INPUT: socially mediated identity

I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am.

_{attributed to Charles Horton Cooley. 1902.}

Identity is a social process.

Being queer, being trans; claiming my identity has become an important aspect of my personality.

It is uncomfortable to admit it, but no matter how much I strive to define myself, I still rely on the other to recognize, acknowledge me.

I can re-write my artist statement, wear exlusivly flowery dresses, update Facebook with pictures of Ryan Gosling, or speak with my best english accent; but my identity is still tied to my recognition by my interlocutor.

I had a Radio-Frequency IDentification (rfid) chip implanted, its a small microchip very much like the ones we implants in cats and dogs in case they ever get lost.

It can contain a small amount of data, enough for a few words, enough for someone to inscribe an identity marker into me.

Enough for me to internalize it between my metacarpals, enough for it to become part of me.

Every time I swipe my hand in front of the reader, a new identity is assigned to me.

Maybe you know me very well, maybe you don't, in any case you can assign me an identity, just enter what you deem appropriate and it will be queued into the database, and eventually assigned to my chip.