Jimi Hendrix from Ghost in the Machine series by iri5

This is just one of a series of celebrity portraits created by artist iri5 out of old cassette tapes and film. She explains the thinking behind the series, called Ghost in the Machine, thusly:

In this series I showcase a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassette. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels. The idea comes from a philosopher’s (Ryle) description of how your spirit lives in your body. I imagine we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging. : )

I love this idea, and it got me thinking – what material would I use to create a portrait of myself? Discarded old keyboards, to signify the writing I create on my computer? If so – why not shiny new keyboards? – so much more optimistic; but, I realize, not in the spirit of re-use, recycle. Seashells speak to me more, but they aren’t directly representative of my external life. Hm, maybe that’s the trick: iri5′s portraits capture the artists’ more surface, public personas – hence the “awkwardness” she references, ie, the awkwardness of only representing part of ourselves to the world.

Ergo: keyboards are the best material for my external portrait, and seashells, for a portrait of the “real” me, inside. For a blended perspective: a keyboard-seashell hybrid creation. (Somehow, that makes me think of Frankenstein…)

What material (object) would you use to create a portrait of your public self? How about your private self?

Related Post: What are your “personal artifacts“?

Tagged as: artistic_process, identity