Creative Position

Self- and other image

When we talk about a person's self-image and the other image, photography is merely a metaphor. A person is neither their self-image nor their other image. We perceive it as impersonal, when a person appears to act according to their self- or other image. As personal, we perceive, what we experience together.

Presence

Interacting^[5] with the photograph on this page illustrates these concepts. When a person, in their action, is aware of either their self- or other image, they lose some of their presence. Visually, these two images are different, and it is irrelevant which of the two occupies more of their thinking. A person is perceived as present when their self- and other image are the same — the images disappear from their thinking; they are present.

Personality and sociality

The term personality here abbreviates ›personal identity‹. It describes what makes a person unique: personality is revealed in how self- and other image resolve.

Similarly, sociality abbreviates for ›social identity›. For example, an individual's sociality is recorded in their passport. This passport records the individual they are when they participate in social life.

Creative work

A person can take their personality as subject of their creative work – depending on the social conditions they live under. Because and if their creative work challenges their sociality, nothing should be included in their passport, that sets limits on this.

Some constitutions grant citizens the right to protection of their ›bodily integrity‹. This right includes protection from violence and injury. The counterpart is the right to be creative with oneself.

Thinking one's self

Olaf Langmack:

»It is self-evident that artists do not label their work as artworks. They are not credible in doing so because they lack sufficient distance from their works. In the case of personality as work, it would be doubly ridiculous^[4] to call oneself an artist of one's self. One can consider it a work – not an artwork.«

»I want to exploit the richness of presence. So I follow the idea that everything that comes from thought exists.^[6] How could that exclude my body?«