Selfiecity.net
  • Lev Manovich
  • Alise Tifentale
  • Moritz Stefaner
  • Mehrdad Yazdani
  • Dominikus Baur
  • Nadav Hochman
  • Daniel Goddemeyer
  • Daniel Chow

The project

Selfiecity investigates the style of self-portraits (selfies) in five cities across the world: Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York, and São Paulo.The project analyzes 3200 selfies shared on Instagram (640 from each city).Selfies were already subject of many discussions in popular media. However, if we simply scan images tagged as selfie on Instagram, or observe people around us taking self-portraits, it’s hard to quantify patterns, or systematically compare selfies from multiple cities taken by people who differ in age and gender. Are all selfies taken by young people? Do men take many selfies? Are we all trying to copy celebrities in choosing how we represent ourselves? Are there any significant differences between selfies shared in New York and Moscow, or Berlin and Bangkok? Selfiecity is the first project which investigates such questions systematically, using carefully assembled large sample of selfies photos and tools of statistics, data science and data visualization.

The artists

Dr. Lev Manovich is an expert on digital art and culture. He is professor of Computer Science, The Graduate Center, CUNY and director, Cultural Analytics Lab. Manovich is the author of influential books such as The Language of New Media (2001), Software Takes Command (2013), and Instagram and Contemporary Image (2017).
Moritz Stefaner is an independent consultant in information visualization.
Mehrdad Yazdani is a research scientist specializing in scientific computing as it relates to Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.
Dr. Dominikus Baur is an independent data visualization and mobile interaction designer.
Daniel Goddemeyer is an interdisciplinary researcher and designer exploring relationships with technology through research, experiments and product applications.
Alise Tifentale is an art and photography historian. She is the author of The Photograph as Art in Latvia, 1960-1969 (2011) and co-curator the Latvian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).
Nadav Hochman is visual social media researcher.
Jay Chow is a software engineer and researcher.