Likeness in the age of new media: on the endless mutability of images

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DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The work of feminist art historians and feminist artists, queer and trans historians and scholars, critical race scholars looking at visual culture histories, cultural studies scholars and others have made massive innovations in various discourses to which I am greatly indebted.

2 Henry A. Giroux (2015). For more on debates around selfies and the use of narcissism to debase their interventions see Gwendolyn Seidman (2015); Fiona Keating (2014). This discourse around selfies has been hotly contested and is changing with the establishment of selfies scholar network and writing by the likes of Derek Conrad Murray (2018).

3 Lehner (2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ace Lehner

Dr. Ace Lehner is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist specializing in critical engagement with identity and representation, modern and contemporary art history and visual culture, new media, photography history and theory, trans and queer history and theory, critical race studies, and performance. Lehner's artistic practice primarily utilizes new media and social practice to mine the complex relation between representations and the constitution of identities. Lehner's current book project is entitled Trans Representations: Decolonizing Visual Theory in New Media (working title). Lehner's writing on art and visual culture has appeared in Art Journal, Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, Cultural Politics, REFRACT, and The Journal on Images and Culture. Lehner's scholarship has also appeared in numerous anthologies, including a forthcoming chapter co-authored with Amelia Jones in Jones's Companion to Contemporary Art in a Global Framework (Wiley Blackwell, 2023).

Lehner recently guest edited the first-ever issue of Art Journal dedicated to trans visual culture. And is currently, guest editing (with Chelsea Thompto) Trans New Media Art as Embodied Practice, a special issue of Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus.

Lehner's artwork has appeared at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY; Geary Contemporary, Millerton, NY; el Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; Gallery La Central, Montreal, Canada; SOMArts, San Francisco, CA; and The Wassaic Project in Wassaic NY. In June 2023, Lehner will have a solo exhibition at Practice Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. Lehner holds a Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Fine Art / MA in Visual Studies from California College of the Arts.