Who Dat?
A Serious Selfie Essay
Since publishing Anima, I’ve had the fortune to meet a constellation of artists, makers, workers, grafters, posties… I could go on. Thank you all for investing in my art, and being genuinely inquisitive with the books. It means more than I can express. If you’re among the newbies here, welcome to my Monologue. Tbh, does what it says on the tin. Buckle up, enjoy the ride.
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An artist who I’ve had the fortune to cross paths with is Sipke Visser. When we first messaged on insta, I was convinced Sipke was female. Probably with long Sicilian hair but maybe blue eyes. Perhaps she wore cowboy boots on weekdays and drank only strong intense coffee. One thing’s for sure, in my head, Sipke definitely had to be my age, no question.
How wrong I was!
When the real Sipke showed up at the Anima Book launch, he was distinctly male, adorning shortish brown? hair and apparently a father of two. Naturally unfiltered, my first remark was ah! you’re not a girl! Apparently, this is less frequent for him - normally the mistake is ah, it’s siPke, not sPike. [Buck the trends, kydds, be weird]
Anyway, the point I’m trying to get to… Sipke had brought me his book, Take A Look At Yourself. This body of work saw a series of around 150 people documented in photographic portraits, shot on an analogue Large Format camera using sheets of film. This was then edited down to 37 published images, which were accompanied by scans of handwritten notes from the sitters.
Their instruction, “annotate the blank space next to [your] portrait with thoughts about what [you] see.” The responses were written in several languages, depending on the sitter’s home language: they were each transcribed in print for the book.
Inviting people to sit for a portrait is one idea. To ask them to then look at themselves (their self), really consider it, and respond in text could be quite challenging.
To transcribe in words the essence of a given moment; is it even the given moment? Is it the lead up to that moment, what their path & mood was in the hours before that moment? Is it the prolonged period afterwards, of holding onto the image, that allows a more rigorous analysis of the self - or does this extended time with the original (here)(now)1 seep into overthought, perhaps a touch of paralysis with pre-conception or projected ideas? Some people held onto their images for a week, some seven years before responding.
It really allows the idea that the ‘self’ is not a concrete idea, but an abstract one…
What I find to be true is that slowing down to consider the self is a neat antithesis to the modern selfie, as frequently shot at arms length with the intent for social media… and, let’s face it, vanity. Sipke is a little more forgiving on such images, mentioning “it’s great fun to take selfies, modify them, laugh about them, share or delete them, and then move on.” Perhaps I am too serious ! My frustration with selfies is when you see people exploring a beautiful point in nature, cities, wherever, and there is so much to absorb - but the main focus shifts to the ‘best angle’ to get a snap of yourself in said area of beauty. Agh! Who cares? Be where yers are! Greet the cows, look upwards, forget yourself!
Flicking through the pages of Sipke’s “Take a Look at Yourself”, I feel an affinity with the root idea. For me, this was expressed in my own series, “Anima”.
Similarly wanting to return to analogue methods, Anima used the photobooth as a readily accessible medium to document passersby on the Florentine streets. Providing sitters with the mere guidance, “do what ever you want”, before removing myself as the photographer, the intention was for the sitter to recognise their agency in the making of a self portrait.
The photographs are non-verbal; the language used is visual. This is reflected in the tactility of the book, which relies upon the engagement of the viewer with the varying paper types, posters, hidden images & removable photo-strips to enhance the essence of what I was hoping for: I wanted people to engage with their ‘self’. I wanted to see if each individual could capture the tactility of their anima… Each of the 100 copies I made are hand-finished, meaning each book is its own individual ‘moment’ of sorts.
Using Sipke’s stance, I wonder what the people in Anima would write now, if they were asked to annotate their images?
Bringing it back around to that first impression I had of Sipke (what’s in a name?), I wonder - that is in a surface level image? Whilst we might strive to capture the essence of somebody, their anima, it is perhaps more like trying to capture a wind that constantly shifts and changes within us; you can’t grab hold of the wind. You may drift on it, be howled over by it, comforted by it or at times left cold from it. Just like a person who is constantly in shift, in a renewing (here)(now), we each glide through different weathers. Anima is that intangible stuff that floats through us and drives us to m o v e.
But you can document moments of anima; using analogue methods means recording real light and making real chemical changes on the film or paper that the light hits. Magic. It can also be achieved, digitally, of course…
Taking a look at your self, based on a photograph, snaps a glimpse of (here)(now)… or, in reality, (there)(then). It’s a visual grounding, a marker in time that can punctuate moments.
What was the last selfie you took? What would you say about it?
Whilst we’re at it… I reckoned it might be worth promoting both ANIMA and TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELF. Call me bias, but they’re both really cool publications.
You can buy either directly following the links:
TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELF - SIPKE VISSER
… or for those in London, drop by The Photographer’s Gallery near Oxford Street, where you’ll find both our books stocked.
Please let us know your thoughts too… ELLE / SIPKE
(here)(now) is a wee idea I started in my MA. It’s that thing of (space)(time)… trying to pin point the cross-section of the here and the now. Time constantly shifts. Spaces shift too. There are no two exact (here)(now) moments. All is new.
Always a treat to read your ruminations -- and discover other cool artists too!