<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Murat, good points you made on the increasingly limited attention we give to digital images (and to film) due to abundance of new images made available every moment. What I also see interesting in this regard is partial re-emergence or turn back to analog images. Both analog photography and filmmaking are getting more popular as a sort of counter-trend to digital mainstream. Polaroid is certainly back, and as a related trend vinyl sales are hitting records as we speak. I was actually quite fascinated by this when talking to a new generation of skateboarders who felt it did no longer make sense to make new youtube videos and turned to zine style paper-n-sissors magazines, typewriters, and VHS film instead as forms of expression and exploration. They found that such largely abandoned, outdated, and inefficient pre-digital media and objects offered them a 'new' space to be filled with meaning. I made a small film about this topic called "Follow Me on Dead Media" that may interest some of you, available here - <a href="https://vimeo.com/104001507" target="_blank">https://vimeo.com/104001507</a></div><div><br></div><div>/Joonas</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:muratnn@gmail.com" target="_blank">muratnn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Kelly, no problem. I was just trying to expand the conversation.<br><br></div>Murat<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Kelly Norris Martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kellynmartin@gmail.com" target="_blank">kellynmartin@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">Hi Murat, I agree that I was using the term "interaction" somewhat loosely and these are arguments I'm still thinking through. Yes, in selfies, one difference is that "viewer and the subject before the lens are the same." And of course, this insertion of the artist or photographer within a creative work is nothing new. I was just trying to point out that the interaction that the selfie provides actually puts the creator within the medium and that offers an additional element of agency. Interactions with written text, the interaction is more uniform and there can be a lengthier back-and-forth. There is a different type of interaction with visuals and physical objects that the selfie complicates. On the one hand visuals and material artifacts may appeal to additional cognitive possibilities, on the other hand, we are somewhat separated.<br><br>Aaron Hess’ recent piece in the International Journal of Communication offers another alternative interpretation to the notion of a “culture obsessed with itself” stating that, “the selfie also invites a different consideration about the complex nature of networked society. At the moment of capture, a selfie connects disparate modes of existence into one simple act…It features the corporeal self, understood in relation to the surrounding physical space, filtered through the digital device, and destined for social networks. In other words, the selfie exists at the intersection of multiple assemblages (DeLanda, 2006; Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Wise, 2005) that draw complex and often contradictory subjectivities together.”<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:muratnn@gmail.com" target="_blank">muratnn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>"Photographs, like physical monuments, often don’t allow for real interaction with the creator or viewer,..."<br><br></div>Hi, Kelly,<br><br></div>I don't think the above statement is correct. Photographs, most particularly those taken before digital photography, i.e. those created through camera obscura/analog means, involve a subtle dialogue between the viewer and what is before the lens. The passage of time permeates the viewing of such photographs. (I go into great detail on this process, if anyone is interested, in the essay <i>The Peripheral Space of Photography</i> (Green Integer, 2004). Besides their digital origins, what is different about selfies is that the viewer and the subject before the lens are the same. Nevertheless, the passing of time separates these two identities (the viewer and the subject), the viewer becoming altered by time, <u>provided anybody takes time (more than one or two seconds) to look at selfies or clicking a "like" mark</u>.<br><br></div>Then there is the opposite impluse first expressed in Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction": the impulse photography creates in people to take (in digital parlance click) pictures. From that point, people takes selfies robotically, because the means is there, inherent in the opportunity. It means nothing more. Nobody looks at them more than once because there are so many of them.<br><br></div>Of course, that mechanical quality may make selfies commercially such a fertile ground--self perpetuated logos.<br><br></div>Just a few thoughts.<br><br></div>Ciao,<br></div>Murat<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Kelly Norris Martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kellynmartin@gmail.com" target="_blank">kellynmartin@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr"><div>Hi everyone, And thank you Jonathan and Joonas for initiating such an interesting discussion. My name is Kelly Norris Martin and I am also at Rochester Institute of Technology. I’m looking forward to the Kern Conference in the spring and participating in this current discussion, although I've only just recently begun to consider the selfie and the history of self representation in relation to my work with problematic material monuments and how decision-making and discourse surrounding these monuments can be so complicated.<br><br>The frustration largely emanates from publics with an opposing view than that of the ideology depicted or commemorated. This dissenting response is difficult to express in a satisfying way. People cannot really interact with a purely material object on the same level as face-to-face conversation or through written text and it ends up being a very one-way form of communication. Discussion about these monuments may happen online or in public address but they are removed from the material object.<br><br>Like Jonathan, I’m very interested in how Murray contests the purely narcissistic motives of selfies. He argues selfies illustrate consumer resistance and I argue that the selfie allows for a greater sense of engagement combining multiple modalities. This engagement is likely more complicated and provides new challenges as Joonas points out because it “entails a new language, aesthetic, and trajectory of communication.”<br><br>Photographs, like physical monuments, often don’t allow for real interaction with the creator or viewer, but the selfie provides an opportunity for the creator (sometimes viewer) to enter the discussion, to showcase belonging and expression, within the same medium.<br><br>I'll stop here for now to try and keep this at 300 words. But I'm looking forward to further exploring this idea of selfies and connecting disparate modes of existence.<br><br></div><div>Thanks so much,<br><br></div><div>Kelly<br>
</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 5:34 PM, Joonas Rokka <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:joonas.rokka@gmail.com" target="_blank">joonas.rokka@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal">Hi everyone and thanks Jonathan for the discussion opener
and also for including me as a discussant. My name is Joonas Rokka and
currently work in France at EMLYON Business School. In my ongoing research on
the visual, I am interested in studying how consumer-made selfies interrogate
and impact brands.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In other words, I try to understand the growingly popular
phenomenon where people tag, feature and express brands in their selfies. At
this point, I am trying to learn how that happens (the practices) and what
exactly they post (content) but also how the heterogeneity of brand-tagging
selfie images relate to and resonate with other brand images (for example by
the brand).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I find it interesting because much of the branding work that
we know is established on the idea that brands express their authentic and
charismatic “vision” through images (ads, video) that are carefully crafted,
curated and assembled. What the brand-tagging selfies bring is this whole
multitude of visions and expressions that are diffused on a massive scale. I
would argue this poses major new challenges to brands (and researchers)
primarily because of the visual: the selfie images entail a new language,
aesthetic, and trajectory of communication – as Jonathan has show in his
research – that is radically different from, for example, more traditional
textual interaction with brands. For example, while it is quite possible to
code textual postings as “negative” or “positive” (what data monitoring
software can readily and with some success do) the same is a very complex issue
with pictures.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But yes, I will explain how I deal with some of these issues
at the Kern conference and tell also about my project on “champagne selfies”.
It’s a project where I used a data monitoring software to gather selfie images
that feature most talked about champagne brands (I follow 19 different brands).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I personally prefer to conceive selfies as a rather broadly
defined type of image. But I am curious to hear how you define the limits of
what selfies are, and where can we say selfie is different to say self-portrait
for example? How do you see it? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks in advance,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Joonas </p>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Jonathan Schroeder <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jesgla@rit.edu" target="_blank">jesgla@rit.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
Here are the rest of my invitees for this discussion:<br>
<br>
Doug Allen is Chair of Markets, Innovation, and Design at Bucknell University’s School of Management. His research focuses on consumer culture and emphasizes practice theory in the context of various domains of experience ranging from consumer choice to financial investing practices. His work has appeared in a number of journals in marketing, consumer research, and finance.<br>
<br>
Mehita Iqani is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the author of Consumer Culture and the Media: Magazines in the Public Eye (2012) and Consumption, Media and the Global South: Aspiration Contested (2015). She received her PhD from the Department of Media and Communications at London School of Economics and Political Science.<br>
<br>
Richard Kedzior is assistant professor of Markets, Innovation and Design at Bucknell University’s School of Management. As a consumer researcher he focuses on issues at the intersection of culture and technology such as digital materiality. His recent work on the interplay of digital technologies and consumer identities has been published in Journal of Marketing Management. His articles has also been published in numerous edited volumes dedicated to consumption and consumer culture.<br>
<div><div><br>
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