754 research outputs found

    Self-Representation in an Expanded Field

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    Defined as a self-image made with a hand-held mobile device and shared via social media platforms, the selfie has facilitated self-imaging becoming a ubiquitous part of globally networked contemporary life. Beyond this selfies have facilitated a diversity of image making practices and enabled otherwise representationally marginalized constituencies to insert self-representations into visual culture. In the Western European and North American art-historical context, self-portraiture has been somewhat rigidly albeit obliquely defined, and selfies have facilitated a shift regarding who literally holds the power to self-image. Like self-portraits, not all selfies are inherently aesthetically or conceptually rigorous or avant-guard. But, –as this project aims to do address via a variety of interdisciplinary approaches– selfies have irreversibly impacted visual culture, contemporary art, and portraiture in particular. Selfies propose new modes of self-imaging, forward emerging aesthetics and challenge established methods, they prove that as scholars and image-makers it is necessary to adapt and innovate in order to contend with the most current form of self-representation to date. The essays gathered herein will reveal that in our current moment it is necessary and advantageous to consider the merits and interventions of selfies and self-portraiture in an expanded field of self-representations. We invite authors to take interdisciplinary global perspectives, to investigate various sub-genres, aesthetic practices, and lineages in which selfies intervene to enrich the discourse on self-representation in the expanded field today. Ace LehnerEdito

    The Human Use of the Human Face: The Photographic Self-­Portrait in the Age of the Selfie

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    Karen Ann Donnachie's research explores the phenomenon of the selfie as a vehicle for the mass projection of self and the effect it has on contemporary notions of identity, society and photography. During her practice-led research, Donnachie created electronic, algorithmic and Internet artworks including self-made and self-programmed ‘selfie’ cameras. This thesis maps the complex genre of the selfie between performance, narcissism, social tic, intrinsic desire for self-projection and a quest for authenticity and human connection

    The Self-Portrait Experience, a dispositif for individual transformation and social activism: The psychological and philosophical/political dynamics in Cristina Nuñez’s practice

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    Cristina Nuñez’s artistic practice using self-portraiture began in 1988 as she turned the camera to herself to overcome self-stigma derived from addiction. A process evolved of a self-taught artistic practice into facilitating other people’s self-portraiture, leading her to devise The Self-Portrait Experience (SPEX). Since 2004 Nuñez holds SPEX workshops in diverse contexts, such as the penitentiary, mental health, addiction recovery and adolescent transition. A psychological framework allowed her to interrogate the effects of this practice on others and herself. However, Nuñez positions herself as a contemporary artist practitioner, not a therapist, who believes that the arts in themselves can be transformative. This research has culminated in the current investigation of the SPEX dispositif, a term used in contemporary France after Foucault and Agamben. In the workshops Nuñez holds around the world participants perform a ‘catalytic’ process by transforming emotional pain into what is referred to as artworks. Reviewing the multiple perceptions of the images produced allows participants to look at themselves through new lenses, as evidenced by data collected in her workshops over the years. SPEX uses the power of ubiquitous digital photography in a manner that subverts the common ‘selfie’ format, leveraging unconscious expression to explore emotions, in order to gain new insight and stimulate the creative process as reflexive. In this context, the SPEX dispositif defines as a set of measures taken for a specific artistic intervention. It involves plays of power, subverted in processes of subjectification, performativity and the deconstruction of dichotomies: ugly/beautiful, vulnerable/powerful, emotional/rational, unconscious/conscious, personal/public. Such processes can produce different kinds of knowledge: of oneself and one’s inner struggles, of the other and our place in relational and societal plays of power. Through the publication of self-portraits and autobiographical projects, the personal and socio-political dimensions are connected. Nuñez’s practice with herself and others proposes a dialogue between emotional expression and its mirroring effects on the public. The overarching goal is providing tangible societal benefits, in the form of viewer’s identification with the subjects of the images, rather than dissociation and alienation. Through their publication, autobiographical visual narratives can function as an “insurrection of subjugated knowledges” (Foucault 1980, p.82), to deconstruct labels and stereotypes often associated with stigmatised collectives. This critical evaluation catalogues the development of Nuñez’s bodies of work over thirty years, interrogates its theoretical framework and reflects on the impact on participants and viewers

    Believe in yourself(ie): a study of young, ordinary, South African women who share selfies on Instagram

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    A dissertation in fulfilment for Master of Arts in Media Studies Faculty of Humanities School of Language, Literature and Media Studies (SLLM) University of the Witwatersrand 2016This research study essentially sets out to explore the practices of young, ordinary, South African women who take and post selfies on social media platforms, like Instagram. The general commentary surrounding selfies is typically negative, and tends to frame the selfietaker as a narcissistic, self-absorbed individual. Therefore, this study is interested in understanding what this very particular smartphone-enabled photographic technique means to this group of women, and in doing so, aims to determine whether or not there are underlying significances to such practices. This research study adopts a vast framework of literature in order to conceptualize and contextualize selfies in contemporary culture, by drawing on the rich history of self-portraiture and snapshots as well as concepts of mediation and the representation of the self online; in addition to describing the role that mobile technologies and social media platforms have played in contributing to cementing selfies as a cultural hallmark in today’s society. This study is additionally grounded upon three dominant theoretical themes, namely: narcissism, self-exploration, and self-regulation; and Christopher Lasch, Michel Foucault, Angela McRobbie and Rosalind Gill’s theoretical contributions are predominantly referred to in an attempt to explain such principles adequately. Through the responses that were yielded by interviewing 14 young, ordinary, South African women, this research study essentially established that the practices of selfie-taking do in fact play a significant role in the lives of these young women, from empowering them and teaching them to learn to love and accept themselves again, to inspiring personal growth, capturing special moments and memories, and allowing them to feel accepted and as though they belong and have a fixed placed in society. Therefore, this study argues that selfies are not necessarily only about narcissism and self-obsession, but rather more about the notion of self-love and acceptance (for this group of participants at least).MT201

    The Monstrous I: Abjection as Disobedience in Contemporary Self-Portraiture

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    An examination of the abject danger associated with the female nude in the history of European painting. Once identified, is it possible to use this phenomena to counteract objectification in contemporary visual culture? An exploration of this theme is undertaken through a series of Self-Portraits and Natures Mortes

    Imperfections

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    This open access book synthesizes the swiftly growing critical scholarship on mistakes, glitches, and other aesthetics and logics of imperfection into the first transdisciplinary, transnational framework of imperfection studies. In recent years, the trend to present the notion of imperfection as a plus rather than a problem has resonated across a range of social and creative disciplines and a wealth of world localities. As digital tools allow media users to share ever more suave selfies and success stories, psychologists promote 'the gifts of imperfections' and point to perfectionism as a catalyst for rising depression and burnout complaints and suicide rates among millennials. As sound technologies increasingly permit musicians to 'smoothen' their work, composers increasingly praise glitches, noise, and cracks. As genetic engineering upgrades with swift speed, philosophers, marketeers, and physicians plea 'against perfection' and supermarkets successfully advertise 'perfectly imperfect' vegetables. Meanwhile, cultural analysts point at skewed perspectives, blurry images, and other 'deliberate imperfections' in new and historical cinema, painting, photography, music, and literature. While these and other experts applaud imperfection, scholars in fields ranging from disability studies to tourism critically interrogate a trend to fetishize imperfection and poverty. They rightfully warn against projecting privileged (and, often, emphatically western-biased) feel-good stories onto the less privileged, the distorted, and the frail. The editors unite the different strands in imperfection thinking across various disciplines tools. In fourteen chapters by experts from different world localities, they offer scholars and students more historically grounded and more critically informed conceptualizations of the imperfect. This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com

    Imperfections:Studies in Mistakes, Flaws, and Failures

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    In recent years, the trend to present the notion of imperfection in a positive rather than negative light has resonated across a range of social and creative disciplines and a wealth of world regions. This open access book synthesizes the swiftly growing critical scholarship on mistakes, glitches, and other aesthetics and logics of imperfection into the first transdisciplinary, transnational framework of imperfection studies. With this framework, the editors offer scholars and students across various disciplines tools to craft more historically grounded and critically informed conceptualizations of the imperfect
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