How might societal perceptions of art practise in the 21st century afford greater agency for establishing new understandings of the ‘self’?
This essay explores the way the self can be in a physical space using the idea of a bedroom to represent a boundary between alienation and transformation. The domination of expectations that don’t allow for unconcealment, is shown alongside a short film. Using the Allegory of the Cave as a framework, where the shadows represent external expectations and Goffman’s Dramaturgical theory, I’ll be highlighting the effects on how to nurture the ‘self’ and how contemporary art practises can foster and create these backstage spaces in the public eye. The writing goes through four chapters, representing the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism, with this idea of suffering being linked to a repressed idea of ‘self’. Throughout the essay the focus is clarifying and physicalising an effect which is not visual, by using researchers like Zimbardo (1971) who highlighted the effects of social roles and importance of uniform in solidifying them, and Pollock’s (1995) research on masks and masking, its contradictions but primary form of transforming individuals.
By using philosophy, sociology and psychology I aimed to create an understanding before elaborating in Chapter 4: Magga, where it was highlighted how Performance and Art Therapy as an emerging practise both changed social perceptions of art practise and it’s implications for uncovering the ‘self’.