ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the emergence of the phenomenon of the selfie by linking it to the development of early photography, especially in relation to Kodak’s early advertising campaign. The chapter then moves on to analyse the social dimension of the selfie, looking at data selfies and showing that selfies could be read as online assemblages in which images of the subject are both independent and plugged into each other to produce relatable, connected, rhizomatic, distributed selves. Including case studies by Amalia Ulman, Erika Scourti, and Cached Collective, the chapter shows that selfies prompt participation into a ‘self’ that the subject no longer controls, and which is shared and continuously reproduced by those who consume it within the Internet of Things.
