"An alter-ego (Latin "the other I") is a second self, a second personality or persona within a person, who is often oblivious to the persona's actions. It was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists. A person with an alter-ego is said to lead a double life.
A distinct meaning for alter-ego can be found in literary analysis, wherein it describes characters in different works who are psychologically similar, or a fictional character whose behavior, speech or thoughts intentionally represent those of the author. Similarly, alter-ego can be applied to the role or persona taken on by an actor or by other types of performers.
Alter-ego is also used to refer to the different behaviors any person may display in various situations. Related concepts include avatar, doppelgänger, impersonator, and split personality."
From Wikipedia.org
How to create an alter ego:
Newspapers, 9 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.
In this article, author Joanna Pitman discusses the use of alter egos from artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray.
“Long before a man in dress landed the Turner Prize, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray adopted transvestite alter egos to push the art world’s boundaries.”
“[Francis] Naumann doesn’t believe “that the alter ego was intended purely as a joke – rather, it was a serious attempt, on Duchamp’s part, to expand the possibilities of what constituted a work of art, as he had so ingeniously done a few years earlier with his introduction of the readymade.””
Rosenburg, Karen. "Mercurial Jester, Revealing and Concealing." The New York
Times. The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.
This article discusses how Man Ray came to be and how he was influenced and inspired.
“He chose art, changed his name and never looked back.”
““Alias Man Ray” makes you wonder how much control artists are allowed to exert over their biographies. If you believe that the shift to Man Ray from Emmanuel Radnitzky is itself a work of art, like Duchamp’s alter ego Rrose Sélavy, this show begins to look like an act of sabotage.
Yet we benefit from it. This show doesn’t challenge the long-held view that photography was Man Ray’s most enduring contribution to modernism. But it does change our picture of the artist. Duchamp was supposed to be the elusive one, but here it is Man Ray who slips among cities and mediums and personas — and, finally, out of Duchamp’s shadow.”
I became interested in the idea of an alter ego after Zoe Beloff's lecture, and her completely made up society and characters. She has the ability to talk about it in such a way that it is incredibly convincing and backs all of her information up with drawings, film clips, ideas, etc. In relation to my work, the idea of an alter ego brings me back to the photographs I did of recreating Judy, my uncle's lover. I feel like the images I have already created need the support of the original photograph to make sense, so I have considered removing information by using a minimal backdrop and staging scenes. Possibly as Judy, possibly as other family characters. The information doesn't have to necessarily correct, it can be whatever I want it to be.
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