Visual Cultures Workshop: "Girls as Screen Auteurs: A Design Perspective on Girls’ Virtual Self-Imaging Projects"

She takes out her smartphone, points the camera at the mirror in front of her, and looks at herself through the screen. Moving the curtain in order to get the perfect light, she adjusts her hair, her lips, her eyes, her pose. She takes a collection of pictures then swipes through to find the best one. She adds a filter, a caption, posts, and waits for her followers to react. She is constructing her virtual self-imaging project.

How can we understand these images? Are they responsible for girls’ negative self-image and mental health issues, as many say? Alternatively, can we consider them as creative acts in which girls are authoring their own identities?

Girls as Screen Auteurs: A Design Perspective on Girls’ Virtual Self-Imaging Projects, Heather Tucker, MFA Candidate in Visual Communication Design, will present her research and in-progress thesis project that offer an analysis that acknowledges the problems of selfie culture, but views girls as potential screen auteurs and suggests that media literacy and production could be a tool to help them shape their screen identities more mindfully and creatively.

 

Originally published at artdept.nd.edu.