Self-Administering the Image Virus: Six Months of Selfies

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    Abstract

    In this essay, I argue that the selfie involves a nuanced relationship between still and moving images – in that most selfies are still images but that in some senses they involve a ‘cinematic’ logic that wishes to convey movement and by extension power. For, mobility is possible only for those who can afford it, with selfies also often being used to connote the wealth or the would-be wealth of the taker. The essay then goes on to consider how selfies involve a sexual component which draws out how the proliferation of selfies bespeaks a desire for us not to multiply as humans, but to multiply images and to multiply oneself in images. This in turn would reaffirm how in the contemporary era cinema is the measure of reality as opposed to reality being the measure of cinema.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationFrom Self-Portrait to Selfie
    Subtitle of host publicationRepresenting the Self in the Moving Image
    EditorsMuriel Tinel-Temple, Laura Busetta, Marlène Monteiro
    Place of PublicationOxford
    PublisherPeter Lang
    Pages231
    Number of pages253
    ISBN (Electronic)978-1-78874-063-0
    ISBN (Print)978-1788740616
    Publication statusPublished - 29 Mar 2019

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