Self/Image
Self/Image
The thematic section explores the different ways in which we use pictures and images, and the role of private photos in creating and supporting self-identity. In one of the last interviews with Vilém Flusser, the scholar talks about the changed position of pictures at the end of the twentieth century. He believes that instead of asking “what pictures show”, nowadays we have to inquire what perspectives these images are shown from. Analyzing two of her early family photographs, Annette Kuhn discusses the importance of the monopolization of the pictures’ meanings. She gives examples of how family photos can become the source of family conflicts, conflicts of memory, and those of identity. In the third article Zoltán Gayer analyzes how someone’s self-identity may become visible in his or her private photographs. Gayer compares the self-identity of Hungarian tourists made visible in their photographs taken before and after the political changes.