ABSTRACT
Photography has always a complicated relationship with death. For Roland Barthes in 1981, it is the punctum that not only pricks the skin but also bruises with an affective texture that haunts. In disasters, the powerful social, cultural, political and affective role of the camera phone are reminded as a lens into contemporary visual culture. This chapter discusses the role of mass selfies taken during a disaster whereby users presciently acknowledge death facing them and deploy mobile media to conduct a selfie-as-eulogy. It focuses that photography always had a complicated relationship with death. The chapter seeks to contextualise a few key points in relation to the Sewol selfie-as-eulogy phenomenon. It considers a working definition of digital intimate publics, the specific role of camera phones and the selfie within the context of Korea, and how this, in turn, creates a particular texture of affective witnessing.
