Being required to carry identification means we are never without a picture of ourselves. When asked, we present a small card featuring a photographic likeness whose caption is our name. This tacitly authenticates our presence. We own our physiognomies and our physiognomies own us. Genetics is not as much a logic as it is a lottery governed by the probabilities and permutations of physical traits that in their unique combinations define us as individuals. But our bodies, in all their particularities, are only the discreet portion of what comprises the self, which is forever a vague alloy irreducible to neither a psychological or physical component. The union of ego with one’s image, or “mirror stage” as it is referred to in psychoanalysis, is a milestone in personality formation. But by the time of our first government issued photo ID the “mirror stage” has been fleshed out by layers of formative experience becoming a mask without which it is impossible to speak of self.
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| video entretien Ben Guest / Hamaza Walker , Renaissance Society, Chicago |
Ben Guest 1_Jennifer in her Rooftop Garden, 2006 /// 2_Peg, 2008 ///
courtesy Stephen Daiter Gallery
