CULTURE OF THE SELFIE: SELF-REPRESENTATION IN CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE
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#whataboutyourselfie To understand differences in art production of self-portraits and selfies, I have undertaken a preliminary internet project. I had started the analysis on the topic in the field I knew best, and that is contemporary art and media art history. For these purposes, I have conceived a hashtag #whataboutyourselfie, working on different social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Instagram…), inviting general artists to participate by uploading selfportraits and selfies using a tag #whataboutyourselfie.15 Artists deciding to collaborate with this project were; Veronica Bape, Richard Barbrook, Guy Ben-Ary, Liliana Beltran, Dino Bičanić, Mladen Bilankov, Iva-Matija Bitanga, Elvis Berton, Jelena Blagović, Josip Bosnić, Dario Brajković, Tomislav Brajnović, Milan Brkić, Valeria Caballeroa, Branko Cerovac, Amalia Cortiz Ortez, Marijan Crtalić, Pedro Alves de Veiga, Eric Del Castillo, Pablo Del Castillo, Romina Dušić, Rino Efendić, Kristijan Falak, Markita Franulić, Dafna Ganani, Iva Gašparić, Gržinić Marina (with Aina Šmid, Zvonka T. Simčič, Dusan Mandić), John Hopkins, Angela Ibanez, Jodi Dean, Božidar Jurjević, Siniša Labrović, Miklos Legrady, Boris Ljubičić, Boris Kadin, Igor Kuduz, Marko Marković, Armando Martinez, Elvier Menetrier, Barbara Mihályi, Andrea Musa, Antonia Dora Pleško, Dominik Podsiadly, Niko Princen, Rayon Reyez, Lina Rica, Julija Simunić, Marko Stamenković, Damir Stojnić, Nebojša Šerić – Šoba, Iija Šoškić, Josip Špika, Igor Štromajer, Vice Tomasović, Goran Tomčić and Tina Vukasović.16 Some outcomes were more than predictable. Older artists did not respond to the call for artworks as demanded, by directly uploading images on social networks, rather they have asked a curator to choose one by herself and upload the work selected from the administrator’s end, as in the classic curatorial selection for exhibition. Some authors were sending pictures rather passionately and obsessively, in a higher frequency and density, uploading multiple ones at once. Students’ selfies were different from the more experimental self-portraits of their professors. Still, some new practices of framing, allowing cut-ups, and unusually high angles were introduced by younger generations. Younger generations also recorded with a direct gaze into the camera, while older authors avoided a direct self-picture, as if trying to establish some critical relationship to the concept of the self, from where a shift in audience theory became important in self-recording practices. Thus, only younger generations and media artists were sending selfies, meaning posed images recorded by hand, or selfie stick with inbuilt shutter release, and directly uploaded: while all others sent self-portraits in which they were either distancing from the camera through the use of the shutter timer, or being photographed by others in staged environments acting as if they were not posing. Although being open to the unknown internet self-portrayers, the project had little success with them.17 Still, it has given a ground for analyzing if there is a boundary between selfies and
15 #Whataboutyourselfie was a temporary web based project, www.whataboutyourselfie.info, organized by the promotion of a hashtag [#]. To participate all one had to do is to add #whataboutyourselfie to any existing image on social networks, or post a status on any of the social networks; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Youtube. The input from the side of organizers included adding examples of historic self-portraits while new ones were expected from the side of artists. 16 Besides them, my thanks go to the curatorial assistant Anđelko Mihanović, who has managed to follow posts on different channels, and to the rest of the team. 17 Campaign on Facebook, between 1-7 February, 2016, invited artists and students from New York, Tokyo, Sidney and London. Tokyo public has clicked 330 times on 16.151 ads released, New York 280 on 12.671. The least active were London with 265 clicks on 19.722 and Sidney with 116 on 14.839 ads. New York public was the most active in regard to the other cities. Total number of the public