In your exercise for this section, you’ll produce a piece of work that either explores the family album and its iconography or reflects on representations of the self in digital culture.
Do ONE of the following:
1. Produce a series of six photographs (these can be photomontage, staged photography, work using found images, work including images from your own family archives, etc.) which reference the family album in some way.
OR
2. Produce a series of six photo-based self-portraits that use digital montage techniques to explore different aspect of your identity.
Produce a 500-word blog post outlining your working methods and the research behind your final submission. (Whose work did you study in preparation for this exercise? Why did you choose the techniques that you did and how effective do you think your choices have been, for example?)
Six photo-based self-portraits exploring different aspects of my identity
The images I have chosen to represent some of my identity span a fifteen year period following the death of my father in December 1963.
I went to University at the age of sixteen and graduated at the age of twenty. I was the first of my family to attend University. My father did not live to see me graduate. I was too young and torn between the life I knew I had to lead and the life of my friends. My mother and I had very little money after the death of my father so I needed to work.
I completed a Masters degree while working and married in 1968. My husband is also a scientist. We share many interests including a great love of walking.
In 1970 our first child, a daughter, was born. I continued to work part-time as a researcher. But the first signs of deafness began to become evident. I had a stapaedectomy operation to replace a bone in my ear.
In 1973 our son was born. But my hearing was deteriorating.
We returned to our island home every Summer wherever we were living. I love the sea and my son and I often sailed from our island to Baltimore on the mainland on his Laser sailing boat.
We left Ireland in 1978 to live in Luxembourg . Away from Ireland and the constraints of my upbringing I felt liberated. I was baptised a Catholic without any choice. As I became more European and met people of many different nationalities and religions I questioned more and more the role of the church in Ireland. Finally I decided that the church had played a very sinister role and I could no longer support the institution.
Digital Image & Culture 