Fisher's "Circle": The Performance of the 'Modal-Identity' in an Augmented Reality Theatre

Caitlin Fisher's augmented reality story "Circle" literally balances three generations of women, including the lives of a grandmother, mother, and daughter. The work consists of a steady, yet shaky, interplay of images and voices, which echo memories and connections between the women in the family and also depicts a window, or a mirror, into their identities via the layering effect, in Fisher’s digital text. In this poetic piece, the lives of these women are verbally and visually written into the heirlooms presented to the voyeuristic reader, engaging and vicariously controlling ideas related to the identities of these women via the domestic artifacts displayed on the stage (and screen). Closely relating to Nakamura’s idea of the misconception of choice in cyberspace as she explicates in her own scholarly article, "Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet,”  Fisher’s “Circle” also exposes and exploits the idea of a ‘vicious circle’ of stereotyping the domestic identity of women.

While unable to read the work up close and center, however, the reader is still able to interpret a myriad of ideas regarding the format, and even the content, as it is presented and performed within the work, by merely watching the short-documentary included above. The navigator of the work is none other than the creator herself (i.e. Fisher), who is demonstrating both how to use her work and showing her audience a 'behind-the-scene' glimpse into the personal world of these women via the multi-modal elements of sound and the various types of images scattered throughout the remediated version of a family photo album, reflecting the representation and shaping of these identities in various ways.

For example, the layering of multi-modal elements, such as sound, asserts the authenticity of the memories and the relationships of the women. In this way, Fisher’s voice in the background intensifies the interconnections of their lives, and therefore their identities, which inversely advocates the idea of how their identities not only intersect, but are copies of one another from generation to generation. In certain parts of Fisher’s presentation of the work, the sound of her voice fades, overlaps, becomes clear, and then repeats the same fluctuating cycle of echoing utterances. Respectively, this can also relate to the concept of ‘remediation,’ such as how these replicated identities serve as symbols of how forms of a certain media become reshaped, yet still retain some of their initial functional or aesthetic qualities (i.e. like genetics!). In this way, “Circle” is duplicitous. Two-faced in exposing and exploiting the identity of the ‘angel of the house,’ as an immobile caregiver and cook, while also criticizing this notion of identity as being a fixed and whole entity.

Another element that cross-comments on these ideas of identity are the inclusion of QR codes in the work. Specifically, QR codes perform as a unique form of an image to include on the stage of this interwoven story-album because they work both as a picture and code (literally). Similar to the concept of an ink-blot, QR codes are representative of another image, or serve as a mirror to digitally translate their essential meaning. In this way, they provoke the reader to interpret multiple ideas (or judgments) simultaneously. There is so much to translate, at the same time, in which the identities of these women actually become blurred. Reality and fantasy, correspondingly, deceive conceptions of how these identities are displayed or made due to their somewhat veiled presentation in Fisher’s show-and-tell. Likewise, the solarization of the photographs provokes the reader to look at the image with a new perspective. Like an Andy Warhol piece which metatextually references the art itself, “Circle” likewise plays on this idea of 'metafiction.' As through the contortion of the images within the work, Fisher blurs the line of both the construction of reality and how memory gets re-translated through different forms of media.

Thus, the layering of multi-modal elements both creates and erases the construction of the stereotypical domestic identity in “Circle.” Criticizing how it is represented and shaped, both in its format, as a teeter-tottering stage of QR codes and show of familiar heirlooms. Yet also in its content, since it is shared as a traditional story by word-of-mouth (more than likely being retold with subtle differences from woman to woman). Therefore, the readers’ vicarious lens through Fisher’s interface both authenticates yet disillusions preconceptions relating to the representation and shaping of identity via its construction through memory and relationships.

Works Cited

Nakamura, Lisa. ""Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet" UCI Humanities, n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2015. <http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/nakamura.html>.