Disclosed identity : experiencing portraiture and forensics in conceptual art

Abstract

My project-based dissertation explores identity and examines how this theme differentiates, converges, and conflates with personality, social categorization, gender issues, and values pertaining to both cultural and parental interdependence. Identification is explored via a merging of the concept of ‘self-portraiture’ and the application of scientific methods and techniques to matters under investigation by a court of law known as forensic science. It is a thesis where portraiture is scrutinized through the media of the powder dusting, the chemical method, DNA, surveillance footage, and other methods of investigation adopted by the police and FBI to find missing people or solve murders. This research combines forensics and the concept of self-portraiture with installation, traditional and digital media. The influences for the final production are taken from all fields explored, including Joseph Kosuth’s experimentation in the relationship between ideas, words and images. This research is approached from a particular ideology taken from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical logic. This practice-based research is formed in a contemporary creative aesthetic combined with the forensic methods explored. The end project is an interactive piece with the audience using modern technology. The end product is part of a joint exhibition organised by the postgraduate’s students of the BFA in Digital Arts programme.