Naslov
Selfies as Augmentation of (Disappearing) Reality

Autori
Peraica, Ana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self

Urednik/ci
Della Ratta, Donatella ; Lovink, Geert ; Numerico, Teresa ; Sarram, Peter

Izdavač
Palgrave Macmillan

Grad
Cham

Godina
2021

Raspon stranica
165-179

ISBN
978-3-030-65496-2

Ključne riječi
photography, perspective, photomaps

Sažetak
Besides self-portraits, the back or selfie camera serves for viewing the part of the world which is usually visually inaccessible to us. Mobile phones are – aside for photographing – used as devices for visually controlling the world we do not see immediately ; the world behind our backs. This is the case at least during the moments of making the visual composition of the photograph. I will name the part of our surrounding physical reality behind one’s back the ‘backworld’, which overlaps with the translation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Hinterwelten (Ger. Hinterworlds or the backworlds, which are more related to backwardness). According to my use, the backworld will be simply a space not primarily covered by a naked, natural vision, as it falls behind the back of the viewer. It would be a precondition of the front-world, both as a conscious construction of the world, but also unconsciously, fearing any surprises that might come out of it. There is not much being written on that part of the world that constantly stays behind our immediate vision field, and in this chapter I will connect these rare sources in order to interpret rising problematics of mediation of whatever is behind us physically, that has now become an integral part of our visual culture. Attached to the present-in-front part of the world, the backworld has been the subject of multiple myths dealing with the relationship between the subconscious and the conscious since the very beginning of Western, ocularcentric culture. It is, as for example, present in the contrast between the narrowed view-field of Narcissus and the 360° auditive immersion of Echo. It is also clearly present in the problematic uncertainty of Orpheus, who turns his head back so to control the world of death as well as in the more rational, mediated perception of Perseus. In this text, I trace lines of interpretation from the myths present in the selfie genre, speaking to fears of the world behind our backs to those present in selfies recording death, and those engendered by the rational augmentation of surrounding physical reality in the backworld, as permitted by the use of the mobile phone. I would like to trace them back to the original concepts of the world behind the back as the world of death itself, that is: the world from which Orpheus tries to rescue Eurydice and the world that maintains its killing gaze, as in the myth of Perseus, who controls the gorgon Medusa.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija, Povijest umjetnosti, Znanost o umjetnosti, Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti, Filmska umjetnost (filmske, elektroničke i medijske umjetnosti pokretnih slika)

POVEZANOST RADA