203413 is a work exploring personal identities and how they can often be described by numbers, in this case, my student number.
In the same way that house and street names are no longer necessary, having been replaced by post codes, so also peoples names have sometimes become a secondary means of identity.
It’s no co incidence that ‘being a number’ has triumphed over using names, as computer convenience and reliability has crept into all our of our lives. Robots actions are determined by numbers. Our actions are often recorded by numbers Personal Identification Numbers, or ‘PIN’ number has become integral to all our financial transactions.
In the U.S. this includes buying in a store, even with cash, when a personal ID is required as essential, usually a Social Security number.
One of the earliest numbers applied to most of us, is our birth weight. “She’s had a bouncing seven, eight, nine or ten pound baby…” Following that weight description, may come the name, if decided at that early stage! Birth registration is the first legal obligation and the certificate bears a number. Our NHS registration has a number, our Social Security registration, our house has a number and if we apply for any licences, permissions or authorizations in our lifetime, or make applications, they too have numbers.
I am not complaining, numbers make perfect sense.
Instead, I am amused and intrigued at how we don’t use numbers in relating to each other, however, In any situation where we are managed, they seem essential. So says ‘203413’. I have sometimes been told by unco-operative receptionists “I can’t find you without your number”.
I am left only to offer the stark suggestion, ‘try searching my name.’
The often forgotten O’Connor apostrophe creates its own special little challenge to computers.
My work here is developed following an idea triggered by the work of artist Cindy Sherman.
This ‘number identity’ notion I am presenting as the ‘identity’ project, along with the other project topic, ‘books’.
See reverse of work sheets for tutorial direction.
I have made two books, both bound in buffalo hide, selected in Sri Lanka for its wonderful pink, thick skin-like, appearance. Both books are linked together and decorated with steel bolts, apparently preventing opening. They are also closed by a leather thong.
I love the symmetry of reef knots and the soft tactile sensation of leather thongs, neither undoes.
‘Being read like a book’ is a popular claim on identity and one to enjoy resisting.
However, all is not what it might at first seem.
One book, the male one,opens – the female, does not.
I have a female side to my identity and may well go on to explore that in a later work. Only a small coloured stone on the cover denotes gender in each book.
Both books are easily separated from each other, using a cunningly designed Italian key ring, bought because I liked it as a curio, though never used. The books’ paper is hand made from elephant dung, from an elephant orphanage in SL.
There is a silver coloured sixteenth century pentacle on each books’ back cover, to ward off demons. Essential for healthy living.
Photographs are of me, twisting my identity.
Captions relate to numbers my identity has been associated with.
The inside front cover represents being born and ones’ identity forming from a swirling infinite space, void of time.
