SELFIE OBLITERATION IN THE ART WORLD: THE NARCISSISTIC OBSESSION AND COMPULSION TO BE A PART OF A VIRTUAL REALITY  

       

By:  Lillian Estelle (Stella) Sender  

   

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR ARTS  

Department of Visual Studies Concentration in The Arts    

The New School For Liberal Arts: Eugene Lang College    

     

May 2016      

                   

 Kenneth White, Assistant Professor of Visual Studies, The New School  

   

   

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author.  

 

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Yayoi Kusama’s The Obliteration Room is an interactive work in conjunction with the

Queensland Art Gallery and sponsored by Santos GLNG1. The work is set up in a white space,

with white painted furniture (Figure 1). The furniture included is stylistically similar to Ikea

furniture, a room designed to look like a catalogue. Kusama pre-ordered custom booklets of

sticker-dots in several sizes and colors she picked out for her viewers to cover every surface of

the space, for its obliteration (Figure 2). The space feels sterile, and strategic. When walking into

an exhibition in a museum or gallery, usually the works are taped off or guards are on watch to

keep viewers away from the work of art, but this space invites viewers to become participants,

and artists in their own right. Kusama expands the space into obliteration by way of her viewers.

They have the control to desterilize the white room and neutralize the space with colors. By

placing the dots onto this white space, they are saturating the exhibit with a multiplicity of

colors, as a reflection of themselves occupying a space in unison.  

The Obliteration Room followed Kusama’s previous work Self Obliteration from 1976, a

video that follows Kusama through a natural landscape as she imposes dots onto trees, horses,

herself, and the water which she enters. The act of placing these dots onto these subjects is an act

of obliterating them. Kusama describes what it means to be obliterated in an interview with

BOMB Magazine’s Grady Turner during her early fame in 19992. The interview works through

Kusama’s personal life, her background, her mental illness, and her work ethic in the late 1990s

compared to her time in New York in the 1960s. She faded from the art world’s spotlight after

her return home to Japan in 1973, where she was hospitalized for her OCD. Kusama remains

committed in a mental institution, located across from a studio she works at daily. In BOMB

Magazine’s interview Kusama claims her “art originates from hallucinations only [she] can see.

                                                                                               1  Lawrence, Alexa. "Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room Comes to New York." Architectural Digest .  2  Turner, Grady T. "Yayoi Kusama." BOMB Magazine, Winter 1999 http://bombmagazine.org/article/2192/.  

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[She translates] the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague [her] into sculptures and

paintings.” Kusama talks through the symbols and concepts in her work in the interview. The

polka dot motif "symbolize disease,” and neutralize the ego in her works. The polka dot is also a

way of obliterating “individual selves and…[returning] to the infinite universe. This is magic.”

My interpretation of Kusama’s term “obliteration" is revoking identity and self to revert to a

sense of infinite being; a unity between humans as bodies rather than selfish beings. Kusama

concludes the interview with the following, "I suppose I would not be able to know how people

would evaluate my art until after I die. I create art for the healing of all mankind.” This healing,

it seems, has yet to come for many viewers who interact with her work. They are consumed by

technology, rejecting being present to experience the work and rather engaging through social

media. The obliteration they participate in is reversed by their imposition of self in a space

sanctified for a lack of self and sense of unity.  

Kusama’s work usually does not involve her audience and viewers, her work offers her

own reaction to the way she views the world. Her hallucinations became a commodity once she

placed them in a gallery space, and her viewers flooded their social media feeds with

reproductions of her work. Kusama’s The Obliteration Room allows viewers to participate in

obliterating the space. The concept of Kusama’s work is to depict the obsessions she has with

repeating images, patterns of dots, phallic symbols, and the cosmos reflecting humans

occupation of space. The Obliteration Room works to bring the community together by

employing participants to take part in the space, but this leads us to question the meaning of the

work. Kusama has always worked with the concept of self obliteration, but her viewers do not

only participate in obliterating the space, they reinforce themselves in the obliterated space and

as a part of the work by taking photographs of themselves in these spaces for their social media.

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Kusama describes the symbology of the polka dots in her work as neutralizing the ego, while her

viewers betray her in attending the exhibit and posting selfies from it in order to fulfill their ego.

Kusama’s other interpretation of the polka dots as disease, it seems, might be more related to a

disease of her viewers’ attachments to their smartphones and social media. The viewers enter the

space solely for the purpose of documenting that they were there.  

In observing the viewers and participants of Kusama’s The Obliteration Room taking

selfies and photographs in and of this space, we can begin to identify the disengagement

smartphone users have with the work of art, and automatic drive to document themselves in a

space meant for viewing. Due to the narcissistic compulsion and obsession of documenting

themselves in front of or around an artwork, young smartphone users miss a valuable experience

of engaging with art in a meaningful way. The motivations of smartphone users are driven by

social currency and validation, which distract from actual reality. The way a work functions

online, through our smartphone applications reduces the quality of the work and also the

experience of the work. The act of photographing a work before experiencing it and appreciating

it, already deters from its “aura.” This term comes from Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of

Art in the Age of Reproduction3. This realization that young smartphone users are disengaged

with art is realized in his writing, which illuminates the influence of technology on art, and

questions art’s function when reproduced by technology rather than by human hand. Man always

intimates man, but when technology enters this sphere of man-to-man made objects, the sense of

authenticity and uniqueness of the human hand is lost. Benjamin calls this uniqueness and

authenticity “aura”. Benjamin claims that the way in which a work is experienced in time and

space is eliminated when (mechanically) reproduced. When the distance of a work is destroyed,

                                                                                               3 Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of harvard University Press, 2008. 19-55. Print.  

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the uniqueness of the work vanishes. This “distance, however close it may be,"4 can also be

described as a work’s aura. Benjamin claims that once the authenticity of a production of a work

of art is lost, then its function is lost as well. Young smartphone users eliminate the aura of an

artwork and dissolve their own opportunity to experience by taking photographs of the work, or

selfies with the work.  

The aura Benjamin struggled to find through technological reproductions of works

continues to diminish in the reproductions of works on our smartphones. We no longer recall to

people what we take away from galleries, we show our experience on our smartphones, and on

social platforms. In doing this we rob ourselves of our own experiences. When we put artwork in

these virtual spheres we eliminate the essence of the work, of the human hand. Benjamin

critiques art in the age of mechanical reproduction, stating that the authentic and unique do not

belong to the modern and technical world. While in classical art, and art surrounding religious

and ritual use remain to have elements of aura, Benjamin suggests that modernity and technology

have obliterated aura by making art a reproduction, and its value determined by exhibitions.

Benjamin claims that with the development and advancement in mechanical reproduction5 (i.e.

creation and mass production of the camera), there is a larger physical distance between the

viewer and a work of art but this advancement diminishes its distance auratically. This he claims,

is because when viewing a reproduction of a work there is less value to its aura, or less incentive

to view a work of art in person. Benjamin’s argument resonates with the concern of this paper.

Are we able to appreciate art and our reality as a whole if we are constantly trying to document

what we are doing for the satisfaction of knowing there is proof? With technology one can

                                                                                               4  Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of harvard University Press, 2008. 23. Print.  5 These technological advancements Benjamin discusses revolve around the creation and distribution of cameras for film and photography.  

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technically view a work better than in person, museums allow for a gallery view, or a viewer can

zoom in and out of a work to understand the details. These technological advancements in the

world have made art more accessible, have made the reproduction of art easier, and have

furthered the dissociation towards art. In the 21st century, Benjamin’s argument remains true.

The use of social media dissociates the viewer from a work of art, and eliminates the distance or

aura of a work of art, as well as of our reality as a whole. This is demonstrated by the viewers

and participants of Kusama’s work. Rather than understanding that they are in a space they

themselves obliterated, their attachment and obsession with documenting where they are and

what they’re doing distracts from the art’s concept. The time they spend in the gallery space is

taken up by their trials and errors of selfies and group photos; the experience of the space is lost

because of this.  

Catherine Ellington’s article, “The Irony of the Cell Phone,”6 makes claims that even

with the dispute over the time we spend on our phones, (if it is too consuming of our time or not)

most people may benefit from using their smartphones. Ellington is a dentist, far removed from

the conversation of art, but points out the positive fluidity technology has to connect generations.

Ellington gives the example of Generation X and Generation Y watching their parents struggle to

multitask, whereas now, with the advent of the world at our fingertips through our two inch

screens, we can work multiple tasks more efficiently. Ellington also notes that through social

media big corporations seem small, “every CEO is just a tweet or a post away from any

consumer. What was a faceless, corporate entity is suddenly a friend.” The tools we use on our

cellphones make this vast world a small one, connecting businesses, consumers, friends, family,

and strangers all over to one another for all possible interactions. This article is focused around

                                                                                               6  Ellington, Catherine. "The Irony of the Cell Phone." American Dental Hygienist Association.  

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Ellington’s profession, but relates to all ways in which our phones are used. It is important to

bridge the gap between the benefits of cellphones alongside the negative aspects.  

Smartphone users are found on their phones in nearly every situation. They hold their

phones inches from their faces, stepping outside of themselves, plugging their brains into their

screens. They are distracted and distancing themselves from their own actual reality, creating a

virtual reality in the palm of their hands. The apps that will serve as evidence of this distraction

and distance are Snapchat and Instagram, which have changed the way we look at photography

and art. Snapchat is a platform which allows limited viewing time to a photograph between one

person and another, or several others. The images we send back and forth have various levels of

meaning for the viewer, but it would be challenging for these images to resonate with the viewer

due to their lack of viewing time, and ability for reflection. The time limit for a Snapchat is up to

ten seconds. When a Snapchat user taps into their Snapchat application the first thing they see is

an unattractive angle of themselves below the chin, they make a joke out of it, snapping a

photograph to send to their closest friends. This unattractive selfie, young smartphone users take

for limited viewing is considered exclusive over Snapchat because a user is in control to decide

which people they share it with. It is possible that this exclusivity makes the receivers as well as

the sender of this Snapchat feel a part of something, something that not everyone is allowed to

see or be a part of. Snapchats sent between young smartphone users document everything down

to the aesthetically pleasing breakfast someone made for her or himself. The food must be

documented prior to consumption. The photograph can be taken any number of times, possibly to

the point of one’s food getting cold, but this is not important to young Snapchat users. They will

not reflect on their meal after consuming it, but, maybe, if anything, prior to that first bite. One’s

association with food then becomes disrupted. This goes for all things sent through Snapchat.

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The ephemeral photograph is curated in a way that says, “hey, look at me,” “look at how great

my life is, how delicious my breakfast looks,” and so on, rather than self reflection and

experience, users of Snapchat are projecting their opinions onto people they share their

photographs with. The compulsion to document is narcissistic, and a reaction to smartphone

users’ lack of confidence. By photographing what we do, we are reaffirming our actions. We

double check what we are doing, we hop on to trends by taking a selfie hundreds of other people

have taken in front of art and monuments. By photographing work in a museum or gallery users

are avoiding the discomfort of not knowing what they are doing, or looking at, if one does not

come from an art historical background. We document ourselves and our lives to be a part of a

virtual, social world, but we are eliminating time and space of our actual reality by interacting

via our smartphones.  

The number of active Snapchat users is tremendous, and the numbers continue to climb.

An Omnicore article collecting statistics of Snapchat, from early October of 2015, states that

Snapchat has over 200 million users, and a total of 100 million active daily users. The app

became popular to young smartphone users who wanted their privacy. Omnicore provided

statistics, which state, 71% of smartphone users are under 34 years of age, 45% of whom are

between the ages of 18 and 24, and it would take a person ten years to view the total sum photos

shared on Snapchat within the last hour7. These numbers bring back the divide Catherine

Ellington acknowledged in her article, between Generation X (born between the years 1961-

1981) and Generation Y(born between the years 1975-19958). The way smartphone owners use

their phones varies based on the age of the smartphone user. Generation Y has the most

                                                                                               7  Aslam, Salman. "Snapchat by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts." Omnicore. http://www.omnicoreagency.com/snapchat-statistics/.  8  Robinson, Michael T. "The Generations* What Generation are You?." Career Planner: Career Test Experts Career Testing & Career Direction . http://www.careerplanner.com/Career-Articles/Generations.cfm.  

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smartphone users as they grew up with the technology. The statistics surrounding Snapchat

suggest that people under 30 years of age are more engaged with this application than those 30

years of age and older. The ephemerality of the photographs taken suggested that young

smartphone users were sending nude photographs back and forth, feeling secure because these

photographs are supposed to disappear. The clear divide within Generation Y becomes clear at

art museums, galleries, and spaces. Viewers of high school age and below, it seems, no longer

attend an art space for the art, they instead use the art as a backdrop for themselves (Figure 3).  

Snapchat disengages its users with the world around them by encouraging users to tap

into other people's experiences. Snapchat curates a short, ephemeral film or slideshow of

someone’s daily life. The parts of someone’s day that were once unseen and uninteresting to

one’s friends are now questioned, if there is not proof of it on Snapchat or another social media.

Stuart Jeffries talks through the impending death of photography, by way of the rise of

smartphone cameras. Jeffries discusses “the narcissistic nature of smartphone photography,”9 and

how by taking a photograph with our cellphones, research states that we remember what we

captured with our phone less than if we were the see, or read it with our own eyes. Jeffries talks

to 50 year old, award-winning Mexican Photographer Antonio Olmos agrees with Jeffries, and

notes that the ability for anyone to become a published photographer through instagram, it

devalues what it means to be a photographer. Olmos also states that though he loves the iPhone,

it takes away from the print that makes a photograph Photography. We no longer need a gallery

space for our viewing pleasure, we can just look on Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and all the

other social medias sending everyone’s life moments throughout the cyber world. If a Snapchat

user is bored with their life, they can plug into another person’s life. The brain can be tricked into

thinking someone else’s fun is their own. Snapchat’s ephemeral quality can be detrimental not                                                                                                9  Jeffries, Stuart. "The death of photography: are camera phones destroying an artform?." The Guardian.  

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only to the viewers of a Snapchat story but the user and curator of Snapchat stories. Linda A.

Henkel’s research article "No Pictures, Please: Taking Photos May Impede Memory of Museum

Tour," from Association for Psychological Science further promotes viewing things for what

they are rather than through a screen. Henkel created an experiment to test whether or not the

theory of losing a memory by photographing it was true, and proved her hypothesis right, while

in her second study, added “an interesting twist: Taking a photograph of a specific detail on the

object by zooming in on it with the camera seemed to preserve memory for the object, not just

for the part that was zoomed in on but also for the part that was out of frame.10” These varying

outcomes are interesting for smartphone users. In terms of viewing art in a Snapchat, when a user

zooms into a part of a work, they may remember that detail on their friend’s Snapchat, but

because they do not see it in the context of the whole work or exhibition, they are missing an

experience to thoughtfully engage with the work as a whole. On Snapchat the projection of one’s

life can be misleading, but it is also forgotten, incapable of being reflected on the way it may

have been if the person documenting their life just lived it. Because receivers of a Snapchat are

usually not there in the moment the snapshot was taken, there is nothing to look back on, there is

no memory attached to a Snapchat.  

Why must we constantly document the happenings in our lives; reproducing the reality of

what is in front of us? Why must we always have proof to assure our friends and family we

attended a concert, or museum? Yes, these photographs are valuable and even beautiful

reflections of the experiences of our lives, but they cannot capture what these experiences meant

to us, and worst of all, the experiences may have been tainted in their meaning because we are

too concerned with documenting it, to fully appreciate it. It seems we are compelled to document                                                                                                10  Henkel, Linda A. "No Pictures, Please: Taking Photos May Impede Memory of Museum Tour." Association for Psychological Science.    

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the happenings in our actual reality to the point of missing out on the experience. Take a sunset

for example; the more focused one is on the beauty of a sunset that needs to be captured, the less

they are able to sensuously experience it. The photographs may be blurry, or low resolution; the

colors don’t add up to the way the sunset looks in real life. Snapchat lowers the quality of an

image and lowers the quality of an experience. The sunset fades, it is ephemeral and ever

changing until the sky becomes a deep blue, or overcast with clouds, and all we have are pictures

that cannot capture the temperature of the sunset, its sounds, smells. Our experience of this

sunset is minimized into a single frame.  

Like a sunset, Snapchat is ephemeral in that its viewing time is up to ten seconds.

Snapchat, has a “replay” option, but a Snapchat user can only “replay” one snapchat they’ve

received a day, and then they must wait 24 hours from their last “replay” to attempt viewing this

ephemeral image again, unless they want to pay for “replays”. There is little to no time to reflect

on the photographs that are sent through Snapchat because with ten seconds begin the most time

capable of seeing these images, only immediate reactions resonate. The viewer of Snapchats is

moving from one reality to another. They are able to see, in real time, what their friends are

doing, and therefore stepping outside of their surroundings, defying time and space, while also

disorienting users from a present moment. Reality no longer suffices, it is no longer as

interesting as someone else’s reality.  

With Snapchat we no longer need to live our life and reflect on it because everyone we

are friends with have viewed the evidence of what we have done. Susan Sontag’s On

Photography deals with the questions surrounding why we feel the need to document our lives so

extensively, from an early standpoint, when cameras became more accessible to the public. Her

presumptions around the early stages of the compulsive documentation of our lives is covered

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throughout this text. While this act of documenting to remember seems like a sincere act, it is

also an act of narcissism. On Photography discusses the desire to recognize and remember

moments through the act of documentation. Sontag claims, “photographs furnish evidence.

Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it” (5)11.

Sontag’s deduction of the way photographs exist in our lives is relevant to the way our

smartphone applications are used. Instagram is the new photoalbum, Snapchat is the new

postcard and we can share the moments we cherish and prove to have experienced with a few or

as many close friends, family or strangers as our privacy settings allow. Sontag discusses the

evolution of the camera, its availability, “democratize[d] all experiences by translating them into

images”(7). They way photographs were looked at and the way photographers, even amateurs,

decided to take photographs does not stray far from the way social media users decide on taking

photographs and editing them for exposure and attention.“In deciding how a picture should look,

in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their

subjects” (6). Sontag foreshadows the use of cropping and editing Instagrammers and

Snapchatters use to create an aesthetically pleasing photograph, to attain a certain amount of

attention, gaining ‘likes’ or ‘views’ serves as affirmations of our photo-taking skills. In relation

to art, and the exhibiting of art, the way users of Instagram and Snapchat curate their social

media, parallels and sometimes mimics, or takes directly from a museum or gallery curation.

They become curators in their social media, dictating what their followers will see, and this is

limiting in relation to their documentation of art. Art is seen in its entirety in a gallery more than

through Instagram and Snapchat because smartphone users only post what they feel is worth

showing. Either their favorite work in an exhibition or the most popular work on display.  

                                                                                               11 Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012.  

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Snapchat is great because anyone is able to let people know about even the most

mundane parts of their day, regardless of if anyone actually cares. Filters on Snapchat include

but are not limited to, the time at which your selfie, photograph of your food, or embarrassing

exploitation of your friends was snapped, the speed at which a photograph was taken.

Interestingly, this speedometer on Snapchat notifies the Snapper not to “Snap and drive”, but

some users do this regardless, and because this notification is only present when the application

is first downloaded, the thought is not so sincere. DMR Directory of Social Network, App and

Digital Stats’ researcher Craig Smith complied 80 statistics on Snapchat, updated on the 11th of

May 2016. Smith’s research determined that of the data collected from participants, 11% of the

drivers “admit to checking Snapchat while operating their vehicle.12” How tempting is it, to have

the ability to hit the gas pedal in order to reach a 100mph over a photograph of you to end to

your friends, just to say you did it? Smith’s research suggest that users are checking and possibly

taking a Snapchat as they drive. In Adorno's work “Do Not Knock” Adorno argues, technology

invites us to involve ourselves in “precise and brutal” actions. “Technology is making gestures

precise and brutal, and with them men. It expels from movements all hesitation, deliberation,

civility." Adorno believes the “new human type” cannot be acknowledged if they are not put in

the context of the world they live in, where everything is either operated by machinery or

surveyed by machinery. Automated machinery determines what actions people make; if someone

sees a revolving door they must enter it to enter a new space, a sliding door requires a little more

manual labor. These technologies are tools that help people navigate and make life easier.

Snapchat is another example of this. It engages its users to have virtual face to face interactions

                                                                                               12 Smith, Craig. "By the Numbers: 80 Amazing Snapchat Statistics." DMR Directory of Social Network, App and Digital Stats. http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/snapchat-statistics/. Calvin College openURL resolver  

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with people miles away from them. Snapchat also invites reckless behavior, sending or checking

Snapchat while driving, exploiting users and their experiences.  

When Instagrammers and Snapchatters enter a museum or gallery space, they do not

engage with the work, they archive the work, through their phones and social media. Many

museum goers photograph works to remember the ones they like. These photographs, as Sontag

describes, “give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to

take possession of space in which they are insecure”(9). As of recently museums seem less about

the artwork and more about the photograph one took while they were there. The museum serves

as a set, a background, “Photographs will offer indisputable evidence that the trip was made, that

the program was carried out, that fun was had...A way of certifying experience, taking

photographs is also a way of refusing it––by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic,

by converting experience into an image, a souvenir” (9). Om Malik’s article for The New

Yorker, “In The Future, We Will Photograph Everything And Look At Nothing,”13 establishes

how often the photographs people take become forgotten due to the fact that we photograph

things now, less for memories and more as a bookmark for our life experiences. The article

reviews Google’s new, free photo service, which is designed to make sifting through

photographs easier, removing duplicate photos, finding the best photos in a stream and creating

an album out of them. Malik opens with a Sontag quote, “Today everything exists to end in a

photograph.” Malik, it seems, also fears for smartphone users’ lack of experience in their actual

reality due to their dependance on documenting and posting on a virtual reality. Malik states,

"just as with bookmarks, after a few months it becomes hard to find photos or even to navigate

back to the points worth remembering.” The Google service is design to make photos more

                                                                                               13  Malik, Om. "In The Future, We Will Photograph Everything And Look At Nothing." The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/in-the-future-we-will-photograph-everything-and-look-at-nothing.  

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memorable, the more photos we take the easier it is for the algorithm to find a pattern in

individuals’ photographic style. This algorithm seems similar the way we select photos to share

on Instagram and moments on Snapchat. Google’s services filter our photographs just as we

filter our life on Instagram and Snapchat. Snapchat has photo filters that alter the color of their

photograph, from the original to black and white, to sepia, and other tints. New features include

interactive face filters, and also the ability to faceswap with a friend, or any faces on one’s

camera roll. These filters make one’s day more interesting, a false perception of a good use of

one’s time. Smartphone users take selfie after selfie to get the perfect angle to the point where

they aren’t even sure if they want to share it with people. Smartphone users end up wasting

precious time and feeding our narcissistic need to compulsively document themselves to measure

up to the perceptions people have about them from their social medias.  

Instagram encourages its users to share moments instantly with friends, but the

application’s users began using this platform for marketing their companies, brands, or

themselves. Branding oneself has become popular for Instagrammers, especially those with a

large following (Figure 4 and 5). Instagram initially filled user's feeds with tender moments

using filters to enhance the viewing experience. Once more users came to Instagram, what was

instant about a photograph did not deem it likeable or worthy of attention. Also, photographs put

up instantly after they were taken ran the risk of being unaesthetic. What makes a photograph

aesthetic and likeable, is the photograph’s composition, lighting, whether it is blurry or not, is

this on purpose, does the photograph follow color theory, does the photo have relevance to pop

culture? The new and improved Instagram is a platform for curated photographs and for low

quality photographs, rarely is there an in-between. Photographs on Instagram are taken with the

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intention of being showcased on that particular platform; users scout locations to take

photographs, knowing well that they will end up on Instagram.  

The process of posting an image on Instagram takes time. There are steps to posting

photographs that will help the photograph receive “likes” and gain traction on the application’s

“explore” page, where users can discover users similar to their own account or other accounts

they follow. People take photographs as proof; they do so because the event, or thing in front of

them is amusing, heart-warming, beautiful, grotesque, in some way captivating enough that they

must let the masses know about it. If someone likes what they see, they’re likely to snap a

picture, and post it almost instantly, adding filters, or leaving it raw. Curating what users post

involves time, reducing an instant photograph to a “gram”. A small exchange of information or

possibly experience in a square box, with space and time in between the user and his or her

followers, whom may be waiting for their next photograph to be posted. What users with large

followings post not only involves time curating the photograph, but time put in to decide what

the caption will say, scouting locations for the photograph, who will be tagged as a reference for

the viewers, whether it be the person who photographed the photo, the inspiration, et cetera. A

photograph intended for Instagram seems to require more time to curate than time to experience

the moment that provoked a need for documentation. The “insta” of Instagram began to fade

once the amount of “likes” and “followers” a user had became important to them.  

Instant gratification replaces the “insta” of Instagram. It seems people no longer relate

theory and analysis to the documentation of something they have experienced. Instead, they look

for photogenic moments, and memories, with the end goal of gaining “likes”, “followers”, and

attention. The narcissistic obsession and compulsion to Instagram returns to the conversation.

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Ben Davis’ online article on ArtNet, “Ways of Seeing Instagram,”14 references John Berger’s

Ways of Seeing15, applying Berger’s perspective on classical painting to social media platforms.

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing aims to describe how the static words the human language

provides cannot always explain all that people see. Berger works through his argument pointing

out the holes in connecting the things people see with the way they are communicated. Davis

points out the connections Berger makes about art to that of Instagram, noting the various

parallels, which well orchestrated and curated photographs on Instagram have “to the primary

genres of Western secular art.” Davis brings up the narcissism inlaid in Instagram posts, the want

for a public to see how glamorous a user and their life is, which he then compares to paintings

whom only aristocracy had access to attaining. Now anyone can have a curated lifestyle that

represents how social, rich, beautiful, and/or trendy one’s lifestyle is. This article worked in the

idea of FOMO (fear of missing out), something many people have today because of the constant

updates on social medias showing those who stayed at home, just what they’re missing. No one

wanted to miss out on Yayoi Kusama’s exhibitions, which were written about extensively. The

Huffington Post’s writer Priscilla Frank labeled Kusama and “inventor” in her article, “Selfie

Obliteration: How Yayoi Kusama Invented The Photo-Friendly Art Show.”16 Frank encourages

her readers not to miss out in capturing themselves in the midst of Kusama’s work. She wittily

calling her article “Selfie Obliteration” in reference to all of the selfies already taken for personal

keepsake, Snapchat exploitation, or Instagram “likes” and “followers”. Frank reviews Kusama’s

Infinity Room (Figure 6) exhibition, which only allows her viewers in the room for less than two

minutes. Frank reviews different stances that Kusama’s viewers had on taking their phone into a

                                                                                               14  Davis, Ben. "Ways of Seeing Instagram." ArtNet News. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ways-of-seeing-instagram-37635.  15  Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. N.p.: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books n.d.  16  Frank, Priscilla. "Selfie Obliteration: How Yayoi Kusama Invented The Photo-Friendly Art Show." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yayoi-kusama-selfies_us_562687ede4b08589ef493823.  

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time-sensitive space. Many did not think twice about taking their phones into the exhibition to

show they went, while others were sure it would distract them from actually enjoying and

appreciating the work. Yayoi Kusama is a perfect example of an artist whose work has become a

social media phenomenon, and less about the message inlaid in her work, or the history of

discovery behind Kusama’s self-obliteration. Though her works were thoroughly documented,

many of the photographs on Instagram involve a viewer with their back to the work of art, and

looking at their reflection in a selfie. The idea that a photograph is taken, not for the memory, but

for showing off, and presenting all aspects of your life to anyone is reductive of an experience.

One’s life does not need to be diminished to a series of images on Instagram.  

Through the compulsion and obsession to use social media people are changing their

ability to focus on one thing at any given time, they are changing the ways of communication,

the ability to remain present, and remember. Instagram is a social media platform designed to

share instant moments with friends and the public. The smartphone application launched in

October of 201017 and accumulated one million users a short two month later. With the help of

Instagram, the influx of photographs on the Internet or on a technological device rose by 150

million in August of 2011. The way people take photographs changes every time there becomes

more access to cameras. This ties back to Benjamin’s argument in The Work of Art in the Age of

Reproduction. Photographs were at one point reserved for special occasions, for documenting

trips, providing proof that the trips were made. Photographs continue to document events and

furnish evidence of attendance or presence in a place. Yayoi Kusama’s exhibits around the world

are documented excessively because they look nice, especially as a backdrop for a selfie.

Benjamin’s argument for a loss of aura can be understood through the hashtag search on

Instagram. If one searches “#yayoikusama” (Figure 7) or “#obliterationroom” (Figure 8) one can                                                                                                17 http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/timeline-instagram-2010-present-infographic  

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find a surplus of almost identical images of her work. Yes, social media and the reproduction of

an image can cause an image of a work, and the work itself to gain traction and attention,

possibly encouraging the public to go see Kusama’s work in person. It could also be argued that

it would discourage the public from attending her exhibitions because all there is to see is already

featured on a more accessible platform online.  

The work of Caspar David Friedrich is an example of reducing life experience through an

image. Friedrich’s work “Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer” (Figure 9) was made into a

meme (Figure 10), as a representation of a reflection of our own self reflection in our

smartphones, and the lack of reflection we consider because of our phones. This is part of a

meme phenomenon. A meme, as defined by Dictionary.com as a noun is, “a) a cultural item that

is transmitted by repetition and replication in a manner analogous to the biological transmission

of genes. b) a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that is spread via the

Internet and often altered in a creative or humorous way.”18 Meme culture is become more

popular and relatable by the day. A meme points out the faults in ourselves, and allows us to

laugh about it. These ridiculous images, are comforting because they reach a large number of

people, making someone who may be self conscious about what the meme is making fun of, less

self conscious, due to the fact that everyone else can relate (based on the amount of likes,

retweets, reblogs, etc.). The meme version of Friedrich’s work speaks to Generation Y and its

need to be seen even if the images we post and send to one another make a minor impact on our

viewers. The original painting represents the sublime, a moment of self reflection, and a

beautiful world view. The meme of this work wanes the sublime by placing an iPhone in the

image to make the man literally look at himself reflected in the screen of his phone. The meme

                                                                                               18 meme. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/meme (accessed: April 25, 2016).  

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creates a laughable scenario, and ultimately sad truth to the many users of smartphones who can

identify with being in a beautiful place while consumed with their own reflection on their

smartphones. Pop Culture is catching on to this trend of making fun of social media users’ lack

of time spent in self reflection or experience, and rather exploits smartphone users’ obsession

with their own reflection. Active users of smartphones are inevitably narcissistic. Smartphones

more often than not, have a glossy screen, already reflective enough to view their own reflection.

This meme of Friedrich’s work is manipulated due to society’s rapid consumption of self, which

connects to the myth of Narcissus, who falls in love with himself at the sight of his own

reflection19. One can see her or his own reflection in a screen even if they are looking at

something else. We all have a little Narcissus in us when we look at our screens; the window into

information, a virtual world, and also a mirror for self reflection.  

Memes eliminate time, and eliminate experience; they contribute to a removal of

conversation. They compact aspects of people's lives and personalities into one or several images

referencing Pop Culture. Friends tag (@friends) each other in memes that remind them of one

another or a past experience. They acknowledge parts of themselves, a pseudo-moment of self

reflection, in the time it takes to read and review a meme, and then they might continue to scroll

through their Instagram, Tumblr or Facebook feeds. Meme-lovers end up looking for more time-

wasting images that inevitably will relate to them or make them feel a part of something bigger

than themselves. When sitting on a couch next to one’s closest friends, memes take the place of

conversation. Smartphone users and their fellow smartphone-using friends scroll through their

Instagram feeds, where they follow accounts dedicated to memes, to tag their friends in. Memes

are re-posted by several meme and personal accounts on Instagram, making it nearly impossible

                                                                                               19 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Narcissus", accessed May 15, 2016,http://www.britannica.com/topic/Narcissus-Greek-mythology.  

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to miss out on one that is especially popular. Friends tag each other in these posts to share a

laugh, acknowledging the entertainment or relatability of the meme, and then they move on.

Occasionally the person that tagged their friend in a meme-post might hear their friend laugh and

say, “Oh yeah, I just passed that one,” but that is all20. There is no dissection of the image, it is

already understood. Generation Y’s understanding of these images comes from the countless

hours on the Internet. This information is embedded in our brains regardless of if we care about

it. Memes are affecting our interactions with one another, by connecting us, and disconnecting us

from the world outside of our phones.  

The first social media advisor for Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) began

a Pop Culture, meme phenomenon. Maritza Yoes excelled in using these technologies for the

benefit of the museum and art viewers every and anywhere. She was hired at LACMA as the first

social media manager for the museum. She was held in charge of the museum’s Snapchat,

Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. LACMA was one of the first users of a geotag filter

on Snapchat, which quickly brought in more visitors to the museum, even just for the free selfie

in front of the famous instillation by Chris Burden, titled, “Urban Light”. Deborah Vankin of the

LA Times wrote in her article, “Museums embrace 'iconic selfie moments' to drive younger

visitors” of the successful impact the geotag and this installation had on the museum’s number

visitors. “LACMA was among the first to embrace the selfie trend. Its ‘Urban Light’ installation

by Chris Burden went up in the pre-Instagram year of 2008, and almost immediately began

attracting cellphone-wielding self portraitists.21” The tenuous relationship with the economic

structures of the museum compelled LACMA to turn to social media. By posting selfies on the

                                                                                               20 I myself have experienced this in various scenarios whilst sitting in a room full of me and my friends on our smartphones.  21 Vankin, Deborah. "Museums embrace 'iconic selfie moments' to drive younger visitors." Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-museum-selfies-20150608-story.html.  

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museum’s Instagram account almost daily the current social media advisor of LACMA says, “It

helps lower the intimidation factor that so many museums have to wrestle with, and it inspires

creativity.” LACMA encouraged people without an art historical background to enjoy the work

on display, and let their friends know about it through posting a selfie with the work, and

LACMA’s geotag. Many museum and gallery spaces prohibit the use of flash photography or

cameras, but smartphones are capable of the sneakiest snapshots. It seems almost instinctual for

some people to walk into a gallery and take out their phone before they can take in the artwork.

LACMA and Yoes decided to take advantage of this, and encourage their public to engage with

the work through social media. Though Yoes claims that viewers and visitors have become more

engaged with the work due to LACMA’s Snapchat presence, it’s troubling to find smartphone

users on their smartphones in museums. They are already consumed by technology at the most

inappropriate times; during a meal with family or friends, in a movie theater, while driving, or

crossing the street through moving traffic. These scenarios which risk our ability to interact face-

to-face, and establish our lack of patience or attention to the present, also affect how people

engage with a work of art.  

Technology interferes with the art world. Instagrammers and Snapchatters are the new

curators, which is as harmful to understanding art. They have the technology to capture and

reproduce the artwork they see in galleries as well as in museums. This may provide other

perspectives to a work of art by having control over how they curate the work on their social

media. They have control over how their social media audience views the works they post. This

manipulation of art and image is done through cropping, capturing an image at a certain angle,

height, or distance. The manipulation of an image manipulates viewer’s understanding of the

work. Placing oneself in front of a work does not seem to be an issue for those participating in

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these obsessive acts of documentation. As smartphone users people feel compelled to take

photographs of everything they find interesting, or anything they would like to bookmark for

later, and this act is harmless, so it seems. When a smartphone user places her or himself in front

of a work, with their back to the work it questions the work’s authority. To place oneself in front

of Yayoi Kusama’s work whose art displays the concept of self-obliteration, the viewer

ironically reaffirms themselves and their presence in a gallery. A museum and gallery becomes a

space for a photoshoot. One’s portrayal with a work of art is an act of narcissism. Smartphone

users’ documentation of their lives and participation on social media in order to receive

appreciation is inevitably a method of avoiding pain. People avoid pain by participating in a

largely superficial appreciation of art. Art is something that has been cherished and appreciated

from its genesis, but recently our attention and patience for appreciating art lacks due to our

obsession and compulsion to consume technology.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Images:  

Figure 1:  

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Figure 2:  

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                                                                                                 22 Coffey, Rebekah. "Before the First Dot. Yayoi Kusama's ‘The Obliteration Room’." Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.    23  trouble magazine. "We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989", Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane (QLD), 20 September 2015.    

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Figure 3:  

 

Figure 4: Figure 5:  

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                                                                                               24  Screengrabs of Everett Williams’ Instagram’s courtesy of Everett Williams and Instagram©  

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Figure 6:  

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Figure 7:  

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                                                                                                           25 Discover Los Angeles. "The Broad Museum's Infinity Room - Through The Lens of Instagram." http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/broad-museums-infinity-room-through-lens-instagram.  26  Screengrabs of Instagram’s website: #yayoikusama courtesy Instagram©    

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Figure 8:    

27      Figure 9: Figure 10:  

28 29  

 

 

                                                                                               27  Screengrabs of Instagram’s website: #obliterationroom courtesy Instagram©    28  Friedrich, Casper David. Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer. 1818. Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg. Web. 12 May 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog>.  29 Friedrich, Casper David. Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Meme). Pinterest. Web. 12 May 2016. <https://www.pinterest.com/pin/555913147725617939/>.  

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Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Maritza Lerman Yoes for your patience and participation.

Special Thank You to Malka Sender for the review and revision of this essay.

Thank you to the Writing Center, Amelia Kahaney, Ulrich Lehmann.

Most importantly, thank you to Kenneth White for advising myself and our class throughout this

semester.