In this unit, we were asked to create work, taking as a starting point the premise of photography as a mirror.
RESEARCH
Texts:
- Rosalind Krauss Video: the Aesthetics of Narcissism
- Craig Owens, Photography en abyme
How Millennials Became the Selfie Generation | Annals of Obsession | The New Yorker
A short but VERY interesting video that gets to the roots of the narcissism that developed over generations, stemming from a man, a California lawmaker, John Vasconcellos, and his conviction that high self-esteem is like a vaccine for successful life/happy people. What it did, is created a generation of narcissists.
What the Internet (and Selfies) Reveal About Our Self-Obsession | Big Think.
SELFIE by Will Storr | author interview
Will Storr talks about how individualism, human culture and how we absorb it, and how people from different cultures see the world, details they pick up on.
What would Freud make of our obsession with selfies? | BBC Ideas
A brief video that talks about the history of selfies , narcissim and what Freud would potentialy had to say about all that.
(English overdub) The Society of the Spectacle (Final sound edit)
CONCEPT & CONCLUSIONS
Each grain of sand once was a mountain.
In today’s world, through the technology of heating processes, that sand is shaped into a mirror, an object that is supposed to reflect at us our ephemeral selves.
But what we are looking back at is a mountain of ourselves that daily, little by little, turns into a grain of sand, only to vanish in the endlessness of the world.
Photography attempts, and in fact, sometimes succeeds in being a very unique kind of mirror. A magic mirror that does not reflect the time but captures it. The type of mirror that does not always tell the truth that IS, but the truth you want it to be.
If presented with a photograph of your grandmother in her twenties, I would keep that image of her. Not having ever met your grandmother, I have no reference point, no comparison, so for me, the photograph is the reflection of your grandmother and the only image of her that I can think of. If I never meet her or see another, perhaps more updated photograph, this will be the only way I will always perceive her.
If you ask me, this is a kind of magic, an illusion that photography creates is so real that it becomes the reality. If what we see in a mirror is true, and we believe that what we see in the photograph is genuine and accurate, then what is the difference between the two?
Whether it’s the ‘actual’ reality or the illusion of it that is as satisfactory to our mind and eyes, then, is there really a distinction?
In my opinion, yes, a minuscule but a very crucial one.
You can keep looking identical when examining a specific photograph over the years, but you will not look the same looking into a mirror over some time.
Through my visual project, I want to emphasise the inevitable time passing, the sand shifting of our existence, and the attempt that photographs make to stop or at least interfere with that process.
EXECUTING THE PROJECT
I decided to work inside as it was too cold to spend over an hour working outside. I collected some sand from a local playground and set up a station on my glass table in my flat.
I shot the face sequence on my Fuji digital camera and my phone as a backup. Once satisfied with the photo shoot, I used the images in making a final work – an animated GIF of the face disintegration.
I went to a website that I frequently used for making GIFs, https://ezgif.com/, and played with settings like speed, effects etc., to achieve the desired results.
FINAL RESULT OF THE PROJECT
REFERENCES
How Millennials Became the Selfie Generation | Annals of Obsession | The New Yorker. The New Yorker. https://youtu.be/L3_CHnYg-yc. Available through YouTube. [Accessed on 23/11/22]
(English overdub) The Society of the Spectacle (Final sound edit). konrad steiner. [Online video] https://vimeo.com/139772287. Available through Vimeo. [Accessed on 23/11/22]
SELFIE by Will Storr | author interview. Book Break. [Online video] https://youtu.be/eBGeAy660UU. Available through YouTube. [Accessed on 22/11/22]
What the Internet (and Selfies) Reveal About Our Self-Obsession | Big Think. Big Think. [Online video] https://youtu.be/LHN8hGbg9HU. Available through YouTube. [Accessed on 23/11/22]
What would Freud make of our obsession with selfies? | BBC Ideas. BBC Ideas. [Online video] https://youtu.be/qsJfEhvdzQ4. Available through YouTube. [Accessed on 23/11/22]
Ela Skorska 