Reconfiguring the Portrait

Presents a new multidisciplinary perspective on portraiture in the era of post-digital media As technological practices of the portrait have proliferated across the media ecosystem in recent years, this canonical genre of identity and representation has provoked a new wave of scholarly attention and artistic experimentation. This collection of essays explores the stakes of that seemingly anachronistic comeback. It reframes portraiture as a set of cultural techniques for the dynamic performance of subjects entangled in specific medial configurations. Tracking the portrait across a wide range of media - literature, drawings, paintings, grave stelae, films, gallery installations, contemporary music videos, deep fakes, social media, video games and immersive VR interfaces - the contributors interrogate and transform persistent metaphysical and anthropocentric assumptions inherited from traditional notions of portraiture. Abraham Geil is Senior Lecturer in the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam. Tomás Jirsa is Associate Professor of Literary Studies in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at Palacký University Olomouc.