COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

“We are the same person in so far as we are aware of past and future thoughts and actions in the same way that we are aware of present thoughts and actions.”

John Locke

 

This is how the English physicist and philosopher referred to personal identity. Identity as a concatenation of memories, a continuity of consciousness, which, directed to the past, gives rise to memory.

 

Throughout the entire series of “Who is J.Doe?”, the artist works on the construction and deconstruction of identity. Through operations of transformation and juxtaposition, she attempts to regenerate the abstract identity of John Doe, a character that represents all of us, and none of us at the same time.

 

Pierced by the gaze of John Locke, in “Collective identity” Englebert seeks to reconstruct the memory of this abstract character together. In this way, she researches on how we can shape identity out of collective memory. Perhaps this is the ultimate way to challenge the concept of identity.

 

Using a Google form, the conceptual artist collected completely anonymous memories. The spectator is invited to fill in the blank with his or her own memories, whether distant or recent. She then employs an artificial intelligence algorithm to pour the data and translate it into a chatbot. Anyone in the world can then chat with John Doe and access his memories, and thus his identity, through an online chat that recounts the memories of his life in infinite detail.

 

For the first time, we can have a conversation with our collective and anonymous self at the same time.