It’s that mutable, perhaps illusory nature of identity that became my starting point.

Introduction

Clothes make the man. The proverb goes back to Erasmus who may well have been drawing on a similar observation made by Homer. People judge by appearances. A suit, overalls, a leather jacket, a smart uniform with shiny buttons, they betoken the executive, the mechanic, the hard man, the one who serves. They are social signifiers associated with behaviours, assumed skills, even attitudes. We all play the game in one way or another, dressing the part or making a point of rejecting conventions that must first be recognised if they are to be abnegated. As Erasmus suggested, the way one dresses and the role one adopts – be they normative or eccentric – shape the way one is perceived by others… and perhaps also by oneself. For the signifiers we wrap around ourselves can become a comforting carapace within which to hide the inevitable confusions and insecurities that accompany the day-to-day negotiations of being human.

It is this complicit relationship we have with the social conventions of being and appearing – and in this case, of being and appearing a man – that the Australian artist Mike Gary evokes in two photographic series made more than twenty years apart. Both share the title ‘Macho Confessions’, the latter bearing the qualifier ‘II’. The first responded to events the artist had experienced, the second explores the possibilities of what might have been. Both involve image-making technologies that, at the time of making, were relatively new: Photoshop and, later, artificial intelligence. Nascent processes, not yet totally familiar, through which he could examine aspects of himself in the objective lens of satire. Humour holding the intimate at one remove. Plausible deniability…

In exploring and comparing these two bodies of work, not only can we see how progressive technologies have changed the way we read images, but also the introspective shift in the artist’s concerns as they evolved with the passing years.

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Interview

How would describe your approach to photography?

It grows from a process experimentation. I want to make work that complements or intersects the subject matter and the ideas that underlie it. In the past I have experimented with single lens optics and, in another project, code corruption in digital imaging. Today, I am exploring the potential of AI. I’m continually amazed by its capabilities; I can’t keep up with the possibilities it presents.

How did ‘Macho Confessions’ begin?

In the mid-nineties I was working as a digital retoucher and, as a way to learn Photoshop (which was still relatively new at that time), I began experimenting with self-initiated projects. At the same time, I was studying photomedia at Edith Cowan University [in Perth, Western Australia] where I was able to combine the conceptual and creative ideas fostered in class with the technical skills I was developing in industry. It was in that context that I first made self-portraits exploring ideas of self, identity, and masculinity.

[Left] © Mike Gray ‘Mediocre’ 2004
[Right] © Mike Gray ‘Heavenly’ 2006

What sparked that initial idea?

Most of the images involve a personal narrative overlaid with a satirical take on aspects of contemporary culture. One way to interpret the images is to say that they represent aspects of my life where I found that the only way I could respond to what I was going through was to reach for some misguided sense of machismo. Hence the title of the series, ‘Macho Confessions’: a personal revelation made when the only thing I had left in my emotional reserve were tropes of masculine identity.

Importantly, for me this was never a direct critique of masculinity. It was more a critique of certain absurd aspects of contemporary culture – the way we try to act as ‘normalised’ human beings despite our limited resources. Eventually it all comes unstuck and we revert to reductive stereotypes – behaviours that could be viewed as comedic or tragic. Perhaps both.

So, there is an element of the autobiographical in this early work?

Yes, these images start with a personal narrative that is then overlaid with more universal themes. Initially, I struggled with that personal aspect of the images. When asked about the work, I would often avoid talking about that side of things, focusing on more generalised cultural concepts. However, this became problematic when this work began to be referenced in essays about the crisis of masculinity and erectile dysfunction, which really didn’t reflect my intent.

Can you give an example of this overlaying of the personal and the universal?

‘Macho-Grande’ [above] became the best-known shot of the series and it’s probably my favourite. The personal circumstances behind this work are a little dark. It references the passing of my stepfather – represented by the crashed helicopter – and my personal response to what was for me a difficult time. While I was half pretending to soldier on, I was also self-medicating as a way to deal with that episode – the ‘candy’ tattoo on my chest is a drug reference.

The background was shot in Bali, it’s a toy helicopter, and I’m standing in my kitchen (without a sixpack). I put the elements together in Photoshop and added the tattoos and wounds, which was technically quite demanding at that time. Weirdly, around 2006, this image nearly became the promotional poster for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, a conceptual shift far removed from its original.

How were these images made?

There were three basic elements – a background scene, a toy model, and a self-portrait – which I then composited into a single image. Today, that may sound quite easy, but twenty-five years ago Photoshop was still in its infancy and mastering those techniques involved a steep learning curve. I would usually start with the background image so, when I was travelling, I would take photographs with a view to using them as the setting. I was lucky that I had access to a professional photo studio and gear, which allowed me to photograph both myself and the small toys in a way that matched with the lighting in the background image. It’s testament to just how new Photoshop was at the time – still unfamiliar to many viewers – that in ‘Little Lady’, some people thought I was actually holding a full-size truck engine. In reality, it was a plastic model and only about six centimetres across.

What’s the story behind that image?

It’s my version of the knight in shining armour. Little Lady was a reference to my long-term partner at the time. Holding the truck’s motor was a visual metaphor for what I saw as my role as emotional lifeguard. Rather than just accepting that I didn’t know how to negotiate a long-term relationship, this self-appointed role allowed me to avoid certain existential complexities of my own.

Fast forward a couple of decades – during which time you have created a number of other, quite different projects – you begin the sequel to ‘Macho Confessions’: ‘Macho Confessions II’.

Again, it started with experimentation – this time with AI. When I first saw images of myself created in this way, I found their realness uncanny. It both made sense and didn’t make sense. This second chapter differs from ‘Macho Confessions’ in that it has less of a personal narrative. It reflects more broadly on notions of identity and aspiration, both in an individual and collective context.

I’ve read some Buddhist philosophy and there’s an overlap with certain postmodern critiques on identity. In a postmodern context, identity is not innate but something we create drawing on mediated and cultural models. In Buddhism the aim is to dismantle one’s notion of individual identity and realise we’re all the same. It’s that mutable, perhaps illusory nature of identity that became my starting point for this new series.

When did you realise that AI was a potential tool for your art making?

It was when I was making ‘Bogan’ [above] that I realised that AI is not just a toy, especially after I upscaled the image file and printed it a metre wide. Initially, I asked Midjourney to create a head and shoulder portrait of “an Australian bogan at a music festival”. I was impressed that Midjourney knew what a bogan was. [Bogan is an Australian term for a redneck.] The result was photorealistic and so I used the AI to swap my face into the image. I then used Photoshop’s generative expand tool to keep ‘growing’ the edges of the frame, adding more context to the main figure. I like the way the image degrades towards the edges, becoming dreamlike. It was this image that led me to make the connection between AI and the psychoanalytical potential of surrealism. That dream state where indeterminate objects and veiled associations make sense in ways they would not in waking consciousness.

What tools do you use to create these images?

Mostly I use Midjourney and Photoshop and a combination of photographic and text-based input. To achieve a realistic self-portrait is a two-fold operation. I’ve learnt to add certain words and phrases to the end of the initial prompt. For example, when creating ‘The Artist’ the prompt ended: “forty-year-old (because AI adds ten years to men and takes fifteen years off women), high widow’s peak, receding hair, stubble (if you say beard you get ZZ Top!), slight jaw”. These qualifiers are important because otherwise Midjourney will return the square-jawed alpha male.

From there I used a plugin called Insight Faceswap to add my face to the principal figure. Generally, I use a single passport-style photo taken sitting on the couch, which seems to work best. From there it could take anywhere between twenty and fifty iterations to arrive at the final result. Between iterations I can take an image into Photoshop and rework the pose or composition before feeding it back into Midjourney.

In this series, you have begun to develop a backstory for each character. How do these narratives develop?

This is an important aspect of the satire. It wasn’t really an option twenty years ago. Using that primitive version of Photoshop, it would simply have been too labour intensive. AI makes it possible to produce these serial character studies – adding depth to ironical theme.

Take ‘The Guru’ for example… Instead of the rich and famous travelling on a pilgrimage, I decided it was time that the guru set up operations in their heartland. I chose Lake Como. I wanted to satirise the erosion of meaning, spiritual or otherwise, that is often a concomitant of wealth. Importantly, I didn’t want the main character to appear ill-intentioned, he just doesn’t know any better.

Yet, for all the good intentions of the guru and his acolytes, it seems less the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment than an exercise in self-interest. In a way this is a kind of thought experiment in which I ask myself just how successful I would be at controlling my own self-interest in such a situation.

Do you see these characters as stereotypes or archetypes?

Both, I think. Stereotypes in a negative way and archetypes in a more Jungian sense. I try not to make either too obvious, and I hope that the characters remain nuanced and not overly predictable. In fact, that is one of the challenges in using AI – trying to get beyond its narrow view of the world. That said, it can be a useful tool to see if your idea is predictable. If an AI easily reproduces what you’re looking for then it suggests that it has perhaps been done before.

How much are these images explorations of your own psyche and how much are they satires on the world beyond yourself?

I can recognise aspects of all of these characters within my own psyche. They are mildly plausible versions of who I might have been given a different set of circumstances – sliding doors… In my life I have had enough exposure to suspect religious figures, bogans, and hyperbolic artists to know what I am dealing with. And I have found myself drawn to aspects of each of them, without actually being tempted to commit. They are satirical takes on what might have been… not just for me but, perhaps, for others who see my pictures and recognise something of themselves in there.

How have your concepts of maleness and masculinity changed in the time between these two series?

I’m wary about the work coming across purely as an exploration of masculinity – particularly toxic masculinity. I don’t want to become another voice in the culture wars. And yet, as I found twenty years ago with ‘Macho Confessions’, other interests do sometimes seek to appropriate my images to critique masculinity in ways that were never my intention.

In making this work, what have you learned about yourself that you did not previously understand?

I have relaxed with the idea of being an artist – something that used to seem a more important aspect of my identity than it does now, though I still feel compelled to make images. There’s something about producing work quickly, putting it on social media, getting feedback, and making further progress that works well for me. I feel less trepidation in showing new work and, as a result, artmaking has become more enjoyable in itself.

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This interview is a Talking Pictures original.

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