Everyday millions of hand-held self-portraits, or ‘selfies’, are uploaded on to the internet. With today’s personal technologies, private self-representations-made-public seem symptomatic of Guy Debord's ‘Society of the Spectacle’ or Jean Baudrillard’s ‘Simulacra and Simulation’. Yet for decades, experimental filmmakers and video artists have interrogated questions of self-identity and -referentiality. With the performing body as the site of action produced in relation to the film apparatus and video system, they offer a powerful critique of the male gaze and, in turn, the seeming narcissism at the center of today’s ‘selfie’ culture. A diverse range of artists and traditions have thereby subversively taken up subjective, first-person cinema and issues of self-performance in order to explore questions of identity, power, memory, and the construction of the self. ‘Mirror Me’ presents a selection of musings on the mirroring of the ‘self’ in self-reflexive film and video auto-portraits and personal diary films in order to weave together something of a ‘pre-history’ of the ‘selfie’.
Curated by Pascal Richard and Christopher Zimmerman
Programme 1. July 21, 19:30h
Auto-Portraits — Photographic Memory
- Autoportrait (Olivier Fouchard, 1997, 4:00) - Der Phototermin (Photo Session) (Friedl vom Gröller, 2009, 3:00) - Practisse (Cheryl Donegan, 1994, 6:40) - Autoportrait refilmé (Olivier Fouchard, 1998, 3:00) - Passage Briere (Friedl vom Gröller, 2009, 3:00) - Infinity Kisses—The Movie (Carolee Schneemann, 2008, 9:00) - Lisa (Friedl vom Gröller, 2001, 3:00) - Neuf et demi (Olivier Fouchard, 1999, 3:00) - Double Mirror Video (General Idea, 1971, 5:50) - Peter Kubelka and Jonas Mekas (Friedl vom Gröller, 1994, 3:00) - Variations colorées/Spectres (Olivier Fouchard, 1999, 5:30) - Eltern: Mutter, Vater (Friedl vom Gröller, 1997 & 1999, 6:00) - Gutes Ende (Bliss) (Friedl vom Gröller, 2011, 3:00) - Vitrail (Effacement / Disparition) (Olivier Fouchard, 1999, 1:10)
Video Narcissism — A Pre-History of the Selfie
- Three Transitions (Peter Campus, 1973, 4:53) - Return (Bill Viola, 1975, 7:15) - Scar/Scarf (Cynthia Maughan, 1973-74, 2:51) - Semiotics of the Kitchen (Martha Rosler, 1975, 6:09) - Sex Symbol (Cynthia Maughan, 1978, 0:31) - The Space Between the Teeth (Bill Viola, 1976, 10:13) - Left Side Right Side (Joan Jonas, 1972, 8:50) - Turn-On (Vito Acconci, 1974, 21:52) - Migration (Bill Viola, 1976/2010, 7:15)
Programme 2. July 23, 19:30h
Subjective Cinema — The Personal Film Diary
- Window, Water, Baby, Moving (Stan Brakhage, 1959, 12:00) - Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas, 1972, 82:00) - Jane Brakhage (Barbara Hammer, 1975, 10:00) - Double-Blind (Sophie Calle and Gregory Shephard, 1992, 75:58)
