Synopsis

In Francisco de Holanda's book Do Tirar Pelo Natural, which serves as the title and inspiration for the set of ideas that we have aligned here, and its structure in dialogue that discusses the difficulties and virtualities of the portrait, we moved on to reflect on this new trend of recording ourselves at every moment. Digital photography and social networks have unleashed the universal phenomenon of selfies, of recording and publishing every moment of everyday life, every action of the individual and their state of mind, to the limit of narcissism. Consciousness has become public, networked and shared at every moment. We are constantly portraying what we are and what we feel. We're taking ourselves for what we naturally are and what we're living every moment. And the consequences are the ones we're experiencing because freedom seems to have gone, it's vanished like a mist that prevents us from seeing. This new era, this new cult of the instant and permanent portrait and, above all, the cult of the self-centred image of the self-portrait, where the individual is the subject and object of artistic expression, from which the sociological profile of each time and place can be traced, depending on the changes in the type of figure to be represented and the way of doing it. We are the natural from which we take ourselves and put ourselves back in. Until the natural becomes confused and we no longer realise where it is.