I was rather startled today to come across an article regarding a woman who had used Facebook to pose as a man in order to sexually assault young females; it seemed incredible to me that she could "perform" the gender so well, with the culprit herself claiming she 'wanted to become "the perfect boy"' for the girls she became involved with. If, as Sarah Salih claims in relation to Judith Butler's thinking 'gender is "a regulated process of repetition" taking place in language', we rely upon language to order our reality. Will Hill highlights the 'contradictions that exist between words and images, and thus between description and representation', yet via channels of communication such as Facebook and online chat rooms, we need not even match up to our declared identity - as seen in this instance, be it in a more dangerous manner, access to mass media and cyberspace has given us the chance to play with and even create our own identity, in which we can construct ourselves through language. Language is used to distinguish us from the "Other", and, as proposed by writers such as Fanon and Sartre, it is through the look of the other that we come into being, explored in the previous appropriated text works of Glen Ligon. After discussing Ligon's pieces within 'Weighted Words' exhibition with a friend, he directed me to the embroidered text messages of 'Ginger Anyhow' - this method of laboriously creating a permanent form of such passing and ultimately disposable words brought to mind an essay I had recently read entitled 'Memory Embroidered', in which it is suggested the ritualistic nature of craft itself can be translated into a form of dialogue. Jean de La Fontaine claims 'ritual expresses cultural values because 'it 'says' something and therefore has meaning as part of a non-verbal system of communication', and I believe it is this ''oral-pictorial' intercommunication' with which these personal messages were presented to us, giving no idea of who had written or received them, that is of particular interest to me. It was as I was considering this kind of "voice with no face" that I came across the dating section of a local newspaper and I began to contemplate how we present ourselves to others, and the ways in which the language used in such personal adverts can be used to analyse the psychology behind "Lonely Hearts". Continuing from my earlier research into Butler, the performitivity of speech acts and how we declare ourselves, I found these dating adverts an interesting area of consideration, as explored in the piece below.

'Janette' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

While I was unsure about the success of this work in its very lateral presentation of a chosen advert, I did wish to refine the use of embroidered words, perhaps in a more abstracted sense; I felt there was was strong potential in the use of this appropriated text, possibly selecting certain phrases instead to highlight the effect of certain words and their gendered connotations. In his essay 'Language and Women's Place', Robin Lakoff discusses both the ways in which women are expected to speak, and the ways in which they are spoken of - Lakoff suggests that certain euphemisms exist in language used to talk about women, notably "lady", which he claims does not hold the same "unpleasant or embarrassing" sexualised connotations of "woman". From the work below, a section of one woman's personal advert, it could be proposed that these connotations effect the way women declare themselves, and how they wish to be seen by the "Other".

'Talking Like a Lady' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles