*CFP* 35 JUNE SPECIAL ISSUE, LA VALLE DELL'EDEN, NEW SERIES JOURNAL OF CINEMA, PHOTOGRAPHY, MEDIA

The relevance of self portraiture and autobiographical practices implied in our condition of technological subjects leads to an unavoidable shift in understanding media experiences. The jagged geography of  the Self in image has extended its reach to the point of reorienting media theory from mass media to self media, thus prefiguring a veritable paradigm shift: whereas once media were analyzed as sites of articulation of cultural and identitary figures found within a community, or tools to promote habits, rituals, common experiences, both normative and participative, top-down or bottom-up, it is now increasingly more common to analyze the ways in which the Self is externalized in media.

This special issue of “La Valle dell’Eden” aims at reflecting on the process of externalization of the Self in contemporary media technologies. This reflection pivots around three ways in which the relation between subjects and media has come to define itself. After a first wave of self-media, centered around new technologies used to say the self (e.g. social networking sites), the second phase revolved around using media as self-saying (self narratives). Finally, and more recently, media themselves acted as generators of self-representations, by saying, in our stead, of our selves (quantified-self tracking).

Cinema profoundly interacts with this change of paradigm, being at the same time a witness and an agent of this substantial phenomenon that we can label as “autoconfiguration of Self through technology”. On the one hand, there are many films that deal with the topic of digital identity. On the other hand, the film image becomes more and more a site of experimentation, a tool to create forms of self-communication and self-visualization, in connection with social practices.

The issue will be focused on two main questions:

• From a theoretical perspective, we want to study the current shift to Self Media Studies, in connection to specific issues, such as memory, identity, care, tecno-ethics;
• From an analytical perspective, we want to produce a map of this phenomenon, with a particular focus on the areas of big data and digital identities

Every paper will be read at least by two non blind referees, who will evaluate and discuss the essays both with their authors and the editorial board. The referees will be either members of the advisory board, the editorial board or the editorial staff, or scholars not linked to the journal, both Italian and foreigner. This way, La Valle dell’Eden/East of Eden chooses a system of open review, in the perspective of a broad and agile discussion with contributors, in order to promote a non ritual and not too long review process, with a frank and productive dialogue between the authors and the journal.

Submission and deadline

Interested authors should submit a 500-word abstract by February 28 to Federica Villa (federica.villa @unipv.it) and eden@unito.it.

The first draft of the accepted article (max 4.000/5.000 words) is expected to be submitted by May 31.  Abstracts and papers both in English or Italian will be considered.