In favour of the mask

Abstract

The present paper, through a short exegesis of the theories on mask and masking process, aimed to re-evaluate the function of the act and of the figure of disguise and mask, reduced today, when not relegated to a technical working tool, to a mere instrument, abstract or concrete, of forgery or deception designed to conceal the true identity of the wearer. The regard of mask as access key to an intimate reality of the subject and a liberation of the self within narrow channels foreshadowed by a society increasingly intent on forging pre-designed templates of identity, can be undertaken by analyzing the psychological significance of the mask, together with anthropological studies that have allowed us to discover its secrets and functions in ancient societies as in contemporary ones. This journey will take us to the Self’s door, in which the mask does not conceal another identity, but open the way to the production of the Persona, allowing the subject to configure himself in the everyday contest of reality, as expression of Being-in-the-World, to allow adaptation and survival, guaranteeing freedom of expression, without getting lost in the anonymity of a death mask, “of which conformism and fashions (idelogical, cultural, social) are the secret guardians”.