Reflective Portraits
By
Chris S. Johnson
The project began with a conversation while sitting on a bench in downtown San Diego. I was watching people with an intensity. As they walked by, I questioned myself, "Why do people watch people?" I started to think about the question and the underlying premise for the obsession. Is it because we're voyeuristic, do we compare ourselves to other people and does it make us feel part of a community? Is it because by watching another we are able to live a different life, or is it simply our creative side making up stories about other people's lives? As I thought about these questions, I began to wonder if something lies beneath what often appears to be an instinct of the average person.
A lot of us enjoy watching people. Each person is in contact with people everyday through phones, TV, at work, play, in the store, or at home. People may look at what someone else looks like, how they dress, how they behave, how they communicate (both verbal and non-verbal) and it's fun! We watch people in bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. We watch people on the Internet, in the ads section and in the cafe. Are we looking for something? Are we looking at new styles of clothing, hair, accessories, makeup or body shape? Do we sometimes just browse to find something that catches our attention?
The project developed by posing the basic question, "Why do we watch people?" or "Why do you watch someone?" to other people. Over the next few days, weeks and months, I asked my friends, family and acquaintances. They gave me varying answers. Some of the answers included these ideas: I watch people to see differences, to find the extraordinary among the crowd and to compare myself to others. Some people watch a person to see if they’re NOT being watched, paranoia, or to see if they themselves are doing something that isn’t appropriate for the situation.
Obviously, on the surface there are many different reasons why we watch people. And as this project evolved, I found that I wanted the viewer to become self-reflective. I thought that the project should engage the viewer. The viewer must be able to see images, but also interact with the artwork. Could an artwork that was to be created cause the viewer to wonder at those same questions I pondered? To do that the project would need to inspire the viewer to look internally, question who they are and what they believe. That was when I knew it must be an interactive installation. Its images and technology integrate together to give the viewer an experience. We've all come from different backgrounds - familial, cultural, and each of us has different life experiences. Therefore, we're all different and we all perceive people differently. We all have preconceptions and prejudices. We assume a lot of things just by watching and processing what we see. Yet, how completely do we watch and process? If we are looking for beauty, do we look internally or externally? Does everyone perceive beauty the same? Most of us agree that each person has his or her own interpretation of beauty.
And so, this work is about our obsession with watching others and the viewer's experience. It is a mental and physical process of our own creation. As a viewer experiences the installation, they bring thousands of experiences and thoughts to it. Their mood at the current moment influences their experience, and thus affects their perception of the installation. The installation is to be experienced and the experience must come from within the viewer. It's not about the artwork, but the viewer's experience. As a viewer walks into a gallery, they become an active participant in the artwork, instead of a passive viewer. This allows the viewer to construct personal meaning of the artwork based on their experience. In this way, the installation, generative art, is an endeavor to deconstruct traditional art.
As approach the grid you see nearly one hundred and fifty tiny portraits painted on wood. The portraits are painted in acrylic and are three by three inches. They are straightforward headshots of people. Some of the people are famous, some are friends, and still others are from newspapers. A touch screen is strategically placed within this grid. The screen poses questions (in either English or Spanish) about the user and then asks ten simple "Yes" or "No" questions. The questions are from a database of one hundred or more questions. The questions attempt to stimulate the viewer to think about themselves. Some of the questions look at various aspects of life/death, and others concern philosophical contemplations. Once the user completes the questions, a printout emerges from beneath the installation. This printout will have a number, an explanation of the project and a photo of another viewer whose responses were closest to that of the user. But this would not be the conclusion of their interaction. Hopefully, the user could then seek out their match and converse with them about their answers and reasoning. This would further connect the viewer with their community. The possibility is there for the viewers to send an anonymous email to each other through a website?
Within every artwork there's more going on under the surface than we realize. Lee Krasner said, "The key is what is within the artist. The artist can only paint what she or he is about." The same is true for the viewer. The viewer can see only what is within them. By looking within, the viewer removes boundaries previously encountered.
Several quotes support the installation's intent:
Micheal Foucault described in "The Subject and Power", a type of struggle "against that which ties the individual to himself and submits him to others in this way (struggles against subjection, against forms of subjectivity and submission)."
Emmanuel Kant asked, "What are we?" while the Cartesian questioned, "Who am I?"
Therefore, we watch people because we are curious to find out who we are, and by watching people we see a reflection of ourselves. People become aware of themselves and their observations when they ask themselves, "Why do I like to look at people?" The viewers of this installation step outside their usual way of thinking, and the end result is best said by E. E. Cummings, "The eyes of my eyes are opened."
Chris S. Johnson
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