A reflection on perception and selfiemania in line with the art festival 48 Stunden Neukölln
me & me & me & me... - A reflection on perception and selfies to the ∞ by Irene Anton
In the digital age of so-called social networks, selfie navel-gazing is omnipresent.
Everyone has to constantly hold their likeness up to the camera to prove what a supposedly exciting life they lead. The term ‘social network’ is a euphemism, especially as this type of communication alienates rather than brings people together and sometimes comes across as rather antisocial. It is well known that it is easier and more convenient to insult and bully people behind a screen without being face to face with them, and that everyone on the street, in the underground or even in a restaurant prefers to play on their smartphones rather than engage with real people.
The truth is that banalities are usually elevated to supposedly interesting news and constant proof that you yourself were present at some posted location. This actually generates the same image stereotypes over and over again, only live in front of a changing backdrop or photo wallpaper.
Perception is becoming increasingly distorted, as ‘the big picture’ is lost and life is only depicted in the form of unnatural and often soft-focus selfies and other image snippets on smartphones, tablets or computers - preferably only showing the ideal and aiming to arouse admiration or even envy, and in other cases dramatising and evoking pity.
It is no longer about what the place you visit really gives you, it only counts through the presence of the ego and is actually ‘de-localised’ through the arbitrariness of the constantly repeated selfies, completely trivialised and thus devalued and the viewer's perception manipulated. There are hardly any limits to self-portrayal and infatuation, the ego is always in the foreground in the truest sense of the word, and that is why an empty space is chosen for this, which reflects nothing but this emptiness of content. Selfie reflection initially sounds like self-reflection, which in principle it is, even if only in the physical and physical sense.