ICP Curator Discusses Selfies

“People need to figure out who they are and how they fit into our culture. Self-portraiture, frankly, is a great means of doing that.”
-Christopher Phillips, curator of ICP.

The quote from the Today article gives a new perspective to the selfie, one that I hadn’t thought of before. Selfies seem to be frowned upon but looking at them as self-portraiture-as a work of art and self expression-makes them something to be appreciated. Interesting. 

Read up at Today.

And while we’re on the topic, did you know that the term ‘selfie’ has officially been added to the dictionary? Among other words such as 'twerk’, 'srsly’, and 'geek chic’. 

Here’s a recently famous selfie, taken from a girl who was at a Beyonce concert!

Concerning the Importance of Infographs

Brainpickings.org discusses and reviews Pulitzer Prize winning Gareth Cook’s new book. It’s titled ‘The Best American Infographics 2013’ and highlights the best infographs from the last year, and why they are the best.

Do you like graphic design? Do you aesthetics? Do you just like facts in general? Check out the article and check out the book!

Brainpickings.org
The Best American Infographics 2013

PS. Wouldn’t schooling have been so much more productive if history and chemistry and mathematics were taught via infographs? 

Photographer Michael Wolf’s ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ serves as a documentary of the ups and downs (literally) of daily human life. Setting up a camera and tripod, Wolf takes pictures of Google Street View images and captures everything from people falling off bikes to cars on fire.

Reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s 'decisive moment’ and the humorous photos of Weegee, this series is a redefined and modernized approach to photojournalism. Some praise him for his smart series and others accuse him of appropriating the images from Google. I personally see this series as an amusing look at humanity; it’s something that we, as humans, can all relate to when it comes to the smaller disasters of daily life-that moment you fall off your bike in front of others, that moment you can’t hold it, that moment your car starts smoking…

Not to mention, we all take part in the voyeurism that is today’s internet. Maybe Wolf is the ultimate troll of Google Street View!

See more of the series at Word Press Photo, who awarded Wolf with an Honorable Mention in 2011.