Selfie madness

The New York Times has an op-ed about selfies (through the ages). I've taken a bunch of them myself. Here's a Flickr album of my selfies.

If you click on that image you'll be whisked away to my Flicker album where you can scroll through the images. But if you position your cursor above the image you'll see little arrows appear (first at the) right and left. Click those to scroll back and forth through the set. Here's a link to my various posts about selfies. I've got a couple of posts where I comment on selfies. That post also contains two photos of Rembrant selfies, with a comment or three; he was famous for painting.

The Times op-ed, by Marisa Mazria Katz and Nato Thompson notes this about a self portrait by Jan van Eyck, from 1433:

This painting is sometimes credited as the first surviving self-portrait, though, as its title indicates, that designation is uncertain. There are clues that the subject is the artist himself — he stares deep into the eyes of the viewer (an unusual pose for the era), and van Eyck carved a Flemish saying into the gilded frame, “As I can,” in Greek characters. At the time, most paintings depicted either religious subjects or wealthy patrons. Van Eyck’s virtuosity brought him wealth and fame, and perhaps, via his self-portrait, a way of announcing a new kind of elite.

Later:

By 1888, George Eastman had developed the first roll-film Kodak camera, vastly simplifying the photographic process. The advances in photographic equipment allowed Joseph Byron, from a Manhattan photo studio, to take a proper selfie — arms outstretched, head cocked, eyes staring into the viewer’s.

Just yesterday:

Part of the first generation of artists to deploy social media, Ai Weiwei wrote in his inaugural blog entry in 2005: "To express yourself needs a reason; expressing yourself is the reason."

Mr. Ai took this selfie in an elevator as Chinese police officers were arresting him to prevent him from testifying on behalf of an activist documenting the devastation of the Sichuan earthquake. He uploaded it to social media to announce his location and precarious situation but also as an act of protest — foreshadowing the increasingly important role selfies would play in social movements to come.

And then we a bunch of selfies and self-portraits by women, where Katz and Thompson note: "Women today take far more selfies than men do, perhaps as an active way of molding their own images." I'll leave you with this:

The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is known for, among many things, creating installations that have become irresistible backdrops for museumgoers taking a selfie.

First constructed in the 1960s, her “Infinity Mirror Rooms” enthrall with their constellations of softly glowing lights, allowing viewers to see themselves reflected and refracted on mirrored walls, offering the possibility of a completely immersive self-portrait.

It's a fascinating article. Check it out.