The Selfie as an Identity Performance. Exploring the Performativity of the Self-Image from the Standpoint of Action Art

The current proliferation of selfies in online social networks allows us to contemplate, with particular crudity, the conditions under which the (continuous) construction of individual identity takes place today through visual means. In contrast to the solid and autonomous subject that represented itself on traditional self-portrait, the selfie stages a provisional identity, always conditioned to the reactions of other users of any social network. The present article will try to shed light on this peculiar subjectivating capacity of the selfie, by conciliating diverse theoretical contributions from disciplines like Theory of Art, Ordinary Sociology, Political Philosophy or Performance Studies. The selfie will be analyzed as a performative device for the construction of identity. Subsequently, we shall approach another form of performativity of the image, in dialogue with Philip Auslander's reflections on photographic documentation of artistic actions. Both spheres, the art of action and the ecosystem of identities of online social networks, will be analyzed in the proposals of Amalia Ulman, Kate Durbin and Milo Moire: three performers who put at the center of their work the very action of taking or sharing a selfie. As we shall try to show, the ambiguous literality of their gesture makes visible the contradictory circumstances under which identity is currently performed and built, thus highlighting art's potential as a critical index of contemporary conditions of images and their social effects.