Through low-threshold online platforms, mobile digital gadgets and easy-to-use software, the production, distribution and consumption of self-images and self-imaging has become a global mass-phenomenon. The 21st century is experiencing the rise of an interactive and participatory, yet thoroughly commercialized public visual sphere centered on self-representation in networked image cultures. More than ever before, "the self" – allegedly genuin, authentic, singular – appears as the other side of the coin of homogenization and standardization. Against this backdrop, the section "Picturing the Self" comprises scholarly and experimental, artistic approaches to "the self" in visual culture. In podcasts, video essays, video lectures and artworks, our contributors explore the intersections between visible images of "the self" in social media and imagined self-images, while also taking into account historical precursors in cinema, photography and Videotelephony. The latter are presented on November 12, whereas November 19 is dedicated to the present.
12.11.2020 Online Lectures
- Sagar Mitchell & James Kenyon: Edwardian cinema as social media | by Richard Reynolds
- At Home – The Visual Culture of Privacy | by Joseph Imorde
- From Purikura to SNS Selfies. Digital Photography and Japanese Popular Culture | by Morihiro Satow