This article offers a preliminary investigation into what I term "selfies of ill health" and traces the expansion of the autopathographic genre in visual media from professional art photography to the vernacular selfie in recent years. In this context, the word autopathography is used to describe self-representational practices that offer a first-person perspective on experiences of illness or hospitalization. I first situate the genre by identifying several typologies of selfies of ill health, including diagnostic selfies, cautionary selfies, and treatment impact selfies. I then focus on the forms of identity performance that selfies, and selfies of ill health in particular, deploy. I argue that the performative qualities of certain selfies of ill health overlap with salient characteristics of autopathographic practice in the arts. Using Karolyn Gehrig's #HospitalGlam series as a case study, I examine how autopathographic selfies can also construct a politicized dramaturgy of the lived body, notably by enabling individuals like Gehrig to "come out" as being invisibly ill. I conclude that the dramaturgical thrust of such autopathographic imagery is to convey both the centrality of medical experiences in subjects' lives and their specific desire to be publicly identified as persons living with illness. In light of this, although selfies of ill health may have opened up new avenues for autopathographic practice thanks to the affordances of social media, their communicative intents remain consistent with those of earlier forms of autopathographic photography.

Understanding and improving how diverse people work together is a core concern of applied social sciences. This article reports ethnographic observations on a participatory design project in which researchers and adults on the autism spectrum worked together on the design of a new technology—biomusic. Biomusic uses a smartphone application and a wearable sensor to measure physiological signals and translate them into auditory output. Ethnographers were involved in this project, both to facilitate eliciting perspectives of different stakeholders and to observe, record, and reflect on the process. This paper discusses the relationship between ethnography and participatory design in two ways. First, it describes the contribution of ethnography to achieving the goals of participatory design. Second, it draws on ethnographic observations to highlight different strategies people with and without autism used to work together, including strategies put forth by the researchers, strategies already in place in the community, and strategies emerging from the intersection of both. These strategies created a space that was more accessible to many different types of people. Documenting the way that this group worked together challenged several stereotypes about autism and highlighted the role of autistic collaborators as agents.

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L’article s’intéresse aux autopathographies produites par Hannah Wilke et par Jo Spence inspirées par la lutte qu’elles ont toutes deux menée contre le cancer dans les années 80 et au début des années 90. Les deux artistes se sont tournées vers l’autopathographie pour réinventer leurs propres images corporelles, ainsi que l’image sociale de leur maladie. En examinant de près leurs productions, l’article décrit les stratégies esthétiques et politiques qu’elles emploient pour transmettre leur expérience. Wilke transforme activement son vécu souffrant en l’image d’un exosquelette blessé, où des marques réelles, ainsi que des signes construits autour de sa douleur sont exhibés sur son corps et par lui. Par cette transformation, l’artiste parvient à exprimer une position critique face aux préjugés culturels qui sont rattachés à (l’image de) sa maladie. Spence, pour sa part, crée une dialectique visuelle du sujet malade, où son image ne peut facilement être réduite aux statuts extrêmes de « victime » ou d’« héroïne ». L’image du sujet qui en émerge demeure dynamique et complexe, et échappe aux stéréotypes préjudiciaux. L’article se penche également sur la dimension performative impliquée dans toute autoreprésentation, et, plus précisément, dans les objets culturels liés à la maladie tels que les talismans et les ex-voto, qui sont décrits par Thierry Davila comme étant des « formes agissantes ». Les oeuvres de Wilke et Spence nous portent à réfléchir sur la lourde responsabilité qu’il nous faut assumer face aux oeuvres pathographiques et aux images de la souffrance.

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