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Thesis (Master's)

Iceland University of the Arts > Hönnunar- og arkitektúrdeild / Department of Design and Architecture > Ritgerðir til MA-gráðu / MA theses (MA) >

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/33713

Title: 
  • Fashioning identity online : how online avatars are fundamentally shifting the relation between fashion and the performance of identity
Degree: 
  • Master's
Abstract: 
  • Fashion has always played a central role in shaping and transforming how gender and identity are performed. This paper discusses how the internet, or precisely the online avatar, is now shifting the relationship between fashion and the performance of gender identity. It begins by looking at the history of how gender is performed through fashion. Then, drawing upon performance theory from Erving Goffman, J.L. Austin and Judith Butler, the paper articulates how the relation between fashion and gender identity occurs.
    The paper then discusses Amber Case’s ideas about the cyborg and our second selves online. The online avatar is explained and special attention is paid to two particularly famous avatars that are now on the social media platform Instagram, their relationship with both fashion and identity and how their virtual existence is influencing the physical world around us. Gender bending in the gaming environment is considered to be hinting at a future where people can completely control their own identities, regardless of their physical bodies and online avatars might then be the very thing that can emancipate a person’s performance of identity from their bodies, in ways that can have impact on the real world.

Accepted: 
  • Jun 18, 2019
URI: 
  • http://hdl.handle.net/1946/33713


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