A week or so ago I saw two people taking their own picture in what is now known as a selfie. They had their phone or camera (I couldn't tell which from where I was sitting at the time) on a metal rod that I understand is known as a selfie stick, but until recently I never really noticed being used by anyone. Perhaps I had failed to notice it because I didn't know what to call it.
So this couple were there taking their own picture, but while they were doing this they were also being photographed by someone else, which struck me in a very powerful way. It made the posing appear that much more posed, suddenly breaking through the cultural ideology and repetition which had served to mask it to some degree for me. I like to believe that I am not fooled by these naturalizing effects, but this image showed my that I am not immune.
I have for most of my adult life been keenly aware of the staged aspect of reproducing something visually, and photography, film and theater have often been more about the production for me than what is being portrayed, (the scene) in the medium. Perhaps partly because my father worked in advertising, and certainly due to my own cynicism and Marxist-influenced approach to cultural readings, I rarely see images produced by human beings as in any way 'natural', yet even with all of these years of awareness, I can still be surprised by how all of these elements can deceive me, as this selfie moment showed me.
When I first saw this couple and their photographer, I was struck by the beauty and strangeness of the moment, and I don't want to detract from that by focusing only on how it showed me how fooled I have been, The experience of breaking free from cultural mores, even if only by witnessing my perceptions of others, has been exhilarating at times, but they do also show me to be a captor.
No comments:
Post a Comment