hi everyone my name is millie i am the moderator for this panel called i forget what the title the politics of portraits before we begin i just want to take a moment to acknowledge that we are gathered on colonised indigenous land the museum of the moving image is located on a traditional territory of the lynott pay people and that we respect that continued connections with the past the present and the future in our gaze and the robots gaze and so we'll just kick it off with eisner today is part of the bigger project so there will be some missing pieces but i'm hoping to answer if you have further questions about because i cannot present everything in fifteen minutes so humans don't act upon world without any mediation of any tool so we use either language we use words we use sentences or we use photographs to create meanings and we change those meanings in to dynamically throughout the world so this study is going to be stopping all these different pieces in one point in time and then taking a snapshot of what's happening in and i want everyone to remember this part throughout the presentation because again we are using digital tools social media hashtags these are the new  cultural tools that we live by but these are not just inventions that just appeared all of a sudden and the people who are using these cultural tools which i go towards their peers to get support and digital media where social media can provide an easiness to build these connections and build a community to get help you're not the only one that's that's happening so everyone is taking their photo children's photographs and posting it online not necessarily in a bad way but the question needs to be asked how is that happen culture is something that we want to preserve and promote right we need to promote those meanings so these two cultures are going to be gravitating towards each other and also they're going to trying formulating some research questions in our wine hopefully and one of the research question i asked was how the two digital cultures of childhood postings manifests themselves  i'm not gonna go into detail but finding these two hashtag cultures what requires some process and i've went through many many different ones and i picked these for various reasons and to understand these visual contacts and their purposes i looked at the captions and i looked at photographs and the network structures so i'm gonna move a little fast here on the day that i started collecting data which is just ten days there were close to five million fashion kids post and close to one million led to kids post they're not in equal numbers fashion kids seems to be a little bit more popular but over time in one year i actually saw that let the kids has grown at a much faster pace than the fashion kids it's not like fashion could stop growing it to grow but it seems like these days let the kids is becoming more popular so that all of these  how we want if you want to compare cultures we want to make sure that they're kind of comparable right so i wanted to control that and i see that both fashion kids and let the kids are picked up five users overall and i'm going blank here i can't remember but these three first and for the let the kids is united states canada united emerging there but like emphasis on the moms use and childhood but outfit and fashion and the fashion kids and then i  what's what are the specific words that i have that are appearing in the captions and i some temp some people use sentiment analysis i use significance analysis because i'm a narrative researcher socializes like good morning hi hello how are you doing so these are some of the examples gal your lot loving as positive feeling what have you got engaging with the audience and network which i also looked passion kids users are mentioning each other more than what the kids users which could indicate while maybe they're using brands and other people when they're posting photos of their children let the kids use their incomplete contrasts are replying to each other so they are on their phone more frequently than fashion kids people so they're more in vested in actually spending time and commenting people and maybe building community so photographs what's happening in the photographs quickly i look at some demographics most in our language we we have norms and beliefs that we live by and in our ways of expression either visually or verbally we use we emphasize those valleys so through the use of clothing they are either super like looking super young or like very very old okay so summary and concluding it seems like these two hashtags appear to be different cultures and if there are two different cultures there may be many many different childhoods so the way that you made you define childhood maybe one but most of the time and out in the world there are multiple childhoods and that is intriguing for researchers because this is just giving us a way of study them these cultures but yeah  hi good afternoon my name is emily stay in camp i'm presenting some work that i did about the history of self portraiture in the west what kind of motivated this research for me is the cultural figure the sel and sort of the way in which the selfie seems to be seems to generate a little bit of a moral panic around it in in the way that it sort of consolidates an accusation of like a technologically mediated generational n among millennials and so what i really wanted to think about was how have people represented and image themselves in the past and how can we contextualize the contemporary practice of selfie taking and making sort of in a larger history so this is going to be a very pretty much a survey in this history i can't you know get into quite everything but so in antiquity when the first images that we know to be a self  this relief of the sculptor bach ancient egyptian sculptor who he's depicted here with his wife but in the same sort of piece he's also depicted but the pharaoh that he worked for whose name i have forgotten and his father who was also a sculptor and sort practice of a rector of a sort of representing himself and so sort of from a really really early point we can see that there's some cultural anxiety around representing the self  and so you know jumping forward about a thousand years in the renaissance in the western renaissance the examples of self portraiture that we can find our from medieval manuscripts which were sort of copied by monks um sort of to defend against any charges that the representation of the self is excessive or blasphemous as we saw with phidias empirically is um and there was also  sort of a saying from plot nests in the third century whose a story and it writes about art and he said that artists need to work on their souls in the way that they work on their art so there's sort of this way in which artists are afforded the cultural space to explore themselves but even in so doing it's very important to stay sort of within the acceptable bounds of self representation so as not to literally be accused of blasphemy or  so the renaissance obviously accompanied and a lot of cultural and social and economic changes in the west you have sort of the accruing of capital in port cities which in turn  funded and sort of allowed the court culture of commissioning portraits to flourish and so portraits during this period of we're typically of royals of you know regents and these were the people who are funding the portraits themselves liberal art merely sort of the work of the hands but the work of the intellect is sort of something that's happening and sort of driving the impetus for artists  many portraits of himself that people knew what he looked like who didn't know him immediately which it was not you know technologically a thing really before this period and so with rembrandt you can really see  sort of the use of painting myself to elevate the status of the artist right and to sort of further his own career and i think that is extremely significant in this history also sort of simultaneously what's happening in  painting or being appointed there's you know art is sort of being consolidated visual art as an elevated sort of practice and form so in early modernity there's sort of an increased interest you know with this vermeer painting as well and there are lots of examples of this during this period mossman enos is another great one by velazquez and so there's really there's sort of an increased reflexivity that's coming into these portraits and about sort of the process of making art and there's an increased interest from patrons in like what it means to make art and so that kind of gives people the space to experiment with self  photography was received in the art world during this period is that it was regarded with a lot of suspicion and sort of an attitude that photography is insufficiently intellectual really to be a fine art at the same time portrait was manipulated sort of while it was developing with a brush so there are ways in which um photography and painting sort of influenced each other and literally sort of mutually constituted each other during this period freed from the sort of burden of literal representation in the th century painting becomes more fantastic more abstract less literal more fantastic and the self sort of becomes increased or an area with increased interest of increased interest for artists particularly as forces like urbanization and industrialization are really changing the experience of the individual in the t but one of the really amazing sort of ways that photography is interacting with fine art during this period is that once photographs of jackson pollock in the top there are sort of used to bring interest into the way that he makes its painting is sort of cited as the moment that the performative term starts to take hold in the th century and people become more interested in the process of sort of doing and performing art and literally a performance art as sort of another people like chris burden or marina abramovic or just any of those sort of mid century um performance artists who sort of turn away from the canvas and turn their bodies into sort of the object of art and the literal material to be modified  millennials but in the end he's like no they're fine um but you know in this article and in most articles that are sort of anxious about young people and their represent the way that they represent themselves and relate to themselves particular talent but what i think is really interesting is that by this this period in history kim kardashian sort of represents a way in which the art life distinction is being broken down by the rapid proliferation of images and sort of in the mid century and he writes about art as let's see any activity that art is a weaving of meaning making activity with all or part of our lives and so he sort of is wants to think about um life like art art that is like life and what i really um sort of ended up seeing through history is that various sort of social structures have worked to make sure that those who are able to make self images are  that's kind of okay there's actually something about that every day so thank you quick shout out to anybody who's live streaming right now i also want to mention anya who couldn't be here today she was gonna present as well but she wasn't able to be here so hi anya if you're watching  and i guess i will ask or kind of put a couple of themes maybe to guide our conversation then we can take audience questions if there are any but i want to ask something that is i've been interested in this idea of images  representation and also images as possession so specifically when we're talking about representations of the self like an image can be a reflection of that self but you know we also construct the self by collecting things and by showing people you know who we are through you know and especially in like a capitalist system like our possessions right we buy things and we wear things that show who we are and i should know maybe you want to begin with this but one thing that you mentioned your presentation was like the the captions and how parents will sometimes distance themselves and you know in the ways that their phrasing their captions their children become possessions and so i'm wondering if you guys can speak to  what you think and and maybe kind of elaborate a little bit on that yeah sure well i can answer that question format based on my research because there's one part of the research that i didn't present today but i talk to mothers and children about their opinions about these two cultures and what i heard from heard from others was that they val photograph as artifacts because sometimes they said well we didn't have enough photographs when we were growing up so it is cool right i i want to provide for my child to have a documentation of their development over time so they appear to be doing favors for their children and that's not necessarily bad but at the same time  they also acknowledge that this is not usually how we dress up our children this is not usually how like they they are not always nice and looking cute and adorable right i mean this is just some sort of a reminder to us that  this is this is sometimes nice you know it's like sometimes they look adorable and cute and most of the time it's such a stressful time that we just want to maybe alive in terms of the relationship between representation of possession i mean i think in the history of self portraiture in the west a lot of what you see is that people who are able to represent themselves are have a certain amount of power and status way in which portraiture has been expanded from something that only the political leap out or the sort of religious elite i had access to to something that can actually be sort of a throw away in a lot of people's day to day lives is you know it's a really significant shift and i i think that you know part of what i'm working on is trying to look at how that shift has manifested in other kinds of um like moments  in the culture i also wanted to mention sif there's a moment that you want to jump into the conversation and ask a question that directly relates to what the panelists are talking about please just raise your hand and or like call out if i can't see you the second thing i wanted to ask you and kind of pose this to all three panelists is that you know images also derive their power from words and from the context in which they're presented and something that you mentioned i should note and also that you mentioned in the presentation about  i think it was medieval portraits where you have a caption and and part of the portrait is deriving its power from the caption from naming like what's happening and you know i'm just thinking about what's happening you know what i posts you know particularly in instagram posts where it's like attractive young typically white women who are posting selfies but like being a little bit ironic or like using it as a way to like demonstrate power even though they belong to a status or class of people that has you know a fair amount of power like what does a caption like how does a caption participate in giving that image its power and also of circulating  is analyzing narratives and textual commitment of communication and where to divert live in an era where we are ways modes of communications definitely changing but i'm not convinced that is gonna take over the text so yeah that's a great question that i think that both those expressions either visual and textual expressions i go into not always match the you're presenting and i think it's so important to study that but also saying from our angle to well it's okay so let's  identify these conflicts and try to understand more of what's happening behind the camera behind the writing and yeah well i think the medieval captions are some of the most interesting ones that i worked with because they sort of directly address the fact of the portrait which you don't necessarily get a lot of in other periods directly sort of counter the fact of the image that they were making by saying i'm i'm asking christ for mercy or you know i'm here at work it on on this manuscript that you're reading and then it made it made me think about sort of of wanting to share your image or sort of what that might mean about the way that you relate to yourself or sort of what you want out of the way that the image is going to be circulated or received or sort of projected and i think it's just really interesting that there's sort of a parallel the feelings of white feminism in in like instagram spaces where like you know pictures of generally attractive white women are like taking pictures of themselves as a way to respond to the male gaze without you know like without actually you know without actually doing much there's still the you know accepted paragons of beauty and so there's like a very much a question of like race there to like you know if if this is a response to people who are allowed you know by status in my class in my race who are allowed to show themselves gratuitously without anybody questioning like you know are you being selfish are you being you know and and you know the title think quite hidden communities of people who are talking to one another and draw and drawing on each other's expertise but it's less performative and more community oriented yeah and i just want to jump back to the medieval portraits like it just makes me think of like oh instead of instead of like justifying themselves to their audience they're like it's okay god like i'm like prostrating myself to you and i'm showing everybody that you know instead of like i'm just you know this is a devotional portrait rather than gratuitous well in the audience would have been very small right as well for a fern native manuscript is you know only the very few people in this culture could read  much less have access to the manuscripts themselves so god's judgment is more important great great and that in that period but i think it's interesting that you bring up tutorial communities because i have i've looked at those before and sort of you do see a lot of sort of community sharing of knowledge and you can see a different sort of proliferation of skills and standards of beauty that are able to be shared but there's also like in the last just two or three years been a huge these channels can monetize really quickly and people like can really rise to the top of those sort of worlds and then you see it reflected back and ad campaigns for brands like glossier which sort of explicitly takes the aesthetics of the beauty tutorial and puts it into the makeup ad and sort of the you know even the finished product is supposed to be like oh if you're not good at makeup you just wear this glossy ade stuff but it's fine it's not so hard we showed you how to do it or like  now and it's in its stores so there's a really interesting way in which even sort of the community that can be formed around controlling the way you look get sort of taken right back up into the sort of monet g i don't know forces yeah i'm actually interested if you can speak a little more to that cuz i know you you ended your presentation with that but the ways that you know essentially what can be superficially assumed to be like oh women are reclaiming or women of a certain status are like reclaiming their space or reclaiming the gaze and in fact it's being directly capitalized on more it's it's it's following very kind of clear streams of capital i'm wondering if you can speak a little more to that yeah i mean th yeah i think it's something really interesting that you mentioned was like amazon amazon look is not encouraging you to go back into your closet like it's like you pick two things you've already worn and that sense of experimentation like i'm i know that there's a lot of people who communicate maybe not on social media or maybe not publicly but one of the interesting things about like being able to communicate through images that you can like send people pictures of your outfits right and so like that and that strikes me as like a you know a sense of community building like there's that exchange in that re exchange and so the fact that amazon look is like both kind of born out of this you know these interactions where it is kind of community based or like when you're posting something on instagram you're looking for feedback even though it may be that the the communication is like not as direct as one person sending an outfit and the other person also sending an image of an outfit but the fact that like you know what ends up happening is you just are you're talking a to no one like you're tight you're getting you're getting it's like feedback from yourself but also from amazon look with these like weird percentages and it like takes away from the actual like fun part of i feel like getting dressing the reason that like a lot of people take these selfies anyway and and that the hmm i just want we have about like eight minutes left maybe a little less if there are audience questions well we want we want to make sure we want to make sure that people watching the livestream can hear y hello i feel like this focused pretty directly on a relationship we're in a deliberate choice was made to pon an outfit knowing it would get posted to social media and i'm wondering if you guys can comment on the very trendy world of street fashion with the people who sort of put on an outfit hoping it will ultimately get posted to social media where the differences where the similarities and the gays and in the choice of the person wearing the outfit thank you i mean  they know the algorithms despite they know that they need to boost their self confidence but sometimes they may still choose to oppose these photos because as i was saying that fashion is a culture it's it's a tool that we all care about have their own choices and they can purchase smart phones i may sound very revolutionary right now but when it comes to children or other marginalized communities i think that we become a little bit more judgmental and worry too much have hyper concerns about protection privacy and that's okay that's normal because most of the time when i give speech about my topic people say well yeah you think that's bad right that parents like posting their children's photos and i sell up i don't know because it seems like parents are taking advantage of it as long as they talk to the child and like explain them what's happening i don't see a problem i mean i saw a show of salomon's in like famous naked photo of her child and she's like she has  york times piece that she wrote i talked to my children about this and we spoke and we i mean it helped them get educated about publicity and privacy and they rights and i think that what's missing most of the adult conversations that we don't speak about do you know your privacy rights do you know where this photo is going do you know like how this photo may end up in a completely different place most of the time people don't know but yeah but yeah that's my two cents there hi thank you so much for for sharing your papers this was fascinating just to like see the i think maybe then things you were researched do you feel like these ad hoc hashtag communities with fashion or parents as aspirational have a do they encourage evolving like evolution fashion and norms and and representation or do they tend to be more self policing or both i'm curious if you could talk about that  yeah as i said they definitely based on self interest yeah i don't think that they have any concerns whatsoever about if their children are going to like being represented this way but if i world so there's a self interest definitely from the angle of parents or person who's doing the posting but i also have to always say well every parent have their best research needs to be done following up on these children especially influenced their children they're like children who are making millions of dollars and that's that that is a child labor is she right so as babies  babies are making money and they they're taking advantage in one angle but we don't know what that word that money goes to so yeah there's definitely need for more research following up who documented all of her childhood and she made this fifteen minute amazing short film based on these small footages and recordings and how disturbed she was at the end because she she have any interest seeing photos of themselves as like women or like men you know so there are so many implications that definitely needs to be r and again we missed anya but we hope she'll be back next year so thank you