From the Self-Image to the Image Itself

In this article, I examine the idea of the portrait from two viewpoints: the ‘classical’ portrait as it appears in Jean-Luc Nancy’s post-phenomenological philosophy, and the recent self-portrait photographs or ‘selfies’ on social media. First, I consider the portrait’s value in Nancy’s theories of art: for him, portraits hold an important position among the genres of visual art, since they present themselves as distinctive images by extracting the innermost force of the portrayed person. Secondly, I take up the philosophical and political implications of Nancy’s notion of the portrait vis-a-vis the contemporary selfie culture. I suggest that, instead of emphasizing the model’s singularity as traditional artistic portraits do, the flow of selfies tends to create similarity. I begin by clarifying Nancy’s paradoxical claim that the human portrait may resemble a person only on the condition of not representing him or her. After this, I inquire about the philosophical position of selfies as constructed portraits that make visible the absence of the self. However, as I argue, they do this in a sense that differs from Nancy’s account of the portrait. As a result, I propose that the repetition and circulation of selfies has remarkably changed our view on the significance and, finally, the ontology of the portrait.