Digital auto/biographies : the morphing representation of the subject in the digital age

Abstract

This dissertation evaluates the new ways by which the subject is representing itself and its own story through social media applications, most notably photographically-oriented ones such as Instagram. By thoroughly looking at the shifts in medium from offline to online—through texts such as the series Black Mirror and Amalia Ulman’s online performance Excellences and Perfections—the dissertation uncovers a number of uncanny procedures the subject is inclined to follow due to the prevalence of new and digital social media, which one is coerced to tap into. After the Introduction to the subject, the second chapter specifically addresses the changes that occur between online and offline interaction through the application of theories of Judith Butler in Giving an Account of Oneself and Shanyang Zhao with his analysis of corporeal copresence and telecopresence. The third chapter takes a closer look at the material that subjects post of themselves or of photographic subjects online, while also looking at the curation that goes behind posting online through Lev Manovich’s analysis. Finally, it is noted that there are some subjects who refuse to stick to the status quo when it comes to representing the self online and try to rebel against it. The theories of interveillance and digital parrhesia— borrowed from Foucault by André Jansson and François Allard-Huver respectively—are applied to give a glimpse of the subject’s mindset amidst the online maelstrom it faces.