Embedded Files
The current obsession with photographic self-portraits - The Selfie - can be traced back to the origins of photography. One of the first things photographers did when they learned how to fix light on a surface was to turn their rudimentary cameras on themselves. The earliest known example comes from 1839, the same year that Louis Daguerre patented the 'invention' of photography as a commercially viable process. Since then, the self-portrait, a genre inherited from painting, has become a staple form of photographic image making.
This project has Two main aims:
To research the history of The Selfie in order to better understand its cultural context today.
To explore a variety of ways of making self-portraits using both technical and aesthetic choices to develop and refine your own Selfies.
The Selfie accounts for a large proportion of the digital photographs people make. More then 24 billion selfies are uploaded to the Internet each year!!!
What explains the importance of Selfies in our image making culture? Why do we seem to enjoy looking at other people's Selfies, especially celebrities? Why do (some of us) make them in such large quantities? Is it a sign that we are becoming ever more self-obsessed, or can we see this phenomenon as a positive means of creative self-expression? Have human beings always been interested in seeing their own faces or is this a new thing?
Some initial questions:
Some initial questions:
How many Selfies do you take a week? What do you do with them? If you don't take Selfies, why not?
What, do you think, is the reason why taking Selfies has become so popular? Is there a downside to the taking and sharing of Selfies?
What are the rules or conventions for taking a Selfie? Where do these come from? Is it OK to break these rules?
What is a self-portrait?
What is a self-portrait?
A self-portrait is a work of art featuring the artist as subject. There are examples stretching back to ancient times. Self-Portraits in art can be 2 or 3 dimensional. As artists became more professional and independent, during the Renaissance period, they began to make more self-portraits as a way of celebrating their own status and individuality. Today, the self-portrait is a thriving genre, perhaps one that has been given an extra impetus by photography. It's important to remember that, when photography was 'invented' (the 1830s) it was largely influenced by painting and other 2D arts. Photographers would look to the examples provided by the history of painting in the way they composed their images. Since self-portraiture has a long history in art, it's no surprise that self-portrait photographs share some similarities with painting. Although a photograph can be made much quicker than an oil painting, the early photographic processes required people to sit still for several minutes. Various contraptions were invented to stabilise the head so that it didn't appear blurry in the final picture.
Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earing' takes a Selfie
The picture on the left is a famous self-portrait by the Dutch painter and printmaker, Rembrandt. This is an etching and would have resulted from the artist drawing with a needle onto a copper plate. Does it remind you in any way of modern Selfies - the slightly surprised expression, open mouth, pouty lips...? Ironically, many of the earliest photographic self-portraits were very stiff and formal by comparison.
What is a Selfie?
What is a Selfie?
Selfie is slang for Self-Portrait. It is used today to infer a photographic self-portrait taken on a mobile device and shared via social media. In 2013, "Selfie" was word of the year in the Oxford English Dictionary. The inclusion of front facing cameras on smart phones and the popularity of social media sites like Instagram and Snapchat have made the posting of Selfies increasingly popular as a form of photographic self-expression. On 30 March 2017, the Saatchi Gallery in London launched an exhibition entitled From Selfie to Self-Expression, claiming it to be "the world’s first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from Velazquez to the present day, while celebrating the truly creative potential of a form of expression often derided for its inanity."
I haven’t been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento ‘kids these days’ want is a selfie.-- Taylor Swift
At the March 2014 Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres posted the most-shared selfie in the history of Twitter, with over 3.4 million retweets and 2.4 likes. U
Why are Selfies criticised for being empty, boring or pointless? Perhaps if we understood how significant they have been in the history of art and photography we might take a different view? This is certainly the aim of the Saatchi show. Let's look at a couple of recent and remarkable examples:
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide - Selfie, 5 September 2012.
Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips - Photo Op, 2005
These are remarkable examples of The Selfie for different reasons. Take a close look at the first photograph. What can you see?
Who is taking The Selfie?
Where is s/he taking it?
What is reflected in the astronaut's helmet?
What's the bright object behind his/her head?
We would normally expect to see the photographer's face in a Selfie. In this example, we see a remarkable reflection, a privileged view that very few people will ever witness.
Take the second example. This is not a conventional Selfie but rather a photograph of a man in the process of taking a Selfie.
How do you think this photograph was made?
Who is the man and what is happening behind him?
This image was featured in an exhibition about modern art and war at a museum. Why do you think the curators chose this particular picture to advertise the exhibition? You can read more about the image and the exhibition here.
Some more questions:
Some more questions:
To what extent are Selfies a kind of performance?
The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us ‘on pause’ in order to document our lives.-- Sherry Turkle
There are lots of people who think that Selfie culture is a bad thing. How can Selfies be used positively?
Rather than dismissing the trend as a side effect of digital culture or a sad form of exhibitionism, maybe we’re better off seeing selfies for what they are at their best — a kind of visual diary, a way to mark our short existence and hold it up to others as proof that we were here.-- Jenna Wortham
Page updated
Report abuse