Do you look like me?: Do you look like me?

Project Statement

I am interested in the ubiquitous presence of photography in our visual culture and its role in the authentication of identity: from I.D. cards to family snapshots, photography serves as a means of proving our existence. It is a slippery medium that easily shifts from an accurate documentation of a moment in time to a subjective construction of reality. I am concerned with the normative uses of photography and the ways in which we are culturally conditioned to perform in front of the camera depending on the agenda of the image. My inspiration and source material are vernacular and mediated images. Re-contextualizing and re-creating these images allows for transformation and reassessment of the viewer's expectation of the image.
Do you look like me? investigates the relationship between visual resemblance and identity. In this project, I am attempting to create an archive of my visual doppelgangers – an extended self-portrait. I solicit the cooperation of people who think they look like me, or know people who they think look like me, and will allow me to photograph them. I use the convention of identification photography as the aesthetic parameter for the images – closely framed, expressionless head shots against neutral backgrounds. By accumulating a collection of visually similar portraits I hope to pose the questions: what does it mean to resemble another person and what repercussions does this have on the validity of the identification system?

Do you look like me?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Do you look like me?

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