How media influences shape our identity

We are bombarded with messaging everywhere, all around us, every minute of every day, through every form of media we interact with – and even those we don’t. Some is subliminal, some is overt. All are competing for our attention and trying to persuade our thinking and behaviour.

In Ancient Greece, Plato talked about the Sophists being masters of rhetoric and persuasion, deliberately using ambiguous language to deceive. Sophists placed a higher value on the ability to persuade than on virtue or truth; persuasion = power. In the 1990’s, I was working as an Art Director in advertising and directly complicit in the art of manipulation and persuasion. I started to wonder what the impact of all of this rhetoric, persuasion, manipulation and deception might be on our personal identity.

Skin was created as a rebellious response to the idea of corporate tattoos and repeated exposure to place brands “under the skin”, a deliberately confrontation and questioning of the language of persuasion and how imprinted branding and targeted media directly shape our sense of self and ultimately our identity.

The installation was composed of two mannequins, one male and one female, covered in paper-mâchéd skin made from gender specific, targeted media, designed to visually highlight the stereotypes that are generated and reinforced through this media. The mannequins wore headphones and were chained to a stack of TVs playing looped advertising content and recordings of endless channel flicking.

The audience was invited to consider:

• How powerful is language and messaging on the way people behave and think?
• Does media influence us and shape who we are? Do we further reinforce these stereotypes through our media consumption?
• Are we are products of our environment? Do we have the power to resist?

Skin installed at;

• Summer Dreaming Festival, Cowra, January 2000
• Loveseat: The Wonderful World of Warhol, Redfern, April 2000

Materials

• Papier-mâchéd mannequins
• Tabloid media
• 3 TVs, 1 VCR
• Looped recording of channel flicking
• Headphones and chains