Re-imagining Place with Filters: More than Meets the Eye

Marsha Berry

Marsha Berry RMIT

Keywords: hauntology, social media, smartphone, iPhoneography, mobile media

Abstract

Smartphone camera practices are mediated by smartphones, smartphone apps, the physical environment including weather, and the affordances and assemblages of social media. Visual culture and objects such as photographs and videos have become part of our routine social interactions online. The popularity of faux-vintage apps indicates that people are endeavoring to capture more than an accurate depiction of what their eyes can see. They are using faux-vintage aesthetics to go beyond visual sense to capture dynamic and embodied aspects of what the whole sensorium experiences. This paper makes use of Derrida’s notion of hauntology as a springboard to examine the popularity of faux-vintage photography.

Author Biography

Marsha Berry, RMIT

Marsha Berry is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication and is a member of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT University. She has been researching mobile media for a decade and has numerous publications in international journals, and has won international competitive research grants. Her creative practice includes poetry, video, locative and mobile media. She is co-editor with Max Schleser of Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones, Palgrave MacMillan.