Individuality - not for me!
04 February 2010
I recently discovered a piece of art I did when I was a kid. Whether I had intended it or not, it is probably the most profound statement I’ve ever made. Which gives me pause, considering that I seem to have wasted thirty years since then, not communicating very profound things at all.
The artwork looks like this: On one page in a notebook is a very typical kiddie line-drawing of a house - a big square with a triangle for a roof, one door, two square windows. From one window comes a speak-bubble and in the bubble are the words “I am an individual.” Fine. You might think, nothing particularly earth-shattering going on there, it’s just the first stirrings of creativity in a child; the awakening of the ‘I’ etc etc.
It’s the facing page that carries the weight. On it I had drawn first one miniature copy of the first house, then beside it another, exactly the same, then another and so on until the whole page was filled; giving the impression of a whole town. Now here’s the punch (you’ve probably guessed it) out of every window in every house came an identical speak bubble and in every speak bubble were the words ‘I am an individual’.
Could it be that at the age of ten I had grasped the essence of modern alienation? That we are each alone in our solitary boxes, all struggling to be different from all the others through consumer choices which nonetheless render us utterly identical; all screaming out of our windows for our lost individuality.
Or perhaps I’d just liked the image of the house and repeated it again and again because it was simple to draw, and I had no idea that I’d frighten myself half to death with this portentous image, found accidentally, thirty years hence.
Since this drawing turned up I’ve been plagued by adverts and images that sell the ideal of ‘individuality’. In a shopping mall I was accosted by a display for Illamasqua ‘Make-up for your alter ego’ – ‘Worn by those who refuse to be everybody.’ As I walked through the mall surrounded by people all wearing the identical textures and colours of this seasons fashion I couldn’t help but notice that all of the window displays had variations of the same message: ‘buy me and be different’. On the drive home I thought about how the old era of mass manufactured conformism, had been super-ceded by the even more powerful selling strategy of associating products with unique individuality; implying that shopping is an act of self-expression; the mass manufacturing of uniqueness - ‘Unleash your true self with our unique offer.’
Heading home and stuck at the lights before the turn off to the expressway a removal van passed me by, it’s slogan was ‘every move is individual’. My God, was even a lowly local removal company getting in on the act! How on earth could something as banal as transporting sofas be seen as an expression of one person’s unique subjectivity? And where was this removal van going but to a little house in a little street in which all neighbours were competing to buy furniture that unleashed their true identity and asserted their difference from everyone else. I got home, locked my door and as I stood in my window looking out over a street of houses the very mirror of my own I imagined a think bubble rising from my head and in it were the words ‘Thank God, I am not an individual’.
1 comment
Written by Rhys Thomas on 04 February 2010 at 16:28:00
It's the same with technology gadgets, especially apple products. It is funny how people think they can define themselves by their possessions. It's very strange. great blog!