Pimp my Life

Dr. Anna Akbari came into class last week and talk to use about identities. How one goes about creating an identity for themselves and how this identity is who they are. What I understood from her presentation was that all identity was created by using different masks and only exposing parts of ourselves to people, therefore pushing them to believe that you are a certain way.

This idea of masks make us reconsider authenticity and so you appear to be this person, when you really might not be. She gave the example of the theater which she use to be involved in. The audience is society and you are putting on this act for them but, in a play what the audience sees is authentic to them.

The costumes in a play give life to different parts of you. Easily put when I go out I like to dress up sometimes but that's not me all the time, its only a small part of my identity. So you kind of achieve new persona's by dressing up differently.

As an experiment Dr. Akbari dressed up as different people: a tourist, a beggar, a prostitute, a Muslim... etc. and she found that as she dressed in these different costumes others perceived her differently. So what you dress like and how you act is a big part of identity.

You can make more of yourself by acting the part of someone else. She talked about how all different areas of ones life create the person we currently are, but it's so much more than that because everyone has a creative self, so we can create different persona's of ourselves.