identity week 6

identity week 6 25/05

LAURENS STUDIO 17 LOTTE VAN HULST

I consume therefore I am

According to Slater (1997: Ch. 1), consumption requires economic exchange as well as selfidentification. The product serves this identity but only when it becomes a commodity after consumption. Before this transformation the product is futile in serving identity because of the necessarily impersonaloutput of mass production, which thrives best in a capitalist system. The only thing standing between the inhabitant of a capitalist society and a new identity is financial capital (Julier, 2013). If identity is reduced to something that has to be acquired, I wonder what value or meaning identity has anymore.

The overwhelming influence of capitalism that seeps into all facets of contemporary society is something that occupies my thoughts. What is left of identity and is it possible to become a designer that does not simply feed capitalism and all that it affects? In a lecture Slavoj Zizek talks about identity being non-existent (Zizek, 2020). He calls identity a mere illusion that is subject to difference within its context. A characteristic or attributed identity only exists in its relation to others. This is, I think, exactly the phenomenon that capitalism exploits.

Consumer sovereignty does not result in identity sovereignty. There is a certain freedom in consumption but we are governed by identities linked to possible commodities that one can acquire. In capitalism, identities, like having culture capital, are constructed by what one has or by what distinguishes one from the common. I consume, therefore I am. In order for products to be related to a hierarchal position of status or concept of identity, people need to receive incentives regarding this classification (Scott Dawson and Jill Cavell, 1987). This happens through advertising, internet browsing, word of mouth, etc. Even if individuals are free to invest capital in something we want, capitalism exploits the illusion of identity through marketing and thereby takes away agency in consumption. We are bound to the dictatorship of self-interest. The photography from Exactitudes(2014) shows how through acquirement of goods, identities are constructed on the basis of difference in relation to other categories on the other pages of the book.

What is left of identity? If identity is fundamentally contingent to financial capital, what does this imply? Is identity based on the differences in combination of interests, aspirations or a fact of differences in privilege.

Artefacts reflecting identity

Tote bags are a good example when it comes to identity confirmation in design. They are readily available and affordable. This makes them a clean slate on which identities can be constructed and publicly expressed by showing what brand, design, theme or words you associate yourself with on a bag. The Dille & Kamille tote bag for instance, might demonstrate the environmentally conscious consumption that this person would like to associate with or that they have more money to spend. In its turn this also shows how easily identities can be ascribed rather than achieved.

An interesting example of the abuse of this concept of identity is how countries or nations position themselves between eachother.

An example of this exploitation of the concept of identity is the pinkwashing that is going on in Israel. Being pro-queer is seen as a leftist, progressive attribute. This is an identity that is popular in the west at the moment. Israel exploits this position by trying to hide its humanitarian crimes behind an identity that they are fully aware of legitimises their position. Or recently, when they signed the deal with Egypt and the European Union to provide the EU with gas as an alternative to Russian gas. The identity of Russia has lost its legitimacy because of invading the Ukraine. The Ukranian people are people that Western (European) people can relate to because they look similar and lived in similar ways. Because there is a lack of differences, the Ukrainian people could never be The Other (undoubtedly this also has to do with the ‘identity’ of Russia as stereotypised by the West through history). Palestinians, considering them being stereotyped as the Islamic other, do not stand a chance in attaining a legitimised identity and therefore are at the bottom of social hierarchy. Dávila (2012) explains this in the following way.

‘ What makes stereotypes so troublesome is not that they order and simplify information by reducing complexities to a few limited conventions, but that in doing so, they both reflect and, more important, engender social hierarchies.’

(Dávila, 2012)

Agency follows identity. You could say that identity is complex, but the elephant in the room is racism.