Selfie_Station
CEPA Gallery: Big Orbit Project Space
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MFA from the University at Buffalo, Department of Art.
2018
Questioning the volatility of memory in a digital age, Selfie Station offers a constrained iMac where users can explore the absurdity of media proliferation while also adding themselves to a communal databank of selfies (screenshots). By restraining the system to only a few preexisting OS X features, a live video feed of the users is presented as the desktop wallpaper. Over time, the current users’ presence is gradually obscured by past selfies.
screenshots taken from thesis installation:
This installation is also poised to comment on the excess of digital images the average person now generates. Due to the localized nature of this work, users are able to relate to the previous users by means of their visual footprints that they leave behind. Just like any new digital device, this system starts out as a blank slate that situates users as participants in a surveillance system. Users become more comfortable with the system over time as former selfies mask the live feed, diminishing the sense of being surveyed.
I also believe that the ability to preview these former selfies serves as a collective consciousness, advising subsequent users on how they could interact. After the current user realizes that future users are able to look at them, in the same way, that they can preview past users, the perception of the interaction seems to change. The prime example is how after seeing that one can subvert by screenshotting the screenshot previews, future users would then try and replicate the effect.