An Existential Illustration
“It's there when we wake up and slips away when we fall asleep, maybe to reappear in our dreams. It's that feeling we have of being anchored in a body we own and control and perceive the world from within. It's the feeling of personal identity that stretches across time, from our first memories, via the here and now, to some imagined future. It's all of these tied into a coherent whole. It's our sense of self."
“Am I The Same Person I Was Yesterday?” asks the NewScientist, an exploration of identity in the Existential Issue (2011). The self is described as three interlocking parts: the physical, the psychological, and the liaison agent. Using the voice of notable graphic innovator, Max Kisman, the self formulates as a carefully intertwined balance of opposites. The red presents the calculated, agent mind. The white symbolizes the esoteric. The two come together to form a third body, facing forward. Its face confronts the viewer and challenges the concept of its own reality with one eye open and one eye shut. Its head hovers over the body as the container and categorizer of memories. Below, a pendulum swinging from white hands, questioning the consistency, time, and solidarity of its being. The eye of the self searches without rest, as it occupies everywhere and nowhere in lack of true definition within the form.