The Myth of Narcissus to selfie. An Archaeology of the Coded Bodies

Abstract

In the contemporary world we witnessed the search by the new media of their own narrative identities. These are accompanied, generally, to novel uses of technology. In this sense, the universe of virtual social networks proposes different ways of telling visual stories, along with experiments with multimedia, video games and various forms of transmediation. In that area coexist narratives and old uses of media, converge and practices of previous sense that are baptized with new nominations. Virtual social networks are embedded in a narrative dynamic of I (self), befitting of the Internet. The subject of communication, —sometimes called prosumer— usually counts oneself, has friends, followers and tells his/her everyday life for them. Around these dynamics, the image is central. Hence photography is held as the privileged practice in this space.

The selfie —self-made photograph— is a narrative of virtual social networks. However, in its existence and genealogy other languages participate, such as myth, painting, literature, photography as art and various social incorporation of the technologies involved. These senses are the ones we want to track from an essay based on an archaeological perspective bibliographic relationships, and from there allow a philosophical reflection of a current phenomenon unexplored, always focusing our interest on the communications aspect of social dynamics that unfold through these uses of the image. What are the constituent elements of a photograph, a product of a self-made image to be shared on the Internet? How much of this personal relationship with the image belongs to the natural subject and how that is crossed by culture? To whom is it addressed? What does it communicate? What does the communication have to say?

The Selfie phenomenon is relatively new, at least not enough to have academic and scientific materials that address the issue. The subject is of interest to the press in connection with new youth practices, hence there are newspaper articles that reflect the phenomenon without going into depth. The current text is proposed as a racconto of information, historicizing and a starting point for deepening research and analysis of the phenomenon of selfie, from a communications perspective.