Intimità sociali: diari, narrazioni e strategie di autorappresentazione digitale

Abstract

This contribution focuses on three of the traditional forms of subjective writing, which appears as key modalities of self-representation in our contemporary scenario: the diaristic writing (a daily report of intimate events); the autobiography (memory and recollection of the past); and the self-portrait (an instantaneous dimension of self-representation). These three forms will be investigated in the digital scenario through some crucial case studies: the video-diary writing on the web (365 Day Diary by Jonas Mekas, 2007), the dialectic between portraits and self-portraits in social networks and above all in the use of selfies (New Portraits, Richard Prince, 2014), and the use of big data and self-tracking as a basis for shaping subjectivity (investigated in the works by Laurie Frick). In all the cases mentioned, the traditional form of self-representation (as it has been defined in the field of literature, visual art and cinema) is transformed into a social practice, while a social individual experiences a public intimacy.