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Selfie Factory, 2017

by Ralph Kenke and Elmar Trefz

Winner, Digital Portraiture Award 2017
Mixed media installation

Selfie Factory, 2017 by Ralph Kenke and Elmar Trefz
Video: 3 minutes

The Selfie Factory is an experimental art installation creating a temporary visual experience of online behaviour. It aims to raise awareness of the contemporary phenomenon of the digital self-portrait (selfie), in terms of its geographic, social and cultural context. The installation offers a tangible representation of the scale and quality of online data, using a real-time stream of Instagram selfies printed on receipt paper. It is an exploration of the current state of human identity: the experienced divide of online spaces and physical places, and the duality of individual and collective experience inherent in our telematic world. This mixed media installation is part of an ongoing research collaboration established by Kenke+Trefz. The audience is invited to explore the images on the Selfie Factory’s perpetual paper trail, and is also able to contribute their own digital self-portrait by using #selfiefactory on Instagram to become part of the installation.

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