Postgraduate Course Project Digital Poetry

“I Am Not My Image” is an interactive audiovisual piece that uses the web camera to translate the subject's image into ASCII text characters. The visitor's image is transformed into the characters that re-form the image consisting only of the letters that make up the sentence "I Am Not My Image".

Alongside the interactive quality of the work, on the left side of the screen, an introspective poem by Evangelos is typed repeatedly, trying to express the experience of interacting in online environments, a reference to the emotional weight, the dead ends and the struggle to maintain our identity through communication and interaction in dystopian conditions.

At the same time Evangelos doesn’t fail to point out that sometimes this identity is all we have to hold on to, referring to the somewhat positive aspect of online identity existence in dystopic times (e.g., COVID) but also in cases of psychological pressure, depression, and more profound purposes supported and facilitated through the use of avatars, etc.

With this piece Evangelos attempts to comment on how our interaction within online social networks, and our overall online presence affect the way we choose to portray ourselves and additionally how our own sense of identity is ultimately affected. He focuses on the distortion of the self-image and refers to the phenomenon of the "looking-glass self," a term coined by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902, according to which we choose to present ourselves based on a reflection of how we think others see us, to please them.

Using the direct statement "I Am Not My Image," Evangelos aims to express his opposition, to remind, and to draw a distinct line towards this phenomenon, allwhile maintaining empathy and understanding of the underlying reasons and motivations that lead us to such behaviors.