ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of digital technology on the understanding and meaning of photographic representations of the self. The contemporary self is characterized by its visibility. Indeed, contemporary identity is not always located on the body; it is also produced through data and algorithms. The artists considered in the chapter use the portrait as a space for contesting the new demands for the self to be visible, transparent and legible. The portraits that make up Sophie Calle’s project Cash Machine draw on the everyday form of surveillance that occurs through the corporate security camera. Despite the centrality of looking to many artistic responses to surveillance, the majority of contemporary surveillance does not take place through visual observation, but through dataveillance. Unlike traditional forms of surveillance, this data is collected and used with no interest in particular subjects. The obedient consumer is not the only mode of contemporary subjectivity that is produced through algorithms.
