When Esther Weltevrede gave a short lecture on our MacBook Reading Club at Mediamatic she placed the aesthetics of the Photobooth self-portrait within the larger history of self-portraits:

Digital camera technology advanced ego-photography and ways for selfpresentation. Analogue photography mainly focused on the presentation of others. With exception of the time consuming and error prone self timer, it was very difficult to capture oneself on camera. The “arm-length angle” – taking a snapshot of oneself and possibly a friend with a stretched arm – has taken a leap with the double sided lcd preview screen on digital camera’s cameras as well as mobile phones. The web cam advanced camera technology as medium of selfpresentation further. The camera is always directed at the self. The image where the face is shot from a slightly upper angle is known as the “Youtube angle” or “MySpace angle”. With the built-in cam and Photobooth software, the first thing one does when installing a new mac is taking a snapshot of the self. MacBook Reading Club takes advantage of Photobooth and the build-in camera. MacBook Reading Club is a new phenomenon in ego-photography, and introduces the “MacBook Reading Club angle”. MacBook Reading Club photos can be recognized by their characteristic 90º rotation. With Photobooth open and the MacBook tilted 90º – like a *book* – countdown for a MacBook Reading Club photo starts. Since most people bring their MacBook wherever they go, MacBook Reading Club photos present the opportunity to capture the self in different environments, with and without friends, and upload directly to: www.flickr.com/groups/macbookreadingclub/pool/ (Esther Weltevrede)

Kazys Varnelis takes it even one step further when he describes the Facebook self-portrait as a product of network culture:

The Facebook self-portrait is a product of network culture that reveals how we construct our identities today. It satisfies the version of Andy Warhol’s rule as modified by Momus: “In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people,” except that it’s not the future anymore (in fairness the article is 15 years old) and it’s not 15 but rather 150 or 300 people, a typical number in a circle of friends on a social network site.

He not only describes the aesthetics of self-portraits in social networking culture where “the Facebook self-portrait insists upon mastery over one’s self-image and the instant feedback of digital photography allows us this.” He also describes the important fact that our pictures are not only visible to our friends but also to the friends of our friends. While you can put your Facebook, Hyves and MySpace profile on private, your profile image is usually visible. Your profile image is one of the most important features of your profile as it serves as a marker that is nearly always visible.

But what about your old pictures? Deleting content online is one of the most difficult things to do as content spreads through the network and will be cached and archived at certain points. While you can update your “stale” online profile it is hard to get rid of the past. When being faced with one of your old images:

you have to become the consummate manipulator of your image, imagery from the past being less an indictment of present flaws and more an indicator of your ability to remake yourself.

Now I really need to take a new picture as the header of my blog is already three years old. It’s time to remake myself.

This post is inspired by Alex Halavais’ post Halavais is…. where Havalais listed “some of Google’s opinion of me via a search for “halavais is,” “halavais was,” and “halavais will be.” ”

It reminded me of the iTea project made at the RFID Hacker’s Camp 2007:

iTea is an interactive installation in the form of a coffee table.   In the coffee cup on top of the table, you can place your rfid tag – which is given to you at the entrance of the conference and linked to a social network – and the table will start to display information about you. At first it gets your name, description and keywords from the picnic network. Then it will start to Google your firstname and lastname. Then it just googles your first name but substitutes it by your full name. The result is visualized by a projection from within the table to the surface of the table, in the form of drops of information. (Erik Borra project description)

The iTea project makes users aware of both “the gossip” online and the voyeuristic tendencies of datamining search engine indexes. Ego Googling is not so much a self-centric tendency that points to the glorification of the self online as it points to an awareness of the presentation of the self online by search engines. The self online is not shaped by yourself but by search engines. So who am I anno 2009 according to Google?

Anne Helmond is

• Anne Helmond is a New Media Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam at the Media Studies department.
• So the brief day that was Blog08 is over and our blogging reporter, Anne Helmond, is back home. She rounds up over on her own blog.
• Anne Helmond is member #1 of journalism research.
• Anne Helmond is a member of Mobile Monday Amsterdam.
• Anne Helmond is a member of Wolvenstraat, Amsterdam OpenCoffee Meetup.
• Anne Helmond is a new media researcher, graphic designer and photographer.
• Anne Helmond is docent New Media en onderzoeker bij de afdeling Mediastudies van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.
• Lovink stresses that the Main object of research Anne Helmond is working on is that bloggers start to realize they are ‘working for google’ and contributing …
• Het profiel van Anne Helmond is gewijzigd 25 Jan.
• Anne Helmond is een absolute helemaal geekster.
• Volgens Software Studies onderzoeker Anne Helmond is een door software gecreëerde wereld opaak, het vormt ons media gedrag maar verbergt een achterliggende …
• Anne Helmond (Anne Helmond is silvertje on Twitter).
• De reactie van Anne Helmond is:. March 25, 2008 @ 7:41 pm.
• Anne Helmond is lid #340 van Twitterborrel.

Anne Helmond was:

• Anne Helmond was inspired by both projects and asks MTV to be MADE into a killer PHP programmer.
• Anne Helmond was one of the fifty blogger from around Europe who participated in the European Bloggers Unconference
• Anne Helmond was er wel, en deze prachtige foto komt uit haar flickr-stream.
• Ken het verhaal (nog) niet achter dit zelfportret van Anne Helmond. Was ze melig, of juist heel overtuigd?
• Anne Helmond was tot nu toe betrokken bij het weblog Masters of Media, een weblog gerelateerd aan de Mastersstudie Nieuwe Media.
• Anne Helmond was haar naam.
• Anne Helmond was your fan before and now you two are friends.

Anne Helmond will be:

• Anne Helmond will be blogging back from Blog08 for us, with a focus on the online journalism aspects.
• This Thursday Anne Helmond will be giving a lecture on ‘The Widgetized Self‘ a term coined by Nancy Baym.

What surprises me is the amount of social actions indexed such as “Anne Helmond is (now) a member of…” it confirms the increasing trend of indexed social actions and memberships as I previously described in: Google expands its indexing focus to actions within social networks.