Sherman’s work is deeply profound with an amalgamation of research styles, emulating a cinematic aesthetic. Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (fig. 1 and 2) offer ideas of self, persona and performance, Sherman’s performance in her stills builds a fictitious narrative built upon ideas of charism and disconnected reality which separates the regular bystander from the pedestal which society bestows on the celebrity realm. ‘When an individual plays a part he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see actually possesses the attributes he appears to possess […]’ (Goffman:1956, pp.10)Sherman’s development of character through the embedding of current ideologies of cinema and popular culture transcend her images to a documentation of identity without commentary on her ‘self’, merely presenting a character for the audience to consider as true.
Sherman’s work epitomises Ulmer’s idea of mystory, ‘Mystory is a genre that addresses questions about identity and ideology using their material embodiments within the culture and life of the researcher’ (Mauer, 2005:94) The cinematic approach Sherman adopts within this series, reflecting upon ideological changes within selfhood. With the evolution of cinema, creating characters with ideas of self and actors displaying self-aware characters which are completely fictionalised, Sherman begins to explore these avenues. These ideas of self, in westernised cultures, ‘encourage individuals to define themselves as bounded, unitary entities, complete unto themselves, and clearly separable from others’ (Reese, et al, 2019:16) thus through concepts of cinema Sherman echoes multiple unitary identities based on these westernised ideologies to explore themes of persona, performance and self, arguably creating controversy as these self-portraits convey the traditional value of self-portraiture whilst revealing nothing about her identity.
Considering this in relation to my own project, I am exploring themes of performance and presentation of self, whilst collaborating with those around me. I want to reveal these personas and characters in which people play in different situation which mask the true ‘self’. Sherman is a large influence to me and I want to display these characters in a way which reveals little about the self when in performance but when accompanied by video highlights the division of character.
Fig. 1, Cindy Sherman, “Untitled Film Still #16” (1978)
Fig. 2- Cindy Sherman, “Untitled Film Still #13” (1978)
Bibliography:
Goffman, E., 1956. The presentation of self in everyday life.
Mauer, B., 2022. The Epistemology of Cindy Sherman: A Research Method for Media and Cultural Studies. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, [online] 38(1), pp.93-113. Available at: <https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030370?sid=primo&saml_data=eyJzYW1sVG9rZW4iOiJhYmMzMjA2ZS1lNTIxLTQ5ZjQtOWI3ZC01NTUyNTRmZTYwNWQiLCJpbnN0aXR1dGlvbklkcyI6WyI1ZjQyMzY1YS1hMTEyLTQ0ZjEtOTk0My0wMmVhNGRmYjFjMDkiXX0&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents> [Accessed 16 October 2022].
Mauer, B., 2013. The Mystory: The Garage D'Or of Ereignis. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, (26), p.175.
Meagher, M., 2002. Would the Real Cindy Sherman Please Stand Up? Encounters between Cindy Sherman and Feminist Art Theory. Women: A Cultural Review, [online] 13(1), pp.18-36. Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09574040210122968>.
Reese, G., et al, 2019. The psychology of globalization. Academic Press, pp.15-38.
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