First Reading:
Walker, J. (2005). Mirrors and Shadows: The Digital Aestheticisation of Oneself. Paper presented at the Digital Arts and Culture Conference.
An image and/or graphic representation of any kind that represents a person in this environment is referred to as an 'avatar'. The term avatar comes to use from the Hindu religion and the sanskrit word meaning, approximately, "incarnation".
Translation: 'quotidian practice' = daily practice
'In this paper I will explore how and why we have turned our digital eye inward. Why does digital technology seem to encourage us to portray ourselves rather than sticking to representing the world around us as we used to do? What kinds of self-portraits are we seeing? What might our digital desire to aestheticise ourselves mean?'
Comment: I think the answer has already been given: Because digital photography makes it easier to portrait yourself. Technology makes it possible to take a digital photo, which is an instant image that can be viewed as quickly as it can be deleted. Further, no third parties are involved in the process of developing the picture. It is in the hands of the self portraier to either accept or reject the picture. Deleting can be done before anybody else will be able to view the photograph. This experience is much more a private undertaking as traditional photography which requires the exposaed negative film to be developed and then to take positive prints of the film to finally see the outcome. The self portraiter takes control what is distributed and what's kept private. Further, with digital photography, the number of shots is not limited to the length of the film (usually 36 negatives) . Instead the storage device limits the shots. This could actually be a few thousand, without having to transfer the shots to an external storage device, outside the camera. It's all in the hands of the user.
'We’re not simply interested in presenting an image, we’re creating versions of ourselves. In a study of teenaged girls and their use of visual chat rooms, Angela Thomas found that the girls not only tended to have more than one avatar, they were deeply invested in their different self-presentations. Thomas
quotes one of her informants, Christy, talking about the sexy avatar she has chosen for herself: “i look at her more than who i am speaking to sometimes lol!!” '
Comment: Another fact is that girls are more alert about looking their best, being constantly pushed to the limits by advertising, gossip magazines, fashion, diets etc. So as a result I can imagine that most women are not happy with themselves and feel that they have to lie about themselves to be more appealing. Which is actually confirmed on page three:
'When I attempt to create a self-portrait of myself in storTrooper (see Figure 2) I cannot help but misrecognise myself. Yes, the hair colour is mine, so, more or less, is the style, and the clothes are similar to clothes I own. I recognise myself, and I also see it as a stylised, picture perfect version
of me. It would never have holes in its socks or forget to put on mascara. It is as illusory as the digitally retouched photograph of a fashion model.'
Comment: Perfection matters...
'In the seventies, feminist critic Laura Mulvey argued that the cinematic gaze tends to objectify the people it portrays. Mulvey was writing within a staunchly psychoanalytical tradition that assumes that the patriarchy sees women first and foremost as castrated men, and men need women to lack a phallus in order to confirm their masculinity, and so her essay discusses how the camera often functions as a “male” gaze that objectifies women. Women spectators, in Mulvey’s view, also assume the position of that gaze [11].'
Comment: Oh yes, and all men are potential rapists, trying to suppress the female, rah-rah-rah. I'm so happy the 70s are over and women don't define themselves anymore by doing exactly the same with men what men did to them. But that's a different story.
Parmigianino's self-portrait: Self-portrait in a convex Mirror 1523/1524
'Pornography of the Playboy variety is of course an extreme example of the male gaze objectifying women, which Mulvey claims occurs to some extent whenever anyone picks up a camera. By combining large groups of such images, Salavon emphasises their formulaic nature, obliterating the individuality of each woman.'
Comment: It reveals a lot about Ms Walker when she mistakes the female act as pornography. Just because it is the centrefold in Playboy it is NOT pornography. Pornography by legal definition is the portrayal of sexual acts solely for the purpose of sexual arousal. Lying around naked is not exactly a sexual act...
Page 6: 'Blogs that stick to discussion of topics outside of personal, day to day experience can have a
similarly self-reflective function, as Rebecca Blood, a pioneer blogger wrote in an early essay on blogs:
Shortly after I began producing Rebecca’s Pocket I noticed two side effects I had not expected. First, I
discovered my own interests. I thought I knew what I was interested in, but after linking stories for a few months I could see that I was much more interested in science, archaeology, and issues of injustice than I had realized. More importantly, I began to value more highly my own point of view. In composing my link text every day I carefully considered my own opinions and ideas, and I began to feel that my perspective was unique and important. [1]'
'Most scholars have compared weblogs to recent diary-writing [8], they’ve taken an ethnographical approach or discussed blogs in terms of education, marketing or other practical matters.'
Comment: I don't share this notion that a diary and a weblog can be compared. I would never share a diary with anyone but myself. A dieary is a dialogue with oneself, not an expression of oneself to the world.
Second Reading:
The Influence of the Avatar on Online Perceptions of Anthropomorphism, Androgyny, Credibility, Homophily, and Attraction
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