Engaging "Looking-Glass" Youth in Art through the Visual Narratives of the Transforming Self in Popular Culture.

This article examines how we can engage "looking-glass" youth in art through the visual narratives of the transforming self in popular culture. Part of the theoretical framework of two descriptive studies will be presented by focusing on the concepts of a permuting identity, prophetic reality, and technologies of self through the metaphor of the mirror and the screen of critical theories. Visual narratives from popular culture, artists' work, and children's play that use graphic or electronic genres such as comic strips, paper dolls, and coloring books will be described throughout. A special focus will be given on art projects on the topic of permutable identity, and on the relations between body and machine. In a posthuman era of mass communications and biotechnological extensions, art educators should encourage students to understand how popular culture creates identity by engaging them in playful yet critical practices of the transforming self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]