Image 2011: True

So what was the “true image” in 2011?

And then there was the selfie. Though the word wouldn’t enter the Oxford Dictionary until 2013, by 2011 the front-facing camera was becoming standard. The mirror was obsolete. Your true image was now a carefully angled shot, arm extended, expression rehearsed. But here was the paradox: in striving for a “true” representation of self—happy, adventurous, flawless—many were losing the ability to recognize their own reflection without a digital buffer.

In 2011, the idea of a “true image” began to fracture. It wasn’t a sudden break, but a slow pixelation—a softening of the edges between what was real and what was rendered.

NACH OBEN