In the exhibition Private Lives, Public Spaces, the viewer is invited into the personal lives of dozens of families, whether through specific events or in everyday life. These videos provide a glimpse into the identities of the subjects, but not necessarily in the way it may have originally been intended. As the viewer changes, so does the perceived identity of those filming and being filmed, especially as the videos become further removed from their more familiar, intended audiences. In her article Social Psychology of Identity, Judith Howard discusses the different ways that identity is formed, but explains that a significant part of one's identity is decided on by the individual. When looking at the home movies in this exhibition, the identities of the subjects are decided on by strangers, and are altered not only by what is seen but also by what is omitted.
In her article, Judith Howard discusses how identity is shaped socially, through communication and meaningful interaction. Though this may be true for the individual, this changes drastically depending on who is involved in this interaction. As I watched the "Ardizzone Family" home movies I could tell that my response was much different than that of someone closer to the family. In the video, a young woman is getting ready for her wedding, and is shown talking to and posing with her mother, father, and other close family members. The video is taken before the ceremony, adding to its intimacy. As a stranger watching it, I could not relate fully to the feelings that the intended audience of close family and friends would have. As an outsider I was not particularly attached to any of the subjects, and felt almost guilty for looking into a moment that I was not supposed to be a part of. In this way, I was not able to see how this woman’s identity was shaped as I did not feel part of the subject’s social interactions.
According to Howard, another way that identity is formed is through "interactionism". She defines "interactionism" as the attachment of "symbolic meaning to objects, behaviors, themselves, and other people" (371) through personal interaction. She mentions that language is especially important in forming identities, as certain groups of people, such as those belonging to a certain ethnic group, or even in a social group like a sorority, create bonds and develop interests through how they talk, who they talk to, and what they talk about. In Private Lives, Public Spaces though, the audience can only watch the videos silently and must piece together what is being said. In this way the viewer misses out on certain aspects of the subjects' identities as they cannot hear what is being communicated.
The interaction between the subjects and the objects in the video also changes depending on who is viewing it and how familiar they are with the people being filmed. In the "Swinnerton Family" home movies, there is a clip of a shed being burned in the woods. The structure is fully engulfed in flames and is filmed from a short distance for a few minutes. The scene seemed violent and eerie to me, and gave the impression that the filmmaker was the one who lit the fire. I came back to the video a few minutes later and was surprised to see that the next clip was of a group of friends playing pool in a basement. The scene was playful and lighthearted, and seemed in stark contrast to the clip of the burning shed. The scenes afterwards were also fairly light and relaxed, and made me think that the feelings I had gotten from the first clip were extremely different from those of the people who had filmed it. Because I did not know the subjects personally and could not fully see how they interacted with their surroundings, I was unable to see the complete context of the scenes or how casual the subjects were about them.
Another way that Howard says identity is formed is through ethnicity and cultural background. I found this particularly interesting in relation to the Private Lives, Public Spaces exhibit because there seemed to be a lack of ethnic diversity in the home videos. The majority of the movies showed white subjects, most often nuclear families and heterosexual relationships. In one video, "Cruise/Chicago Trip, 1935" a family is filmed on vacation and appear to be on a tropical island. In one scene they pose for the camera with coconuts in their hands, and the video shows footage of the native islanders and the scenery. In the next scene the family is back on a boat laughing with one another. It was interesting to watch this family move so quickly to one culture and back, as the viewer is watching from the vacationer's point of view. In this way the ethnic identities of the native peoples were not able to be formed by them, but rather by the filmmaker and then by the viewer. Howard writes that "at earlier historical moments...identity was to a great extent assigned, rather than selected or adopted" (367). This video was a good example of this, as the native islanders were secondary in the home movie and were distinctly "other" from the family, preventing them from being able to adopt their own identities.
In almost all of these home movies, there is a gap between what is seen and what is not seen. As the viewer, who cannot hear the videos’ sound and is not familiar with the subjects, it is difficult to understand the lives of the families being filmed, as we only get a small glimpse into their private spaces. That being said, this small glimpse can often be a very honest one, based on the videos’ intended audiences.
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