Selfies - a visual analysis: Elizabeth Urbanski at TEDxNavesink

In her talk about "Selfies", Elizabeth A. Urbanski covers the fascinating and sometimes puzzling phenomenon of publicly posted instant self portraits snapped on cell phones, and examines these self edited pictures through an art historian's lens and attempt to categorize and analyze as well as understand them in relationship to works significant to Western art history.

Hello everyone,
today we're going to talk about selfies.

Selfies are the most modern way we have
of people showing images of themselves.

But we've been showing images of ourselves
for thousands of years.

So, in our talk we're going to look

at the relationship
between what we're doing now

and what we've done previously.

Say for example
you don't know what a selfie is,

you don't have a tween
with an Instagram account.

I'll tell you,
a selfie is an instant self-portrait

which you take from a mobile device,

you outstretch your arm and you snap it.

It's all you,

there's no professional photographer,
there's no editor,

there's no curator

and then you instantly upload it
to the Internet for global consumption.

So your private life is exposed
for everyone to see.

Being a selfie maker,

you're both the creator
and the subject, and you choreograph

how you're going to look in a selfie:
you decide your body language,

your proximity to the camera,
where you're going to look,

what you're wearing,

your milieu and very importantly
your facial expression.

The medium itself
has a very specific aesthetic.

First of all, most selfies
have a square format,

usually they're viewed
on an intimate scale,

maybe on your cell phone or mobile device.

They have a very specific
photographic distortion

which usually is from the arm's length,

of the proximity of the camera lens,

so this can make your face distorted,
or maybe part of the background distorted,

and then also because
of the arm's length proximity,

the picture itself has a very
shallow collapsed sense of space.

Many selfies,

maybe it's because of expertise or not,
have a blur within the image itself,

and finally a lot of the selfies have
this almost soft, unsaturated sepia tone

that have an almost nostalgic
quality to them.

Many people dismiss selfies as being
narcissistic, frankly many of them are,

and most people can't help
looking at themselves.

I mean if you walk past a mirror,

almost everyone takes a look to see
how things are going on.

(Laughter)

But let's think of selfies
in relationship to art history.

Are they traditional,
or are they revolutionary?

Traditionally, when people
had their portraits taken, painted,

they were done by an artist,

and they were seen
through the artist's eye.

Here we have Louis XIV
as the Sun king, the artist has expertly

expressed his view of the world
of how he wanted to express himself.

Sometimes,

even if you are
the most powerful person in the world

and you hire the greatest artist,

the portraits weren't
particularly always flattering.

But now we've gotten rid of the artist
as the conduit, as the intermediary.

And everyone is an artist,

so they can decide
how they want to brand themselves.

And with every image, they can change

their brand, their image, to the world,

advertising themselves to the world.

So, your self is a very fluid concept
that is constantly being able

to be moved and developed unlike
the portrait of Louis XIV,

which we now know hundreds
of years later what his message was.

Let's think about self portraits,

traditionally self portraits

we think of Dürer here as a self
constructed artifice,

he took ideas, what he wanted his beliefs
and his ideas and put them in a painting.

Here we have Dürer
equating his artistic genius

to that of almost a Christ-like creator.

And then we have the contemporary selfie

showing us his superiority with his
all-knowing facial expression.

So let's think about selfies that fit
into other traditional categories.

Let's consider body language.

Here we have a senator,
this Roman senator,

Audience: Aw!

with this very frontal facial expression,

this unflinching expression,

looking straight at the camera.

And today, when people want
to express power in their image,

they use this exact same body language.

Let's think about... Here we have
a Hellenistic Aphrodite,

her head is tilted in coy flirtation,

as she is flirting
with the Satyr next to her.

And over and over in contemporary selfies,

we have the same exact body language.

Many times -
(Laughter)

Here we have Hercules,

his head is bowed down,

his arms are away from his body,

so that we can look at his toned,
muscular, powerful torso,

because this is what defines him
as who he is, as his character.

And again and again, in contemporary
selfies, we have the same idea.

Even in this contemporary work,

the subject's head is even distorted
by the camera lens,

it's back and a blur because
his focus is his chiseled physique.

So his physicality becomes
an expression of who he is.

Here we have Rembrandt as a young artist:

his eyes are sunken and dark
and deep and moody,

he's got pursed lips,

his hair with his golden
highlighted coifs,

and we have this contemporary selfie

attempting to express
the same exact poetic angst

and anguish of youth and talent.

Not only can we refer to

art history for references,

but also to Hollywood,

so here we have Mary Pickford
as a certain type of ingenue

with her golden locks, her doe eyes,
her can-do spirit,

and we have the contemporary selfie
modeling herself

almost exactly with that same idea.

Not only are selfies about

modeling yourself,
but also showing people who you are,

where you've been.

No matter who you are,
they want you to know where they've been

and they want you to maybe be jealous.

So not only look where I am,
but look what I have. (Laughter)

Do you value what I have?

Do you judge me by what I have?

Let me show you what I have.

Look who I'm with.

No matter who you are and no matter
how powerful you are,

you still want to legitimize your time

by showing that you're
with someone who's of import.

We live in a world where we're constantly
being documented and documenting.

Because of this, we're very self-conscious
of the photographic process.

So as a response,

when we're taking selfies, a lot of people

make a very exaggerated
facial expression,

freeze it and then take the picture.

Because they want to make sure

that you know that they're choreographing
that instantaneous expression.

Certainly they don't want to be caught
in a photograph where they're actually

instantaneous, unflattering and real.

Exposure to Hollywod has shown us

how to pose for pictures,
how to smile for pictures,

but now this awareness of
constant documentation

has made a very new expression
that is really very specific to selfies

and has been dubbed the duck face.

Selfies are part of the whole history

about looking and being looked at.

Every selfie is an act
of having yourself on display.

Every selfie is an act of self-voyeurism.

So let's consider the gaze
in some of these pictures.

Here we have Manet's Olympia.

She is challenging us
as we look at her nudity.

She's looking at us looking at her.

And we have this contemporary selfie,

taking this very same pose,
using the same eye contact,

everything is very deliberate
and purposeful.

Another idea of looking at the gaze
is when a subject is looking away.

Then they are part of the landscape,

part of a still life,
an object to be admired,

without letting the viewer know
that they're being looked at.

So ultimately,
who is the visual consumer of the selfie,

and how do we understand images

when they're taken out their
content and context?

Maybe one person
will read this in one way,

and another person in another way.

So what we do is

we place our individual perceptions,

our individual experiences

and perspectives on the image,
and that creates a multitude of readings,

a multitude of stories.

Because ultimately selfies are a poignant

example of the fact that people crave
to be recognized,

they crave to be remembered, validated.

This is an attempt to do these things.

But this medium, you can look
at so many images

at one time that can be compared,
contrasted,

dismissed, juxtaposed,

and every subject creator is always
searching for originality

when they're making their images.

We have to think,
when we're looking at these pieces,

when you're looking at a selfie
or you're taking a selfie,

you have to think, how do I fit
into the historical context?

Thank you!

(Applause)