Articles presented in this issue of the VCQ ask readers to look to the past (Lizardi) and to consider the motivations of those who take selfies (Holiday, Lewis, Nielsen, Anderson, and Elinzano). In research conducted by Gustafson and Kenix, the collaborators attempt to “understand how mainstream media visually framed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo massacre and how these visual frames coalesced to represent…freedom” (p. 147). Schmieder wants to see changes “to the current scholarly discourse on the dynamics of the relationship between the amateur and the professional” (p. 161).
A set of keywords for articles presented in this issue might include history, documentary, selfies, self-portraits, play, framing, professional, and amateur. These same keywords might be used as a series of social media hashtags for work presented in the VCQ Portfolio. In Emilio Vavarella's Digital Skin Series the artist uses a 3D scanner to create self-portraits of his body beneath “the ‘digital skin’ of strangers” from his past (p. 189). These images are at once the past and the future, a documentation and an innovation, a modified selfie, and a transgressive, playful activity that frames the artist in dual capacity.