Hello, my name is Julie Perini.

Fall 2003

Buffalo, NY

This was the first project I presented to other people in

graduate school, so it has special significance for me. I

worked harder on this than I had ever worked on anything else

before. Caroline Koebel, Assistant Professor in the Department

of Media Study at the University at Buffalo, asked us to

respond to the idea of "persona ficta," the fictionalized self.

Since I had recently moved to Buffalo, I had boxes of old

photos that I cart around with me. I choose a variety of

snapshots from my past, and put them into little yellow

envelopes (examples at right). I included a form that

asked participants to imagine that they were me and to fill in

information about my psychological and emotional state at the

moment pictured (example of the form below).

I gave these envelopes to students in my class and waited

until they had completed their tasks. They then gathered in

the front of the room and read their forms aloud, each

expressing his or her experience of "becoming Julie." I simply

listened to them, reversing my role as performer and instead

becoming an audience member. This was an interesting way

for me to meet the people who would become my colleagues

and collaborators in graduate school.