A STAGED CONFESSION 01
"Actually, the essence of confession is impossibility. no one can show a true face. Yet, a mask penetrating into a skin can confess."
"Life is a stage"
Mishima, Y. (1949: 101)
This project is inspired by a novel Confession of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. People are always wearing their favourite mask, which they like, and they are also conscious of audiences’ eyes. From ancient times, people have created a personal mask, which is usually called a personal image, through a variety of methods, such as wearing clothes and doing make-up. In contemporary society, new media, the Internet and networking services, constantly provides a majority of images. Those images influence culture and society (Sang, 2012). The images are rapidly constructed, and that their influence can last for an extended period of time.
Contemporary media society is in the middle of voyeurism and exhibitionism. Individuals easily provide-like confessing-their information to unspecified audiences by social network, and the audiences can simply watch it. Therefore, it is easier and quicker to improve individuals’ public image through their confession on social networking service. As this confession can be one of the important elements to define oneself, people sometimes create and stage their confession on social network service (SNS) in order to present themselves better.
There are some major significances of the contemporary confession on the social network services that I called ‘a staged confession’. First, this staged confession is the easy and confortable opportunity for self-satisfaction and self-healing in the online space with anonymity. Second, it is possible to effectively represent oneself in order to establish one’s better identity. The staged confession through SNS provides help to define the personal specific image that someone would like to create from audiences.
Part 1. PAPER PROJECT I
"A piece of paper is useful as a metaphor for language itself.”
"paper provides for my self-invention, my self-disclosure, and my self-erasure."
Sansom (2013: 17, 22)
The confession is one of the methods for self-disclosure in contemporary society. I considered that paper can be a suitable metaphor for the staged confession.
Art Director and Make-up/Hair Artist: JIYEON KIM
Photographer: WANGGUK JOE
Stylist: SOOJIN PARK
Model: PHILIPPA @ Established Models
Assistant for Make-up and Hair: JIEUN CHOI
All Paper Headpieces and Artworks by JIYEON KIM
- Mishima, Y. (1949) Confession of a Mask. Translated by Wetherby , M., 2007. London: Peter Owen Publishers.
- Sang, Y. (2012) Analysis of The Royal Class Fashion Style and Design Development. Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press.
- Sansom, I. (2013) Paper: An Elegy. London: Fourth Estate.