While I was walking through an edition of brazilian Vogue, I saw a replica of one of the works of the plastic artist Leonora de Barros. The painting, exposed in 2002, is called "Procuro-me" ("Look for myself"). It shows one of those famous "Wanted" banners with the same picture of the same woman reproduced four times, with the same expression, only with different hairstyles in each of the pictures, which change almost her entire semblant in each one.A communicative and fittable work. We are all stray from ourselves.My late discovery of this work happened on a week in which I had a few conversations about this very topic: the loss of identity that seems to be characteristic from this century. Computer programs that try to recreate real life, like The Sims and the elaborated
Second Life, are symptoms of this loneliness. This last one really allows you to recreate yourself: you can choose your appearance, build a house,
buy a car, have friends and love relationships - or only with prostitutes, if you want - everything as if it was real, includin finantial transactions with virtual money that you buy with your very real credit card. Some people behind this game are becoming millionaires. In foreign countries, it''s a matter to be discussed: spend the whole
day in front of the computes "living" a second life, with another name, other habits, other ambitions, is just playing or something to be woried about?Silly or not, it is a symptom of deep changes in human relations, in case we can still say that we are relating. People are more and more turning to their own lives, their own small apartments, their own fantasies, stimulated by an illusionary world (celebrities, success, endless youth), and end up hypnotised in front of a screen, living a lie: make believe I am rich, good looking, loving people that love me as well. When they reach that stage in life when it is not possible to start anything over anymore, what will they realize about what they have done through the years? A game. They have turned themselves into an avatar and forgotten to exist for real.Ok, this text is a little bit apocaliptical. I
know it is possible to balance the joy of technological news and everyday life, but there is one threat floating in the air that is real: emotional poverty. People are not identifying themselves with others anymore, they are giving up stablishing vital conections, instead they choose a plan B:
Look for themselves. That would be something to cheer up about, if this "looking for mysef" was about self acquaintance, and not an act of trick and despair.I look for myself with another face, with no wrinkles, no history. I look for myself in tasteless kisses, commitmentless contacts. I look for myself because I lost my memory: I don''t know what I want to do (I only do what they suggest me to do), I don''t know how to make friends (except by Orkut), I don''t know whom to obey (I follow leads every day: buy, pay, use, test, do, be). I look for myself because I don''t fit any group, don''t belong to anything shared by anyone, and that isolates me. I look for myself because people come in and go away from my life so fast that I can''t even let them miss me, and when nobody misses us, it''s kind of a death. I look for myself because I''m nor represented by politicians, because I''m stray to the government, what citizen am I? I look for myself because I can''t find anything genuinely real with which I can identify myself. It is not the apocalypse, but so is not nirvana.
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