‘Facebook and artists have many things in common’

WASHINGTON: The author of ‘Friending the Virgin: some thoughts on the pre-history of Facebook’ has said that social networking sites like Facebook and artists like Rembrandt have many things in common.

According to author Larry Friedlander, the main commonality lies in the act of portraiture, which consists of more than just the realistic depiction of a subject, but also a number of rhetorical decisions closely intertwined with evolving ideas of identity and society.

The article points out the complex negotiations that artists had to make when painting some of their most famous works, similar to the choices people make today with respect to selecting images, interests, and descriptions to represent themselves on Facebook.

“In traditional portraiture pose, gesture, prop, costume, glance provided the raw materials out of which a specific presence was evoked,” said Friedlander.

“For example, in (the) portrait by Rembrandt of Nicolaes Ruts, the sitter presents himself to the viewer with admirable directness. Ruts was a Mennonite fur trader and his sable coat and hat refer to his trade. Nothing extraneous distracts from the image’s message: this is a merchant, a rich man, evidently serious and respectable,” added Friedlander.

Similarly, today’s Facebook -or any social networking site– profile allows contemporaries to share their collective portraiture. This may seem easier than sitting for a portrait, but Friedlander contends that today’s tools of text, pictures and video almost allow for more potential for failure than the paintbrushes of masters.

“Anxiety, the subject’s and the viewer’s (of the painted portrait), is hidden well beneath the surface. But it is there precisely in the artist’s effort to smooth those anxieties out of existence,” said Friedlander.

“We, in contrast, wear our anxieties on our sleeves. But both Rembrandt and Facebook strive for mastery over the challenges of representation,” added Friedlander.

The finding has been published in SAGE Open.

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Facebook Uncovers ‘Smoking Gun’ Evidence in Paul Ceglia Case

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Upon a request for comment, an attorney for Ceglia did not immediately respond.

Back in June, Ceglia, a wood pellet salesman from Wellsville, New York, cleared a lie-detector test that was conducted to determine the authenticity of the 2003 contract with Zuckerberg. Ceglia’s said that the results of the lie-detector test prove the authenticity of the agreement.

Later that month, Ceglia got a new lawyer. Jeffrey Lake of San Diego, Ceglia’s new lawyer runs a four-man law firm called Lake APC.

Facebook, with more than 500 million users, admitted that Zuckerberg did some programming work for Ceglia to earn money when he was a freshman at Harvard in 2003. However, the company denied Ceglia’s stake in Facebook.

On his character, Facebook said Ceglia “has spent the past seven years as a hustler engaged in various land swindles and wood-pellet scams.”

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