Creative Project Realisation : Sense of Identity

I have decided that I would like to focus my idea for this project on Identity and how a person's emotions and actions can affect their personal sense of it. I want to draw on actual psychological theories and opinions of Identity and build my film idea not only from my personal understanding but also the views and feelings we all collectively share as human beings. To this extent I feel it important that my film would be viewed as an installation in order to involve the audience in a way merely screening the film cannot. However, I am planning to create two versions of the film, one that would be shown in an art gallery as a walk-in installation and one that is slightly different but achieves a similar effect through conventional screening.

Thus I begin with human emotion and a book titled 'The Handbook of Emotions' edited by Michael Lewis (Second Edition - 2000, pg 93 & 104, The Guildford Press, USA & UK).  The book itself discusses a wide range of psychological points of view. In particular that of evolutionary psychology which considers how human evolution has defined our ability to perceive as well how our body naturally reacts to situations and circumstances. These reactions are often defined by an emotion or feeling that can be both a reflex and conscious human behaviour. In relation to my film idea I want to draw on the various definitions of these emotions that are talked about in the book for example fear is discussed using someone scared of being stalked, they say "there are shifts in perception. You may suddenly hear with far greater clarity sounds that bear on the hypothesis that you are being stalked, but that ordinarily you would not perceive or attend to." meaning that when somebody is scared to worrying their mind is attracted to sounds that comply with their current state of mind; resulting in increased paranoia and fear. I would like to explore this idea in my film during the 'Paranoia Room' stage by using sound as a major part in increasing tension and projecting my character's fear onto the audience. The book also discusses memory and how that can affect an individual in a particular way. I hope to get across some of their notions during the 'Envy Room' phase as I personally feel that memory is a primary guiding factor when a jealousy takes form.

Vanity - Memling 1435-1494

Additionally, I would like to use the book 'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger (1972, BBC & Penguin Books, pg 45, UK) as a  reference to vanity. This is in relation to the 'Vanity Room' in my film which draws on Berger's notion that visual representations can create strong links for an audience to pick up on, particularly that of a mirror. Berger uses the oil painting 'Vanity' by Memling to explain his view stating that "The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of women" going on to say "The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight." Whether Berger is correct in his view or not I feel that symbolism needs to play a major role in my film in order to convey the meaning of each room to the audience clearly and concisely, this is even more relevant to me as I am dealing with a non-narrative structure so need to imply my ideas without the use of dialogue or character development.