Ubiquitous Self
Giorgio Cipolletta · Advances in computational intelligence and robotics book series · 2019
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced “selfie” as the word of the year. The dictionary defined it as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Selfies are also a complex form of social interaction, an emerging aesthetics, thus having an irrevocable impact on self-portraiture. All visual culture revolves around the body and the body par excellence is the face. The 21st century portrait represents a kind of black mirror where we project ourselves into a kind of blindness. Mask and face are confused by an omnipresent multividuality in which the shield reveals itself and reveals other possible worlds. The face-mask melts in between Real and Virtual and the self becomes augmented.