The Multiple eXposure Project is a multimedia, multi/trans/inter-disciplinary artistic practice and research-based initiative that explores the many layers of image-making, participatory photography, visual ethnography, and performative encounter(s) between the image and the spectator; the subject and the viewer. As what the name of the project implies, this endeavor is profoundly interested in the notions of the “multiple” and the “exposure” both in their literal and symbolic sense.
Firstly, The Multiple eXposure Project seeks to examine the multiple potentials of image-making or photography (digital and analogue; still and moving) as a medium, a performance, and an instrument of social engagement and (ex)change, and the overlapping of it with other disciplines. As part of its exploration, this project involves a series of visual, photographic or lens-based workshops in collaboration with non-profit, grassroots volunteer groups. The concept of the multiple is also applied under the framework of collaborative work – of bring together multiple individuals with multiple philosophies into a plurality of shared experiences.
Secondly, The Multiple eXposure Project is equally drawn to the idea of “exposure” (subjection, experience, vulnerability, coverage, documentation, and so on) in the process of socially-engaged image-making that exposes what needs to be exposed; clarifies the obscure; and concerns itself with a gamut of critical questions and discursive issues of representation.
Through image-making, we aim to expose and get exposed.
Public Interrogation: Outside the White Cube (December 1-31, 2015)
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube
Organized by The Multiple eXposure Project
www.themultipleexposureproject.co.nr
Location: Public Spaces, Metro Manila, Philippines
Date: December 1-31, 2015
December 1-2 (8pm-10pm): EDSA Avenue cor. Kamuning Rd. Quezon City
December 5 (7pm-9pm): Ayala-Paseo Pedestrian Underpass, Makati City
December 13 (6pm-7pm): Alabang-Montillano Footbridge, Muntinlupa
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube is an alternative, traveling, curatorial project that features image-based works across different disciplines and media by emerging artists whose works discuss the notion of the “public” and its complexities.
What is public? What counts as public? The “public” is a multi-layered concept defined differently depending on how the term is used and framed. It is a notion devoid of singularity and is, grammatically speaking, a terrain of contradictions. As a noun and an adjective, the public constitutes the people, masses or community, and suggests anything that is staged, accessed, or seen out in the “open.” The public can also be used as a verb to describe something one does, as in make public or publicize, suggesting the movement or shift from the inside (private) to the outside (public). Paradoxically, however, the same term also points to the limits of such openness and movement. Given that it simultaneously refers to something “involving and provided by the government”, the public is always at risk of becoming merely an apparatus of the sovereign state and its institutions, thus making the flow of its production, distribution, and consumption partial and counterproductive.
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube seeks to re-frame the practice of curating and spectating images outside the exclusionary, institutional borders of the “white cube” or gallery space. Public spaces are used as an exhibition site to stimulate a mode of spectator experience that revolves around displacement of the passersby (public) from their “habitus” by interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. We alter a familiar public space and transform it into an unusual, dialogic site for image projection and exhibition, taking advantage of its accessibility and site-specificity in order to redefine the ways the spectators look at and engage with images. Adopting “guerilla urbanism” as a curatorial strategy, we make sense of the immediacy of the “public” and reflect upon its context, meanings, and intersections with representation, place, and discourse. In so doing, we intervene and reformat aspects of the urban landscapes and emphasize the “counter-spectacle” in art viewing and appreciation. This project also underlines the inherent ephemerality of an open-to-the-public display in relation to time and space. As a “traveling” exhibition which heavily depends on projection technology and public space as its “frame” or “canvas", this project celebrates the momentary nature of image-viewing, consumption, and mobility in the metropolis at a time of constant flux and transition.
Video Arts
Borders - Anne Murray (USA)
The Separation Loop - Leyla Rodriguez (Germany)
Gnomonicity - Amitesh Grover (India)
36&71 - Anthony Stephenson (USA)
Sully - Marbella Carlos (Canada)
You See Davis - Rembrandt Quiballo (Philippines, USA)
Untitled (Sleeping People in a Train) - Hannah Reber (Germany)
Into the labyrinth - Geordy Zodidat Alexis (France)
The Safest of Hands - Clint Sleeper (USA)
Hunt/Find - Dani Salvadori (UK)
Leaving My Skin - Ellen Wetmore (UK)
Presence of Absence - Matt Lee (India)
Untitled – Mohammad Namazi (UK, Iran)
Still Images / Photographs
Right Time Right Place - Robert Rutoed (Austria)
Peripheral Strangers - Julie Dawn Dennis (UK)
De Staat (The State) - Maarten Tromp (Netherlands)
Ruinophilia - Anna Garrett (UK)
Circling the Square - Arturo Soto (Mexico)
The Spectator, the Viewer, the Observer and the Perceiver –
Francine LeClercq (USA)
Magic Rooms - Carlos Collado (Spain)
Date of Consumption - Lita Poliakova
Street Photography - John Robert Luna (Philippines)
Walls - Elena Efeoglou (Greece)
Fitting Room – Megan Mace (South Africa)
Street art you can take home (for free) - Lorenzo Bordonaro (Portugal)
Victim – Solomon Eko (Nigeria)
Performance Videos / Public Interventions
Balloon Performance - Louise Winter (UK)
Somarts Mural Dance - Johanna Poethig (USA)
Unpatentable Multitouch Aerobics - Liat Berdugo (USA)
Disclaimer at Manchester Art Gallery - Laura Gower (UK)
Sustaintability – Dani Lamorte and Veronica Bleaus (USA)
Animations / Digital
Job Interview - Dénes Ruzsa and Fruzsina Spitzer (Hungary)
In Between - Sofia Makridou, Theodora Prassa (Greece)
Decadence of Nature - Olga Guse (Russia)
AsianGirl N40°42'54.488" W73°59'30.313" - Victoria Elle, Rocky Li, and Jennifer Mehigan (USA)
Get Featured in our Blog!
We are currently expanding the content of our blog and we would like to feature multidisciplinary/multimedia artists, photographers, image-makers, visual artists, performers, and so on, their portfolio, artistic practice, and research interests. The feature section serves as a virtual, archival gallery and a platform for free promotion. This call is open to all artists – individuals or groups; amateur or professional – anywhere in the world.
If you think your works are relevant to The Multiple eXposure Project, send your artist statement, sample of your portfolio, photos, videos, press releases, and other related materials to themultipleexposureproject@gmail.com.
Moving Still: The Multiple eXposure Project Zine 2.0
The sophomore issue of The Multiple eXposure Project zine has been uploaded! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE.
New media and video artists included in the publication are as follows:
Jessica Buie /
Liat Berdugo /
Laura Hyunjhee Kim /
Nicola Hands /
Tony Radin Jacobs /
(c) merry /
Talia Link /
Justin Zachary /
Adrian Errico /
Matteo Pasin /
Jean-Michel Rolland /
Manasak Khlongchainan /
Boris Contarin /
Hüseyin Çife /
Suman Kabiraj /
Patrick Moser /
Francesca Fini /
Aaron Oldenburg /
Benjamin Grosser/
You Qi /
Dénes Ruzsa /
Fruzsina Spitzer /
Fran et Jim /
Amelia Johannes /
Heidi C. Neubauer-Winterburn /
Jess, Lau Ching Ma /
Scott F. Hall /
Eleni Manolaraki /
Elise Frost
Harrison Banfield
Jack Rees /
Daehwan Cho /
Wu Siou Ming /
Masako Ono /
Bárbara Oettinger
I
n this sophomore issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine,“Moving Still”, we feature a heterogeneous breed of new media and video artists whose experimental and provocative works emphasize the potency of “videos” or “moving images” in the exploration and expansion of self-representation in the discursive flow of transmission and mediation – from the screen to the spectator; and the perceptive to the conceptual.
Selected artists here make use of the “screen” as medium and performance space. By displaying, curating, and performing in front of the screen, self-image-formation is enacted while relying on playful encounter with unknown spectators in order to weave different webs of interpretation. In this regard, the screen operates as an intermediary in the artist’s performance that brings connections to identities, personal narratives, history, everyday politics, and imaginaries.
The symbiotic relationship between the screen and the subject cultivates the construction of an image or spectacle that is consumed – temporally and spatially - in a doubling of intermediation. They deflect and reflect a plethora of shifting, hybrid pretexts about ourselves within the digital ecology where the delineating lines between the public and the private; the human and the mechanical; and the material and the virtual boundaries become blurred.
Given their hyperreal structure, these video performances, visual interventions, and recorded choreographies trigger a mode of mediated encounter that heavily manipulates moments of reality – of space and time. Intimacy and presence are concomitantly altered as these pieces can be incessantly scrutinized by the gaze of many anonymous viewers floating in the digital currents, allowing us to re-locate the individual and re-think about the concept of selfhood more fluidly.
Self-as-Subject: The Multiple eXposure Project Zine 1.0
We are pleased to announce that the very first issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine is now accessible online! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE. Feel free to share!
Below is the list of contributors (artists and writers) included in the publication:
J.D. Doria /
Dr. Sayfan Giulia Borghini /
Aldobranti /
Olga Sidilkovskaya /
Ana Rita Matias /
Anne Paternotte /
Rudi Rapf /
Leigh Anthony Dehaney /
Laura Knapp /
Jennifer van Exel /
Derya Edem /
Arushee Agrawal /
Utami Dewi Godjali /
Çağlar Uzun /
Mahmoud Khattab /
Noel Villa /
Dawn Woolley /
Teresa Ascencao /
Kalliope Amorphous /
Katrina Stamatopoulos /
Gaspard Noël /
Florian Tenk /
Petra Brnardic /
Sana Ghobbeh /
Alonso Tapia-Benitez /
Libby Kay Hicks /
Agent X /
Rina Dweck /
Yoko Haraoka /
Claire Manning /
Pietro Catarinella /
Anne Beck /
Gabriel Orlowski /
Ralph Klewitz /
Anthony Hall /
Alessandro Martorelli /
Robin Gerris /
Carol Radsprecher /
Veronica Hassell /
Daniela Olejnikov /
Jayson Carter /
Nathaniel St. Amour /
Jonathan Armistead /
Piotr Boćkowski
"Who are you?” “Who am I?” “Who do I think I am?” “What am I made of?” There is nothing simple about such inquiries as they pose a number of phenomenological and ontological issues.
To ask yourself or someone about self-definition is to deal with its vicissitudes and fluidities, oscillating between the ego and the alter ego; the naturalistic (Hume) and the metaphysical (Kant); and the reflexive perception of one’s body and the relational introspection with the “Other.” The self is, arguably and fundamentally, a complicated subject matter. It is an ever-evolving object, a corporeal being, an affective body, a precarious entity, a discursive phenomenon, and so forth.
Divided into three interrelated chapters, this zine features oeuvres by artists and writers from different localities around the world and, as what its theme implies, is an exploration of the “self” and its manifold permutations – its presence, identity, representation, liminality, and (dis)embodiment - in this day and age of digitality, hypermobility, and hyperreality.
In Chapter 1, The Self as I/Other, authors reflect on the dialectics between the ego and the alter ego and the multitude of ways the “self-as-subject” is defined by both internal and external contingencies, or philosophically speaking, by the binaries – “I” vs. “not-I.” Many of these selected pieces are visibly entangled with the act of self-mirroring, which is inherently reflective and performative: it involves the constitution of subjectivities based on visual imaginary reflected on the mirror that does not necessarily resemble the complex structures of the material body. What I highlight here is the notion of self-perception (internal) in relation to one’s experiences and the (external) world. As Anthony Giddens puts it, “A person's identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor - important though this is - in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. The individual's biography…cannot be wholly fictive. It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing 'story' about the self.” (54).
In Chapter 2, The Fetishized Self, we see interconnected self-representations that examine the convergence of idiosyncratic fantasies with the phantasmagoria as an offshoot of the fetishized commodity. When I refer to the term, phantasmagoria, I emphasize the volatile strings of imaginations through which the public and the private dimension of identity becomes obscured, blurring the demarcating lines between reality and fantasy. This section functions as a provocation of the fetishization of self and the centrality of the individual as authority. Through role-playing, the self, as a fetish object imbued with power and discourse, becomes an agency displaying and interrogating the politics of gender, sexuality, identity, and bodily desire.
Finally, in Chapter 3, The Fragmented Self, the fragmentation of identity framed within the digital, virtual, or hyperreal context is explored. Featured works here represent the various modes the anonymity, simulation, multiplicity, and control in data superhighway allow the transformation of the self into fragmented, hybrid subjects. The concept of “self-fragmentation” also revolves around the nature of post-modernism: the absence of absolute truth and the presence of disembodied self.
Bibliography:
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity, 1991.
Featured Artists
Click on the image to view the post.
From Paints and Daguerreotypes to Smartphones: Tracing the History of Selfies
For many of us active on social media platforms, it is difficult to miss the digital buzz known as selfie. Taking an image of oneself has become an ubiquitous practice these days. Celebrities, politicians, even the Pope, have joined the trend. Last year, the word “selfie” was hailed as “Word of the Year 2013” by the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”. [1] Oxford also remarks that the usage of the term “selfie” increased by 17,000% in the previous year.
But selfie, in reality, is not a new concept. The tradition of self-portraiture both in painting and photography is as old as the medium. Even before the term was coined and included in our modern-day vocabulary, selfies in the form of self-portraitures had been already made my mirror artists and painters. Throughout history, most painters made portraits of themselves at one point in their career. For early painters, the interest of the self-as-subject was often a practical one. In self-portraits, they didn’t have to spend a single dime for a sitter/model and, at the same time, they were able to enhance their artistic prowess and critical eye in painting.
It can be argued the history of the selfie formally harkens back to the practice of self-portraiture, which began in the 15th century, in which painters have made themselves as subjects of their own oeuvres. Selfies and self-portraitures are essentially the same in the sense that they are self-representations, minus the involvement of digital cameras and social media.
Portrait of a Man in a Turban (c.1433), a painting by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, is believed to be the earliest known panel self-portrait, although it has no inscription in the painting to verify it. Instead, there’s a text located at the top of its frame which reads "Als Ich Can" (as I/Eyck can) - a pun on the artist’s name. Art historians also posit that the direction of the subject’s penetrating gaze suggests that it may indeed be a self-portrait. On another hand, Jean Fouquet's self-portrait (c. 1450), a small picture in an enamel-painted copper medallion, is claimed to be as “the earliest clearly identified self-portrait that is a separate painting, not an incidental part of a larger work” (Janson 386).
Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck
Self-portrait medallion by Jean Fouquet
However, self-portraits are known to date back as far as pre-historic times. Ancient cave arts from Pech Merle in France painted 25,000 years ago may be considered as the most “basic” form of self-portrait and demonstrate how our ancestors perceive themselves in relation to their surroundings. Creation of self-portraits was also prevalent in the ancient civilization of Egypt. During the Amarna Period (c. 1365 BC), for instance, Egyptian sculptor Bak made a relief sculpture portraying himself and his wife Taheri. With regard to ancient Greece, records suggest that Greek sculptor Phidias incorporated a representation of himself in the Battle of the Amazons. He was jailed for leaving a small self-portrait of himself on the shield of Athena.
Cave paintings at Pech Merle. Worthy of note here are the hand stencils on the wall.
Self-portraitures, as an artistic form of self-representation, may have started, although still subject for debate, with Jan van Eyck’s or Jean Fouquet's self-portraits. However, there were other artists such as German painter Albrecht Dürer and Italian painter Parmigianino, who both became known for their “detailed exploration of their own images” (Jackson 704) in ways they desire to be viewed by others. They painted portraits to reflect their physical appearance, and like other artists of their times, to display their talent, wealth, and social status.
Moreover, succeeding painters like Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh brought the practice of self-portrait to another level as part of their artistic exploration. Rembrandt made a number of self-portraits through a rigorous self-study, while van Gogh’s dozens of self-portraits acted as his “method of introspection” to “develop his skills as an artist.”[2]
With the invention of photography, self-portraits have taken new heights. The transition from painting to photography consequently resulted to a major shift in the rationale of self-portrait, its immediacy and reception. (It is no coincidence that daguerreotypes was invented by French painter Louis Daguerre in 1830s.) An article published in Grove Art Online notes that from the very beginning of photographic technology, “the most popular form…was the portrait… especially those produced by the daguerreian process” because they “were treasured for their ability to capture the aspects of facial appearance that constitute family resemblance” (Rawlings, par. 2).
Below is a photo of what is said to be the first-ever recorded selfie and may have also been the world's first photographic portrait.
Photographic self-portrait of Robert Cornelius
It was taken in 1839 by a young chemist named Robert Cornelius. This monochromatic self-portrait was a testament of his dexterity as a Daguerreotypist, as stated in an account written in Godey’s Lady’s Book (1840):
"There is a young gentleman of this city, by the name of Robert …who has more genius than he yet supposes himself to possess…as a Daguerreotypist his specimens are the best that have yet been seen in this country, and we speak this with a full knowledge of the specimens shown here by Mr. Gouraud, purporting to be, and no doubt truly, by Daguerre himself. We have seen many specimens by young Cornelius, and we pronounce them unsurpassable—they must be seen to be appreciated. Catching a shadow is a thing no more to be laughed at. Mr. Cornelius, in one matter, has outstripped the great master of the art, a thing, by the way, peculiar to our countrymen; he has succeeded in etching his designs onto the plate, from which they cannot be removed by any effort. A few more experiments in this way, and we shall do without engravers—those very expensive gentlemen."
This photographic self-portrait of Cornelius, to some extent, is no different to modern selfies mainly because it was taken by the subject himself; hence, there is a perceptual encounter between oneself and the medium. However, the purpose is definitely not the same. Today’s selfies are taken with immediacy and spontaneity, with an ascribed intention to be “seen” by others, way different from the rationale and context of this analogue image.
Godey's Lady's Book (Philadelphia) Vol. 20, April 1840.
Jackson II, Ronald L (ed.). Encyclopedia of Identity. California: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2001.
Janson H.W. History of art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1986.
Rawlings, Kandice. “Selfies and the history of self-portrait photography.” OUPBlog : n.pag. Web. 21 November 2013. 12 September 2014. <http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/selfies-history-self-portrait-photography>
The Multiple eXposure Project is run by a small group of image-makers, visual artists, and researchers coming from different backgrounds, with a wide range of interests.
profile
Please be patient, this page is under construction.
The Multiple eXposure Project incorporates theory and practice in image-making and publishes zine and scholarly articles, essays, stories on photography and visual narratives.
Collaboration with individuals and groups coming from different disciplines and backgrounds is of utmost importance at The Multiple eXposure Project especially in the workshops, exhibitions, and other projects. We underscore the potency of shared, ethical, participatory artistic process and accordingly of collaborative authorship by incorporating dialogical, performative interaction into image-making, bridging the gaps between the subject and the medium.
We curate our works in physical and digital configuration, applying methodologies on photo curation (of still and moving images) that are wide-ranging, alternative, experimental, and non-paradigmatic. To be specific, we delve into the concepts of photo curation, not just as praxis of selection or organization of images, or an archival method, but as a social intervention.
One of the crucial components of The Multiple eXposure Project is its practical initiative framed within the context of volunteerism, participation, and engagement. We believe in the collective power and benefits of sharing one’s skills and expertise with those who need them. We provide free photographic workshops, in cooperation with non-profit organizations, which are aimed at empowering marginalized individuals through photography or image-making.
PUBLICATION
The sophomore issue of The Multiple eXposure Project zine has been uploaded! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE.
Description: In this sophomore issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine,“Moving Still”, we feature a heterogeneous breed of new media and video artists whose experimental and provocative works emphasize the potency of “videos” or “moving images” in the exploration and expansion of self-representation in the discursive flow of transmission and mediation – from the screen to the spectator; and the perceptive to the conceptual.
New media and video artists included in the publication are as follows:
Jessica Buie /
Liat Berdugo /
Laura Hyunjhee Kim /
Nicola Hands /
Tony Radin Jacobs /
(c) merry /
Talia Link /
Justin Zachary /
Adrian Errico /
Matteo Pasin /
Jean-Michel Rolland /
Manasak Khlongchainan /
Boris Contarin /
Hüseyin Çife /
Suman Kabiraj /
Patrick Moser /
Francesca Fini /
Aaron Oldenburg /
Benjamin Grosser/
You Qi /
Dénes Ruzsa /
Fruzsina Spitzer /
Fran et Jim /
Amelia Johannes /
Heidi C. Neubauer-Winterburn /
Jess, Lau Ching Ma /
Scott F. Hall /
Eleni Manolaraki /
Elise Frost
Harrison Banfield
Jack Rees /
Daehwan Cho /
Wu Siou Ming /
Masako Ono /
Bárbara Oettinger
The first issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine is now accessible online! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE. Feel free to share!
Description: Divided into three interrelated chapters, this zine features oeuvres by artists and writers from different localities around the world and, as what its theme implies, is an exploration of the “self” and its manifold permutations – its presence, identity, representation, liminality, and (dis)embodiment - in this day and age of digitality, hypermobility, and hyperreality.
Featured artists and writers in the zine are as follows:
J.D. Doria /
Dr. Sayfan Giulia Borghini /
Aldobranti /
Olga Sidilkovskaya /
Ana Rita Matias /
Anne Paternotte /
Rudi Rapf /
Leigh Anthony Dehaney /
Laura Knapp /
Jennifer van Exel /
Derya Edem /
Arushee Agrawal /
Utami Dewi Godjali /
Çağlar Uzun /
Mahmoud Khattab /
Noel Villa /
Dawn Woolley /
Teresa Ascencao /
Kalliope Amorphous /
Katrina Stamatopoulos /
Gaspard Noël /
Florian Tenk /
Petra Brnardic /
Sana Ghobbeh /
Alonso Tapia-Benitez /
Libby Kay Hicks /
Agent X /
Rina Dweck /
Yoko Haraoka /
Claire Manning /
Pietro Catarinella /
Anne Beck /
Gabriel Orlowski /
Ralph Klewitz /
Anthony Hall /
Alessandro Martorelli /
Robin Gerris /
Carol Radsprecher /
Veronica Hassell /
Daniela Olejnikov /
Jayson Carter /
Nathaniel St. Amour /
Jonathan Armistead /
Piotr Boćkowski
Workshops
Excerpts from digital and analogue photography workshops at Koseli School, a center for slum and street children in Kathmandu, Nepal (January 2015). These participatory workshops incorporated photography with "playing" and performance.
Visual Intervention
Speech Acts and the Politics of Repetition SeriesDescription: This series explores the repetitive nature and patterns of speech acts and ritualized rhetorics of some of the world’s powerful and controversial figures by incorporating twice-recorded video footages with open-source background music.
Through the process of repetition, new meanings of the moving images and spoken texts are simultaneously (re)created. Specific words are on purpose repeated to generate a multitude of views and reviews and to deconstruct the stability of language. As a mode of visual intervention, these absurdly distorted and edited images/videos are also meant to make a dialogue with, distract, entertain, annoy, and disturb the viewers on the other side of the screen, while highlighting the intersections and contradictions between reality and absurdity; speech and power of the speaker.
Feel free to re-play and re-share!
#1 >>> Obama: You Kinda Screwed Up My Ending But That's Okay.
Video, animated gif, and stills created by Sherwin Altarez Mapanoo
Background music courtesy of einzimmersound
DIGITAL ART
Urban DomesticationDescription: An attempt to represent the psychological state of the subject who was performing to exist (and persist) as a corporate animal in the harsh and precarious dog-eat-dog world of the urban jungle.
Note: Point or click on the image to view its original version.
Climbing Up The Walls (and Ladders)
Paths to Nowhere | Horror Vacui
From Paints and Daguerreotypes to Smartphones: Tracing the History of Selfies
For many of us active on social media platforms, it is difficult to miss the digital buzz known as selfie. Taking an image of oneself has become an ubiquitous practice these days. Celebrities, politicians, even the Pope, have joined the trend. Last year, the word “selfie” was hailed as “Word of the Year 2013” by the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”. [1] Oxford also remarks that the usage of the term “selfie” increased by 17,000% in the previous year.
But selfie, in reality, is not a new concept. The tradition of self-portraiture both in painting and photography is as old as the medium. Even before the term was coined and included in our modern-day vocabulary, selfies in the form of self-portraitures had been already made my mirror artists and painters. Throughout history, most painters made portraits of themselves at one point in their career. For early painters, the interest of the self-as-subject was often a practical one. In self-portraits, they didn’t have to spend a single dime for a sitter/model and, at the same time, they were able to enhance their artistic prowess and critical eye in painting.
It can be argued the history of the selfie formally harkens back to the practice of self-portraiture, which began in the 15th century, in which painters have made themselves as subjects of their own oeuvres. Selfies and self-portraitures are essentially the same in the sense that they are self-representations, minus the involvement of digital cameras and social media.
Portrait of a Man in a Turban (c.1433), a painting by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, is believed to be the earliest known panel self-portrait, although it has no inscription in the painting to verify it. Instead, there’s a text located at the top of its frame which reads "Als Ich Can" (as I/Eyck can) - a pun on the artist’s name. Art historians also posit that the direction of the subject’s penetrating gaze suggests that it may indeed be a self-portrait. On another hand, Jean Fouquet's self-portrait (c. 1450), a small picture in an enamel-painted copper medallion, is claimed to be as “the earliest clearly identified self-portrait that is a separate painting, not an incidental part of a larger work” (Janson 386).
Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck
Self-portrait medallion by Jean Fouquet
However, self-portraits are known to date back as far as pre-historic times. Ancient cave arts from Pech Merle in France painted 25,000 years ago may be considered as the most “basic” form of self-portrait and demonstrate how our ancestors perceive themselves in relation to their surroundings. Creation of self-portraits was also prevalent in the ancient civilization of Egypt. During the Amarna Period (c. 1365 BC), for instance, Egyptian sculptor Bak made a relief sculpture portraying himself and his wife Taheri. With regard to ancient Greece, records suggest that Greek sculptor Phidias incorporated a representation of himself in the Battle of the Amazons. He was jailed for leaving a small self-portrait of himself on the shield of Athena.
Cave paintings at Pech Merle. Worthy of note here are the hand stencils on the wall.
Self-portraitures, as an artistic form of self-representation, may have started, although still subject for debate, with Jan van Eyck’s or Jean Fouquet's self-portraits. However, there were other artists such as German painter Albrecht Dürer and Italian painter Parmigianino, who both became known for their “detailed exploration of their own images” (Jackson 704) in ways they desire to be viewed by others. They painted portraits to reflect their physical appearance, and like other artists of their times, to display their talent, wealth, and social status.
Moreover, succeeding painters like Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh brought the practice of self-portrait to another level as part of their artistic exploration. Rembrandt made a number of self-portraits through a rigorous self-study, while van Gogh’s dozens of self-portraits acted as his “method of introspection” to “develop his skills as an artist.”[2]
With the invention of photography, self-portraits have taken new heights. The transition from painting to photography consequently resulted to a major shift in the rationale of self-portrait, its immediacy and reception. (It is no coincidence that daguerreotypes was invented by French painter Louis Daguerre in 1830s.) An article published in Grove Art Online notes that from the very beginning of photographic technology, “the most popular form…was the portrait… especially those produced by the daguerreian process” because they “were treasured for their ability to capture the aspects of facial appearance that constitute family resemblance” (Rawlings, par. 2).
Below is a photo of what is said to be the first-ever recorded selfie and may have also been the world's first photographic portrait.
Photographic self-portrait of Robert Cornelius
It was taken in 1839 by a young chemist named Robert Cornelius. This monochromatic self-portrait was a testament of his dexterity as a Daguerreotypist, as stated in an account written in Godey’s Lady’s Book (1840):
"There is a young gentleman of this city, by the name of Robert …who has more genius than he yet supposes himself to possess…as a Daguerreotypist his specimens are the best that have yet been seen in this country, and we speak this with a full knowledge of the specimens shown here by Mr. Gouraud, purporting to be, and no doubt truly, by Daguerre himself. We have seen many specimens by young Cornelius, and we pronounce them unsurpassable—they must be seen to be appreciated. Catching a shadow is a thing no more to be laughed at. Mr. Cornelius, in one matter, has outstripped the great master of the art, a thing, by the way, peculiar to our countrymen; he has succeeded in etching his designs onto the plate, from which they cannot be removed by any effort. A few more experiments in this way, and we shall do without engravers—those very expensive gentlemen."
This photographic self-portrait of Cornelius, to some extent, is no different to modern selfies mainly because it was taken by the subject himself; hence, there is a perceptual encounter between oneself and the medium. However, the purpose is definitely not the same. Today’s selfies are taken with immediacy and spontaneity, with an ascribed intention to be “seen” by others, way different from the rationale and context of this analogue image.
Godey's Lady's Book (Philadelphia) Vol. 20, April 1840.
Jackson II, Ronald L (ed.). Encyclopedia of Identity. California: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2001.
Janson H.W. History of art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1986.
Rawlings, Kandice. “Selfies and the history of self-portrait photography.” OUPBlog : n.pag. Web. 21 November 2013. 12 September 2014. <http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/selfies-history-self-portrait-photography>
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