Amelia’s Magazine | This ‘Me’ of Mine Symposium, Identity in the Digital Age

Category: Earth

Experience 2013_Shireen Qureshi_This Me of Mine symposium
Experience by Shireen Qureshi.

This ‘Me’ of Mine Symposium will be addressing Identity in the Digital Age, with a roundtable discussion on contemporary identity that explores the link between the Freudian ‘death drive’ in digital mass archiving activity (think blogging and facebook) and the same Freudian ‘death drive’ related to narcissism which is on the rise with social media use. Plus there is lots more on the agenda. It is postulated that linear ‘historical’ thinking is under siege from a new reality of portals, immediacy and multiplicity. “The function, meaning and significance of identity, memory and objects are changing at such a rapid pace, it will be good to actually sit down and discuss these things,” says artist Jane Boyer, curator for This ‘Me’ of Mine and symposium moderator. “Objects have always been an important way to communicate concepts and represent ideas, but now the boundary is blurred between the self and the object; objects have taken on an identity and we begin to see ourselves as objects.”

Sounds like a fascinating discussion at a time when we are increasingly living through our social media selves.

Panellists: Dr. David Houston Jones – Director of Visual Culture at the University of Exeter, Annabel Dover – Artist and PhD candidate at Wimbledon College of Art, Dr. Aiden Gregg – Social Psychologist, member of Centre for Research on Self and Identity and Lecturer at the University of Southampton, and Dr. Catherine Horan – Lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at University Campus Suffolk.

The symposium will be held at the Ipswich Art School Gallery and tickets are available for £16.55 available through eventbrite.
This ‘Me’ of Mine blogsite: www.thismeofmine.wordpress.com
This ‘Me’ of Mine exhibition on view now at Ipswich Art School Gallery, Tue – Sun, 10 to 5pm, until 5th January 2014.