Instagram, Ink and Art Identity
I remain in the Instagram naughty corner (tried to create account, got error message before it finalised, immediately had the not-an-account-yet disabled for violating Ts & Cs). Tried again with a non gmail provider. Same problem, but by now I'd twigged what they were doing with usernames so I changed it and could now send an error report…
They responded! Great you say. Wait. This is what they want:
“Thanks for contacting us. Before we can help, we need you to confirm that you own this account. (Fair enough) Please reply to this email and attach a photo of yourself holding a handwritten copy of the code below. (What?? You have no idea what I look like - it could be anyone.) Please make sure that the photo you send: - Includes the above code, handwritten on a clean sheet of paper, followed by your full name and username - Includes both the hand that is holding the sheet of paper and your entire face - Is well-lit and is not too small, dark or blurry (otherwise it's no good for your facial recognition tools is it!) - Is attached to your reply as a JPEG file Bear in mind that, even if this account doesn't include any pictures of you or is used to represent someone or something else, we won't be able to help you until we’ve received a photo that meets these requirements”.
That last para is a killer – they won’t even look at your request until you send a photo? Which does absolutely nothing to prove your identity...unless they have an image of you already. Which would be very disturbing if you have no Facebook owned accounts and have never posted your tagged image online. You could simply reply to the email confirming your username and magic number. Attaching a photo of say, an obliging next door neighbour, isn't adding proof.
Unless there is some stipulation that social media accounts require photo ID (which would be pretty much unacceptable and it would have to be official ID to be of any use), this is just a sorry attempt to get everything about you on their servers. We know about Facebook's data collecting and we know they lie about everything they do.
Ask me. Am I going to send a picture of myself to a Facebook support email account just so I can have an Instagram account?! Not on your Nelly. I have spelled this out to them. Let’s see what comes back.
On a more productive note, my first Monday off was wonderful. Had to spend quite a bit of time sizing up things to A3 so they will fit in matted frames (yet to be ordered). Chosen seven images for the fair. Mmm. Maybe eight. Maybe more cos this almost finished one below invites another in that style.
I was trying to do a rough sketch using the dropper end of the ink. It was a bit blobby in places but the general idea worked pretty well so I did a slightly bigger one and used a tiny brush instead. Then the fun part - splattering bold colours on the background. Totally different from dainty dancers but I wanted to have something with a bit more energy to it.
Related to that thought, I have some ‘homework’ to do this week. Listened to another Creative Pep Talk from Andy J Pizza, and he was saying – you are not an illustrator, artist, musician or whatever. It’s not about the ‘what’ it’s about the ‘why’.
If you can figure out why you do what you do, in the way you do it, you’ll have a better idea of how to approach new projects and have something of substance to explain your work. It also helps you to be more discriminating in your choices when you are aware of what really makes you ‘fizz’; what really matters to you. This is the kind of identity which is ok to share with others. Who wants to say 'I just make meh art?'
See, I always thought, I do dance and stuff (yeah, very descriptive), cuz I like it. What else is there to say? Why do I like it? Why does that matter? Bit more deep diving to do and I sort of know some of it. I’ll let you know what I come up with next week.
