friends, the real ones, in real life, not even one. Today, unlike in the past, television is populated with formats that replicate the same successful program in all countries, for years a new program with particular characteristics has not been invented anymore. Most young people, especially teenagers, are all the same, they dress, talk and communicate in the same way. There is a stereotype in everything that surrounds us. Here is my concept, my idea of 'Cloning' through which to claim what is really real ".

1 Cloning Carol nine 90x112, 2013 (Photo ©Paolo Vegas), accessed on 15/11/2021.

After almost finishing Assignment 5, I read these statements and realized that not only I do totally agree, but also that this artist’s statement expressly describes the idea of my work.

While, in Assignment 4, I had used cloning (starting from the doppelganger theme and arriving at the telling of a personal and family story), in this subsequent work I aimed to state the supremacy of the real over the virtual.

I like to think that digital tools are used to modify part of the content in a real context (the container), without compromising the original nature of the content itself.

In the digital age, what is the relationship between the photographic medium and the visual work of art? Does art still need the camera or can the camera be replaced by digital tools?

Hundreds of debates have flourished and rivers of words have been written on these questions: evidently, the destiny, from the beginning, of the photographic medium has been to be first questioned as a full-fledged component of the artistic sphere and then to be a candidate for the replacement by digital tools.

I firmly believe that the birth and propagation of new digital tools simply increase the number of choices available to the artist.

As for me, I will continue to use the camera with conviction, because my desire is and will always be to start from the real in my artistic work and I feel that the camera maintains the link between my visual work and reality.

I feel comfortable in thinking that the mere act of composing pieces of reality is a projection of my identity in the world: as a photographer, as a subject, or as both.

By consistently keeping this line of thinking and style, I don't mean to deny digital art or digital graphics: I simply intend not to use that language.

following this line of thinking, I analyzed the work of a Swiss-born artist, Chantal Michel, who uses cloning as a component of her artistic work.

Michel, whose work is often related to the artistic current of pancalism, in her artworks, keeps a strong relationship between photographic image and reality, which I explored in a post.

2 Chantal Michel, Die Entauschten Seelen, 2014

(https://www.artsy.net/artwork/chantal-michel-die-entauschten-seelen, accessed on 12/11/2021)

I deepened the knowledge of other artists who use the cloning technique, such as Martin Liebscher and Paul M. Smith.

In a post, I made an analysis of the similarities and differences in the works of these two artists.

The photographic works of Liebscher and Smith, although being different in meanings and contents, have something in common: both stimulate the curiosity of the viewer, who is induced to dwell on the story of each single clone.

Thus, multiple copies of the same identity, coming from different times, converge in a single image, creating multiple roles and telling multiple stories.

3 Martin Liebscher, Brain Institute, 2014, accessed on 11/11/2021

4 Paul M. Smith, Artist Rifles, 2011, accessed on 11/11 /2021

I was inspired by these three artists, so I conceived a visual project in two parts.

In the first part, having involved me and other sitters, I cloned them in their environment, inside or outside their homes and workplaces.

In the second part, I used myself, as well as in Assignment 4. Then I digitally manipulated images in order to tell about one of my phobias: the fear of enclosed spaces.

I would also like to mention the work of Wendy McMurdo because I perceive a relationship between this kind of content and the feelings that are transmitted to the viewer.

In our culture, based on realism and rationalism, the concept of double or multiple identities awakens ancestral fears, suspicion and anxiety of the unknown.

Wendy McMurdo's work, particularly when she uses cloning techniques, is an interesting source of reflection.

Sheila Lawson, a Canadian artist, in her interview with Wendy McMurdo, introduces the topic of the negative meaning (discomfort and anxiety) in front of a representation, allowed by digital tools, of the multiple copies of a sitter. She cites films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Don Segal's The Body Snatchers (McMurdo interviewed by Sheila Lawson, 1995, accessed on 14/11/2021)

McMurdo states:

".... As you say the group pieces are anxiety-producing because, rationally, we know or believe that only one of us can exist. Freud’s text on the uncanny, written in 1919, is useful here. He attempts to describe the uncanny, defining it as arising from a number of fears or anxieties....."

In each image of my work, the subjects are edited, cloned and recomposed in the real environment: this is my personal statement on digital identity, which I think and visualize in the subordinate relationship (content and container) with reality.

Images

First Part - Clones