Bathroom Self(ie)

The Bathroom Self(ie) machines are conductors of conversations about shared privacy, private images and public spaces.

Exhibited in the bathrooms of the Wall Street Mall, The Bathroom Self(ie) creates a visual and conceptual tension between the private nature of a public bathroom and the act of taking a selfie. It explores how the selfie genre portrays ideas of truth, fiction, identity and narrative within the context of fictional capitalism. Positioning selfies in this context opens new understandings for how and why selfies appear familiar and uncanny, as inherently constructed and contrived images of self-identity and self-narrative.

Previously a bathroom selfie was a sad cliché, a cringe-worthy image that implied you had no friends to take an image for you. Now they can be a glamorous rebellion (thank you Met Gala), a political act for transgender people, or a simple ‘look where I am'.

Bathroom Self(ie) celebrates the selfie genre for its fearless embracement of constructed images of fictional capitalism. In juxtaposing the overtly constructed and familiar materials of the artworks with the commercial display cabinets in a mall bathroom - visitors are encouraged to engage with the mechanism of the bathroom selfie. To relish the feeling of privacy a bathroom, even a public one proposes. To be fully aware that a selfie - like the self(ie) machines - is a constructed, manufactured, crafted and manipulated image of self.

This Fringe exhibition event encourages you to take a bathroom selfie - capture your image reflected in one of the selfie machines and share it online with the hashtag #fringebathroomselfie.