Selfie. Or on the fetishism of self-timer.
by daniele
This work has been commented by 1 editor(s). Read the comments
Title
Selfie. Or on the fetishism of self-timer.
Concept author(s)
Daniele Torcellini
Concept author year(s) of birth
1978
Concept author(s) Country
Italy
Friendly Competition
Radical intimacies: dialogue in our times (2014)
Competition category
Critical writing
Competition field
nonacademic
Competition subfield
professional
Subfield description
I am a collaborator of the Art Museum of The City of Ravenna. I am a teacher of Metodologies and Techniques of Contemporary at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna and of Cromatology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa. I am Ph.D. in contemporary art with a research on the history of color photographic reproduction of artwork. My work deals with color perception, art history, visual culture, art reproduction, color photography.
Check out the Radical intimacies: dialogue in our times 2014 outlines of Memefest Friendly competition.
About work
Abstract
The text is a short article strictly related to a tumblr blog I submitted to the visual communication section. The text is dedicated to the self-referring and circular communication of the selfie practice which distopically appears as “I communicate myself to myself”, though whoever chooses to portrait him/herself desperately tries to signify it as “I communicate myself to the world”. Something like a missed or interrupted dialogue. The text deals with the very contradictory nature of the self-portrait as a communication practice, suspended between the allure of paintings honoured by the history of art and erotic, ironic and made-in-bathroom, contemporary pictures.
Keywords
selfie, self-portrait, social network, art history
Editors Comments
Eric Louw
One feels the author’s frustration and sense of disempowerment born of living in a world where digital communication technologies facilitate poor communication on such a mass scale. I share the author’s concerns.
This triggers reflection on the nature of communication past and present. Is today’s digital communication so different from the past? Or is digital communication just another platform? If it is different – how is it different?
The growth of selfies rises a whole bunch of issues worthy of consideration. Some do relate to the nature of the digital platform. But others concern communication more generally, and in this regard one should not ignore the possibility that theorists from long ago may have valuable insights. One of these is Goffman’s “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”.