Abstract
Robots don’t seem to be vain creatures taking snapshots of themselves. As functional machines, their purpose is to create a picture of the world without dwelling on the pleasures of self-presentation and self-admiration. However, robots have been taking selfies for quite a while. When Gigapan, a robotic camera mount designed to capture pictures of artwork for Google’s Art Project, traveled through the world’s most famous museums, it took a whole series of selfies by reflecting itself in the galleries’ mirrors. Another prominent photogenic robot is NASA’s Science Laboratory rover Curiosity. When it landed on Mars, it held its camera at robotic arm’s length to take head shots: truly authentic selfies , as they seem. Robot selfies raise questions about self-reflection and the concepts that are associated with it. Why does a robot take a selfie? What does it mean for a machine to capture and present itself? Is the robot selfie a way of android self-recognition and self-monitoring? Could it be that camera robots do not just circulate images but are capable of creating machinic self-awareness? The chapter addresses these issues to discuss what new territories the form of the robot selfie could explore. The first section considers the optical effect of reflection and its contribution to the formation of robotic self-depiction; the second discusses the process of technological transformation and the shift of knowledge constellations that is linked to it. The peculiarity of robot selfies, Gotto argues, lies in their aptitude to mediate between self-reflection and self-transformation. Robot selfies exist both as an effect and an alternative mode of selfie culture. As such, they are a prime site for investigating not only the logics and aesthetics of selfies but also the future potential of digital media culture.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Mario Santamaria’s Tumblr account: http://the-camera-in-the-mirror.tumblr.com/ (accessed September 16, 2016).
- 2.
Further examples for this unit of robot selfies include two recent image series reflecting on the relation between machines and photographic self-exposure. In 2016, Spanish artist Daniel Armengol Altayó designed an art project titled “#artificialselfie.” It was exhibited at London’s Aram Gallery and displayed a robot in front of a mirror provided with a smartphone . The robot was programmed to take its selfies and post them on Instagram repeatedly. Although the machine did exactly what it was determined to execute, the unexpected error in this case turned out to be humans—that is, gallery visitors who happened to walk by and thus got into the pictures unintentionally (see http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/robot-takes-better-selfies-than-you-do). Another variation of the machinic self-portrait could be explored through drone selfies . As part of a larger art concept having been developed in 2014, the art collective IOCOSE displayed a photographic series of drones taking selfies by flying in front of a mirror (see http://www.iocose.org/works/in_times_of_peace.html). Significantly, these images differ from what has come to be known as a dronie (i.e., a selfie of humans shot via drone). Here the machines cease to serve the instrumental purpose of taking snapshots of people who want to avoid extending their arms or using a selfie stick. On the contrary, these drones “are definitely presenting their own images, taking photos to create and promote their public image,” as IOCOSE stated in an interview (see https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/now-even-drones-are-taking-selfies). I am grateful to Julia Eckel for bringing these instances to my attention.
- 3.
Following discussions revolving around how Curiosity takes selfies without getting its robotic arm in the picture, the Mars rover sent out another tweet on February 2015: “Selfie stick not required. How I take self-portraits + why my arm isn’t in the shot http://youtu.be/b2rwWECbEHg?t=2m45s” (Twitter/@MarsCuriosity 2015b).
Bibliography
Bendel, Oliver. 2014. Robot Selfies, and the Road to Self-recognition. Robohub.org , June 9. Accessed September 16, 2016. http://robohub.org/robot-selfies-and-the-road-to-self-recognition
———. 2015. Roboselfies. Telepolis, February 1. Accessed March 23, 2016. https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Roboselfies-3369411.html
Deleuze, Gilles. 1992. What Is a Dispositif? In Michel Foucault, Philosopher, ed. Timothy J. Armstrong, 159–168. New York, NY: Routledge.
Engell, Lorenz. 2009. Fernsehen mit Unbekannten. Überlegungen zur experimentellen Television. In Fernsehexperimente. Stationen eines Mediums, ed. Michael Grisko and Stefan Münker, 15–45. Berlin: Kadmos.
Flusser, Vilém. 1983. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books.
Frosh, Paul. 2015. The Gestural Image. The Selfie, Photographic Theory, and Kinesthetic Sociability. International Journal of Communication 9: 1607–1628. http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/3146/1388.
Haraway, Donna J. 2004. A Cyborg Manifesto [1985]. In Readings of the Philosophy of Technology, ed. David M. Kaplan, 161–178. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kracauer, Siegfried. 1997. Theory of Film. The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2012. Animation of Curiosity Rover’s Arm Movements for Taking a Self-Portrait. December 12. Accessed September 16, 2016. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1171#fragment-1
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. 1996. Toward a History of Epistemic Things. Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Røssaak, Eivind. 2011. Algorithmic Culture: Beyond the Photo/Film Divide. In Between Stillness and Motion. Film, Photography, Algorithms, ed. Eivind Røssaak, 187–203. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Tifentale, Alise. 2016. The Networked Camera at Work. Why Every Self-Portrait Is Not a Selfie, but Every Selfie Is a Photograph. In Riga Photography Biennial, ed. Santa Mičule, 74–83. Riga: Riga Photography Biennial.
Twitter.com (@hitchBOT). 2015. Hitchhiking Robot Hitchbot. Accessed September 16, 2016. https://twitter.com/hitchBOT
Twitter.com (@MarsCuriosity). 2013. How Do I Take Selfies on Mars? By Taking Multiple Pics w/ a Camera at the End of My Arm. Here’s How It’s Done: http://go.nasa.gov/UHonU2. February 7. Accessed March 20, 2017. https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/299698751415652352
———. 2015a. No Shame in My #selfie game. These Pics Help My Team See the State of Hardware Over Time. http://go.nasa.gov/1X077VG. October 13. Accessed March 20, 2017. https://twitter.com/marscuriosity/status/653998124642406400
———. 2015b. Selfie Stick Not Required. How I Take Self-portraits + Why My Arm Isn’t in the Shot. http://youtu.be/b2rwWECbEHg?t=2m45s. February 24. Accessed March 20, 2017. https://twitter.com/marscuriosity/status/570338044210847747?lang=de
Uricchio, William. 2011. The Algorithmic Turn: Photosynth, Augmented Reality and the Changing Implications of the Image. Visual Studies 26 (1): 25–35.
Vogl, Joseph, and Alwin Franke. 2011. The Shamefacedness of Functional Elements. A Conversation with Joseph Vogl. New York Magazine of Contemporary Art and Theory (1.5). Accessed October 2015. http://www.ny-magazine.org/issues.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gotto, L. (2018). Strike a Pose: Robot Selfies. In: Eckel, J., Ruchatz, J., Wirth, S. (eds) Exploring the Selfie. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57949-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57949-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57948-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57949-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)