Professor has taken selfie every day for the last 28 years

Snapchat’s got nothing on Prof Baden

Long before Kim Kardashian was “Selfish” and students used Snapchat to take selfies, Karl Baden, a professor in the fine arts department, was taking his picture for a far less vain purpose.

The Tab sat down with the professor in his new office to discuss a project he’s been working on for a while.

Professor Baden has taken a picture of his face every day since—he’s pretty sure—February 23, 1987.

Make no mistake, these are not “selfies” but still it proves that Karl Baden became enamored with taking a picture of himself way before it was cool.

Professor Baden had more substantial reasons for this project. He said: “I started it intuitively and then by doing it I figured out why I was doing it.”

Upon reflection, he remembers that day was the day after Andy Warhol died and, growing up outside of New York in the 1960s, Andy Warhol was a major influence for him. He also mentioned Andy Warhol was a filmmaker who made time-lapse films that altered what film meant at the time. Now, Baden says, “that was sort of the kicker.”

In his photos, he takes away extraneous variables so the only thing changing over time is his flesh. He still takes his own picture the old-fashioned way (with film), but now backs up the images digitally.

Professor Baden even has a foldable white background and tripod so that he can recreate his background from home when he’s on the road. Taking the picture at home only takes about five minutes and still no more than fifteen minutes when he is away. It doesn’t disrupt his life. He adds that despite his work as an artist he tries to take photos with as little art as possible, just pure information.

Baden has spent a lot of time reflecting on over the past three or four years about why he is doing this project and he’s boiled it down to four reasons. First, it’s “about mortality, which is kind of obvious.”

He clarified that it’s not just about his death, but the idea of mortality—something that affects all of us and directs our actions while we’re alive, particularly as we grow older, whether or not we realize it.

Secondly, the project is about incremental change. He describes that if he gave you a stack of all the project’s photos (which now total nearly 12,000) and you went through them one at a time you wouldn’t see any change. But then, “you’d get to the last one, compare it to the first one, and you’d see a change – it’s almost like a magic trick.”

The idea of “obsession” is his third reason. He said: “If you’re an artist, at least in theory, it’s all a blank slate. You sort of have to reinvent the wheel every day…you have to provide your own incentive.”

The fourth reason comes from the difference between trying to be perfect and being human, the difference between success and failure. He adds: “I’m the guy who tries to makes a picture that’s as much of a clone of yesterday’s picture, but fails every day because my head is a little bit off or something.”

Despite his attempts to taken an identical photo – he can’t. This idea of never being able to be perfect, yet trying anyways, is inherent to our lives. He cites all four of his reasons for this project as “metaphors that are important in our lives existentially.”

He specifically described the 20th anniversary of the project in 2007. Baden said: “I made little prints of all the pictures and I think there were 7,035 or something like that. They were all in rows, individually dated and signed. There were three editions each.”

That show sold roughly 700 prints,on the condition people would email him the reason they chose the date they bought and where they kept the photo. He got roughly 100 responses ranging from painfully poignant to hilarious. This led him to realize something new about the project – he didn’t care about what happened to his face at all.

In 2001, he went through treatment for cancer and his face changed in many ways including hair loss but he did not try to cover it up. Baden said: “taking a picture of my face everyday was one of the things that got me through that year.”

When he entered into this relationship with people purchasing his photos in 2007 he realized the project was “not just about me, but it became about you.”

Though the project may not interfere with his day, the project is large part of his life. He said: “Whether I had come to BC or become a garbage man, I’d still be doing this.

“In some jobs you go in and you punch a clock and it shows you were there. Then, you punch out.

“That’s what I’m doing by taking my picture. I’m saying – I’m here for another day, no matter what’s happening. And that is meaningful to me.”

Instagram, he believes, has set a new paradigm for “selfie culture.” He says that we are living in a time comparable to the invention of movable type or the printing press – something that really changed the world. But, it’s still in its infancy.

Baden referred back to Andy Warhol. He said: “When Warhol started painting soup cans people didn’t know what he was doing—how hard is it to paint a soup can?

“But, Warhol was one of the most important artists in the 20th century.”

He added: “I do my little thing but I’m probably not the one who’s going to make the big breakthrough. But, someone is because someone always does.”

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