Timothy Burke

ID
a final performance for
ORI 5930
April 26, 2005
We have become accustomed to giving away pieces of ourselves. With each
increasing year, governmental databases of our personal information grow due to
overarching federal programs (Rinaldi, 2005). From No Child Left Behind to federal
student loan programs, computers in Washington are storing the very elements that
comprise our beings.
With this increased recordkeeping comes a greater danger of identity theft. The
fastest-growing crime in America, identity theft cost U.S. businesses and citizens more
than $12 billion (Fehrenbach, 2005). Continuing efforts to deprive bankruptcy protection
from common citizens ensures a disasterous future for individuals unfortunate enough to
have credit and lives ruined by an identity thief.
Yet every day we willingly hand over our personal information to individuals we
assume have no malicious intentions. Furthermore, we place our concerns over its misuse
in the most unlikely of places. Singletary (2004) indicates 58 percent of individuals chose
to do holiday shopping offline due to identity theft concerns, even though e-commerce is
actually safer than shopping at a brick and mortar store (Lee, 2002).
The reasons behind this are pretty simple. Credit card information is ciphered at
the point of your input and deciphered at the e-commerce location, using a complex
encryption system developed over several decades. By contrast, handing your credit card
to a minimum-wage-earning Aeropostale clerk transfers that information to the individual
in the clear. Furthermore, the tactic of ensuring card ownership by leaving the card
unsigned and writing CHECK ID in the signature spot is being hindered by Visa and
Mastercard efforts to ban the practice.
Our very essence, though, is encapsulated in our visual presence. New
technologies allow for the storing of millions of photographs in an easily-accessible
database, with the argument that it streamlines the process for producing duplicate or
replacement badges, licenses, or IDs. The increasingly wired (or wireless) nature of
connectivity only extends access of our images to any enterprising individual who has the
drive to acquire them.
Through a live performative process of photomanipulation, we are forced to
confront the dangers of the status quo of digital image retention. By the juxtaposition of
our essence into situations uncommon or horrifying, the attempt to evoke fear is enacted.
Further attention is drafted by the humorous nature of the performance while maintaining
a serious edge.
Neiman & Do (1999) explain that the performative nature of a digital photograph
can only be unlocked through its (in turn) digital manipulation (p. 6). They explain the
relationship between analogue photography and digital photography and the natural
attraction to manipulate digital photography due to the common availability of
photomanipulation software (p. 7).
Soules (2002) takes this concept a bit further. First off, he draws on Brenda
Laurels (1992) efforts to establish the computer as a performance space. Laurels
conviction is that direct manipulation of representative objects is not as involving as
direct engagement in an activity of choice. Thus, the presence of an audience in the
performance space is a necessity for the performative nature of image manipulation to
emerge. This audience can be live or mediated (as in the example of photo manipulation
contests on somethingawful.com, fark.com, and worth1000.com).
Soules continues to explain that improvisation in manipulation of visual and
verbal texts is a telling sign of the performative nature of computer use in general. He
points specifically at repetitive events in improvisation and how the nature of image
manipulation in Adobe Photoshop mirrors this characteristic (p. 322).
Finally, we need to look at how identity is shaped visually. Goshen-Gottstein and
Ganel (2000) draw upon ideas established by Butler (1998) when they conclude that
specific visual aspects of a digital photograph determine both an audiences judgment
upon the individuals identity and an individuals personal identity in reaction to seeing
their portrait. Many individuals will take hundreds of self-portraits before finding one
that they conclude represents their essence. Goshen-Gottstein and Ganel indicate
specific aspects that lead to determination of age and sex factors in a photograph, one
explored in the content of the performance.

References
Butler, Judith (1998). Selections from Bodies that matter. Body and Flesh: A
Philosophical Reader ( Ed. Donn Welton). Malden: Blackwell.
Fehrenbach, T. (2005, April 24). When it comes to fraud, our numbers are up. San
Antonio Express-News, 3H.
Goshen-Gottstein, Y., & Ganel, T. (2000). Repetition priming for familiar and unfamiliar
faces in a sex-judgment task. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 26,
1198- 1214.
Laurel, B. (1992). Computers as Theatre. Addison & Wesley, New York.
Lee, P. (2002). Behavioral model of online purchasers in E-Commerce environment.
Electronic Commerce Research, 2, 75-85.
Neiman, B., & Do, E. (1999). Digital media and the language of vision. In Media and
Design Process: the proceedings of ACADIA (1999, October 29-31), Snowbird,
UT.
Rinaldi, J. (2005, April 25). Info database could cause identity theft. The News Record
(Cincinnati, OH), A1.
Singletary, M. (2004, December 16). During the holiday shopping season, beware of
identity theft. Washington Post, E03.
Soules, M. (2002). Animating the language machine: Computers and performance.
Computers and the Humanities, 36, 319 - 344