Me, Myself and I
Thornquist, Clemens Ed. 2008
Over the past decade the dominant impersonal and blasé expression in fashion photography has been challenged by the search for an increased personalization. This search, which can been seen as a strive for reinventing the very personal instead of the prevailing static conception of identity has often been accused of legitimising pornography, addiction, abuse and in the end »pornofication« of global culture. Whilst, among dominant fashion houses and fashion brands this pornofication has been translated into the usual impersonal and universal expression, the more marginal avant-garde creators have been campaigning with the personalization of photography and thereby found themselves in the hotspot of critique. This has left fashion photography in a somewhat stagnated situation between on one hand personalisation through an intimate, abused kind of pornofication and on the other hand impersonalization through a distanced and corrected expression of the same. Fashion shoot of Me, myself and I attempts to challenge this stagnation of fashion photography by emphasising two specific aspects. Firstly, the photography is a result from ’within’ the search for form [process of creation] instead of being a edit[ation] of a form that is already concluded. Secondly, the photography is not so much an interpretation of something as it is the direct action of the author herself creating form through her own picture-taking. Thus, in their form these photos are as much day-to-day as they are enduring, since they are about chance and agility, and not an awaiting for a certain moment or place.
The project is here exemplified by the work of design students from three different fashion design institutes – Bunka Fashion College, Tokyo, Japan, Fachhochschule Hannover, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hannover, Germany and The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Sweden. The pictures have been created as part of an experimental design process with the only instruction: »picture yourself using any kind of digital camera.There is only rule: you have to hold the camera yourself«.