Written for The Paris College of Art’s 72 Assignments: The Foundation Course in Art and Design Today.
The self-portrait is a quintessential assignment to the foundational arts course. Creating a self-portrait lets us consider our own personhood and represent this externally to our own self. By expanding upon the idea of what constitutes a self-portrait, we can begin to reconsider the boundaries of our own “self” and how it exists within the world.
The assignment asks us to negotiate several realms of existence: our material existence, which is how it feels to move through the sensorial world; our virtual experience, which is how it feels to move through an online world; and our lived-in existence, which how it feels to live within our body.
When we identify a thing as being similar to ourselves, we can transform it into a self-portrait merely by observing it as such.
Materials & Equipment
– A place to walk
– An internet connection
Instructions
1. Go for a walk and find a thing that is your dopplegänger
2. Go online and find a thing that is your dopplegänger
3. Imagine having a conversation with both of these dopplegängers
Maia Murphy 