Portraiture Technology

Our first unit for the year is going to be a shared class between art and technology. We are going to make self portraits of us using digital pictures that we have edited, and then paint them using various materials that represent us.

This is a project all 10th graders do in their time and I was really impressed by the ones of the past years. This unit is one of self discovery, where I can learn more about myself, my personality and what I can achieve. Besides teaching us photo editing and painting skills, this project allows each one of us to know a little bit more about what makes us an individual. No two self portraits can be the same, because no two individuals are the same.

I remember something that happened to me when I was little - there was an interactive exhibition at a museum on how we are all different, and one of the activities was to enter information about yourself such as hair color, eye color, shade of skin, wheter or not you can roll your tongue...the computer would then compare your results to that of the last 100 people and tell you how many people also had brown hair, blue eyes, etc. until it proved you that out of the last 100, you were unique. I really liked this experiment and just for fun, I entered the exact same information about myself twice in a row. The computer still told me that I was unique. I was a little bit depressed and remained skeptical about my "uniqueness" for a while.

This episode is one that helped me realize the importance of self discovery. Even if there had been another girl who had the exact same hair color, the exact same eyes and who could also roll her tongue, she wouldn't have been me. She wouldn't have lived through the same things and she wouldn't be the person I am - it is just not possible for two people to be exactly the same. Learning about yourself is an important thing because it allows you to learn about your own strengths and flaws. When you learn more about who you are, you can improve yourself and explore new ways of thinking. Knowing who you are is also great for your self confidence.

Society in general can benefit from your own knowledge of yourself. If we never took the time to learn a little more about what we can accomplish and what we want to do, we would all be copies of each other. If people such as Thomas Edison hadn't known they were determined and they could do anything they set their mind to, we would still be living without light bulbs! Overall, this project allows us to know more about our identity, and that is knowledge that will last our entire life.

Relating to the areas of interaction, this project is in my opinion most relevant to Human Ingenuity and Health and Social Education. Social Education isn’t only about communicating with others, but also about how you think and act. It’s difficult understanding others if you don’t know who you are yourself. This project helps us learn more about the image we have of ourselves, and communicate that image that others. This project is also linked to Human Ingenuity because of the way we create our portrait and express ourselves through mixed media. Acrylic paint shows less about yourself than carefully chosen materials that all have some meaning for you. Finally, this project is linked to Human Ingenuity because you don’t see very many monkeys going on journeys of self discovery. The idea we are unique is inherent to mankind and is one of the reasons we have gone so far.

The guiding questions while researching my project will be those:
· What are some of the different ways I could present my portrait?
· What materials would be suitable for my self portrait?
· How can I best show my personality and interests in one image?
· How can I make sure this project really represents me?
· In which ways can I use technology to make art?