ABSTRACT
In this chapter on self-portraiture, selfie, and archive, I offer an in-depth reading of Mohawk (Bay of Quinte) photographer Shelley Niro’s triptych self-portrait Abnormally Aboriginal. In contrast to Niro’s work, I explore how selfie production acts as a shallow archive, largely stripped of the capacity to be what Ann Cvetkovich calls an “archive of feeling.” Selfie practice intimates and imitates archival practices. For inasmuch as the selfie is posted frequently, following the arc of the poster’s biological continued existence, it makes a kind of happenstance archive. Archives, outside of social media, comprise texts and objects that have meaning in part because they are culled from a wealth of other, less meaningful texts and objects. An archive is a purposive mnemonic horde. The number of selfies posted each day approaches 100 million, indicating compulsion. This chapter questions whether such is an archive.
