Week 7 Reading - In the Making: Relating to the Audience - Eliciting Secrets - Gillian Wearing (pp. 110 - 118)

Gillian's work seems both incriminating in some ways, and empowering to her subjects.  On the one hand, in the video confessions for which she posted an advert, she assured participants that their identity would be obscured, which implies that their confessions would be incriminating if they were blatantly themselves.  On the other hand, in that particular piece, she invited those who were interesting in participating rather than actively recruiting people and encouraging them to participate.  In her sign series, she approaches people in public spaces and asks them to write down thoughts. It's not clear from the essay whether these people were then obligated to participate or if she would leave them alone if they declined.  It also is not clear whether she specifically told them to write confessions, or if they really could write anything they were thinking (which is how it sounds), in which case their message need not be incriminating at all.  Subjects could use this platform to communicate something completely inconsequential, but it also provided an opportunity to those who really had something to say, something bearing on them, something to protest, to get their message across.
I felt particularly attached to Wearing's statement on page 113:

Firstly they would have to agree, and on top of that they would have to think they say something that they felt.  For me this worked so much better because, when they retuned with something they had written, it challenged my own perception of them.  We all start making up our minds when we see someone; we all get ideas based on how people look, even though we know these ideas can be knocked out of us as soon as we get close to them or start talking to them.

This was particularly interesting to me because, as you might guess, this idea of how much information you can get about someone from visual cues like style of clothing, hair, posture, expression, and setting, without talking to them or getting to know them, has really been fascinating me lately.  Of course, my interpretation of this idea has been superficial; Wearing seeks specifically to undermine this opinion or perception we have of people based on these indicators.  She's particularly interested in the contrast between how a person looks and our initial perception of them and how they feel or what their inner thoughts are, the ones they try to hide outwardly.  The kinds of things they're confessing are the kinds of things that wouldn't be part of the open ended story the viewer provides when looking at an image of this person and trying to decide who they are.  On the other hand, the loose stories behind my painted ladies are driven precisely by this outward appearance, and are meant to reflect their inner stories as well.
The 2 into 1 video project really intrigued me, it just sounded so interesting and I had trouble wrapping my head around what it would be like.  I looked it up on youtube and it's just weird.  I think, though, that in a way this project is also both incriminating and empowering to its subjects.  In order to lip synch the narration so that Wearing could switch the audio on the two tracks, both groups had to be aware of what the other person was saying about the other.  I feel like perhaps, after the filming of this project, each party might be more aware of what they do that frustrates the other party, or what they do that the other party appreciates.  If I were involved in this project, I would have had a roller coaster ride in terms of self esteem.  I am surprised that for the most part, Wearing's subjects (at least those who are in the book and video) appear fairly emotionless.  I think had I had to record the audio track for someone saying nice things about me, I would be happy and embarrassed, and it would show on my face.  Similarly, if someone were criticising me in this way, I would feel embarrassed, in a bad way, sad, angry, disappointed, and might even have difficulty getting through the recording because I'd want to rebut all the negative points they had made.