Why Alex Saum Pascual Writes #SELFIEPOETRY
Fake Art Histories & the Inscription of the Digital Self is an on going series of e-poems that BCNM faculty member Alex Saum-Pascual has been writing using the online platform NewHive. While she began #SELFIEPOETRY to test if it would be a good teaching tool for her e-lit course, she became hooked. Read her thoughts on the concept of #selfiepoetry below!
From her blog:
"I began working on a series of poems that combines a few of my current intellectual interests: the (un)truth behind artistic or literary histories and our (il)legitimacy to intervene and organize events to create narratives that "make sense," vs. the interpretative role of the recipient of said narratives. I'm also pretty intrigued by the roles assigned to the producer of art and its consumers, roles that have been traditionally separate and that have begun to blend and blur indistinguishable thanks to their performance on digital media. Consumers subjectivity and representation has turned into a very particular way of individual signaling, turning the subject into an object of massive amateur (some have called it "democratizing") representation and distribution. The self (and the photographic image of the self) keeps reappearing in different digital platforms, inscribing itself through the space and time of the Web. In other words, we are obsessed with our faces (and this obsession goes well beyond taking photos in the bathroom).
My #SELFIEPOETRY series looks thus at some ways in which the inscription of the self (in today's paradigmatic digital manifestation, i.e.: the selfie) can be reinterpreted against a very vague and unorthodox selection of artistic and literary trends. As of today, there are 8 poems, each constituting an intervention in a different movement. They also touch upon some very personal matters, since I am intrigued by the many ways in which people today share their personal lives online."
To see the series and read Alex's thoughts on her poems, click here.