Self Aesthetic: Towards an audience of one

As an exploration into contemporary representations of self, this paper traces a recent socially engaged studio residency up to its development as a finished place-based portrait. Through this case study, the role of the studio is considered, as a site of making and experimentation, both throughout the residency and in post-production. In 2012 the author was artist-in-residence at the Museum of the Riverina in a project titled Identify, Identity, Identikit, which used the forensic form of police identikit as the basis for producing an interactive group portrait of the region. Community members were invited to sit for the project and have their eyebrows, eyes, lips or noses drawn and archived for the production of an identikit. In this process audience and subject were collapsed as the intimate process of the work overshadowed the forensic design of the portrait project. Physical and virtual identikits were produced and donated to the museum's permanent collection and were subsequently reworked into an app for Smartphone to increase the project's accessibility and interactivity. Rather than loading the application onto devices in an exhibition installation the app was released for general distribution onto the user/viewer's most private form of display; their phone. While museums and galleries are under pressure to increase public engagement the individual gets lost in the crowd. The author proposes future directions for introverted and intimate forms of participatory art through an attention to the individual viewer.