The Visual Culture of the Selfie from the Perspective of ‘Visual Identity’

Abstract

The essay attempts to outline the issues of the visual culture of the selfie from the perspective of “visual identity” that has referred to contemporary art. In this paper, I analyze examples of the following artworks: The Reincarnation of Saint ORLAN by the French artist ORLAN, the Bodies© INCorporated website, designed by Victoria Vesna, The Little Revenge from the Periphery by José Bedia Valdés, The Chief: He Who Sold Africa to the Colonists and Autoportraits by Samuel Fosso. In addition, this paper is focused on an analysis of the “biopower” concept which refers to Michel Foucault’s “docile bodies.” This concept is based on the neoliberal power process over the production of living beings and exercising control over them is an updating of the development of political, democratic, and economic institutions, as well as information and biocybernetic technologies. The “docile bodies” concept strengthens the conviction of the bodies must become the object of biopower interventions for the “perfect body” concept to act upon the strictly defined appearance of the body consistent with the standards and norms of “beauty” adopted by visual culture. In this situation, the selfie and photographic images produce homogeneous images, which function as “ideological texts” making our “visual identity” and self-image. This concept is given a lot of considerable space in this paper because the selfie can be regarded as an “personality identity” shaping the visual appearance of our bodies. In the essay’s conclusion, I claim that the visual culture of the selfie seems to be an aesthetic phenomenon shaped by a visual medium such as digital photography. However, photography does not is the key medium of the selfie. My analyses were aimed at showing that this role plays an “image,” no matter how it can be understood.

Keywords

• visual culture
• contemporary art
• the selfie
• visual identity
• the biopower concept
• the docile bodies