The role of Archinect’s series Cross-Talk is to bring forward the positive aspects of the polemic and allow for the resulting conflict to bring to life an otherwise still and comfortable climate of creativity—if there can be one. Cross-Talk attempts—if to only say that it did—to allow text the freedom that the image has accepted and embraced. Cross-Talk attempts to force the no, to contradict itself, to anger, to please and then anger again, if only to force a stance, to pull out the position of the self, of the discipline and of the hour as a means to begin and maintain conversations moving forward. 

In this series, we are looking at the role Practice and Academia in today's disciplinary framework and how we can begin to analyze and recalibrate their relationship. In today's installment we hear from Erin Cuevas, a Los Angeles based designer and lead of Curious Minds Los Angeles. 

We are moving towards a synthesis of architectural academia and practice, where value is generated internally, between ourselves and our enthusiasts, through online media presence.  If we accept the reality of social media as a platform to prioritize and disseminate images, one version of being an architect could mean practicing solely as an image-maker, producing value via professional imagistic “influencing”.

One of the strongest links between architectural academia and practice is the image.  In university, learning to develop a form of communication through imagery - meaning  a) a technical proficiency in drawing types and uses, and in some cases b) an authorship and style over our own drawing language - is among the most fundamental skills for translating theory into practice. 

Today, while architects continue to produce drawings and images, images are building increasing prominence as a cultural medium of communication.  This moment represents an opportunity for the profession, where the inherent production of architectural discourse can fulfill societal demands.

The ubiquity of image consumption through social media is already leveraged as an opportunity for our architects - both students and practitioners.  We evolve our own profiles while also following our favorite content creators; the constant accessibility of these public accounts results in an ecosystem where ideation, creation, and critique collapse into one.  In Anthony’s Cross Talk introduction, he characterizes the impact of social media as “leveling the playing field of Pritzker Prize-winning architects with the first year undergraduate digital virtuoso”.  Participants thereby transcend the dichotomies - existing simultaneously as consumer and producer; student and practitioner; audience and performer.

The following are specific threads of applicable insight that support social media as a means of deconstructing the distinction between academia and practice:

• The accessibility of the image gives everyone with a smartphone the opportunity to become “insta-famous”.  Popularity motivates creatives at all levels, and both students and practitioners use the platform to build an audience.  The result is a multitude of accounts harboring unique imagery and style, sourced by individuals across vast differences of experience.  There are also accounts wherein brands are formed by brands of others; schools develop visual brands based off the work of their faculty and students; faculty build brands by disseminating imagery of their students.
• Developing a library of both precedents and original work serves to position an online profile within a specific vein of research and practice.  Many of these types of accounts exist to educate; a feed that serves as a continuously growing set of lecture slides.  These profiles can be created and accessed publicly, giving a universal platform to fulfill the role of student, teacher, or practitioner.
• On social media, process documents (drawings, models, mockups, etc) hold equal pixel real estate and comment space as the final product.  Equating process to product again levels students with practitioners, where models and renders can still tell a story on their own.  Moreover, projects can evolve through crowd-sourced feedback - decisions about project development can be made on a step-by-step basis using comments or polls.  This gives audiences agency as practitioners, who participate in the production of the work. 

Branding.  Instagram accounts branded by: feed aesthetic @commonaccounts; craft @david_umemoto; and archi-memes @sssscavvvv

Social media for architectural history and theory.  @archiveofaffinities, @the.archers.inc, @prestonscottcohen

Process as product.  @slkkoetter (instructor and practitioner), @archdekk (student), @oylerwu (instructor and practitioner)

Audience becomes both producer and client. @synthesisdna

There is a mismatch between the social value of art and the ability of public consumers to pay for it.  Quantities of followers, likes, shares and comments don’t necessarily translate directly into income for the producer.  There is potential to unlock revenue through advertisement - this technique is already vastly employed by the many “Mega” and “Micro” influencers across all types of accounts, who make a living off their digital feed.  This trend suggests a potential future of architecture in which popular accounts promote products through their images, and receive sponsorship from brands seeking to attract niche audiences. Further avenues for generating income could manifest themselves under this new paradigm, building off opportunities emerging from parsing out the architectural consumer-producer feedback loop. Consumers paying for production of bespoke images; schools sponsoring accounts that instruct through image; collaborations with brands and image-makers of other industries; image-making as consulting; these are all directions in which the market could move. 

There is a mismatch between the social value of art and the ability of public consumers to pay for it.  Quantities of followers, likes, shares and comments don’t necessarily translate directly into income for the producer.  

In the case of social media, we see a capitalist version of the profession where the entire community of architects and architectural enthusiastic contribute alike, and the image is in control.  While there will there will always be a need for utilitarian construction - be it for shelter, commerce, or social congregation - the present conditions herald the emergence of a new type of architect, the Architect-Influencer, the neo-starchitect who practices though the novelty of image, and whose status is measured by scale of following.  In this form of practice, ideas are contributed to by an entire community, and yet the rewards still accrue to a competent few; the transcendence of this dichotomy is at once exciting and alarming.  Where traditional expertise is accrued from years of improving craft, credentials, and a portfolio of physically built work, this new paradigm sets individuals free from the Curriculum Vitae, with the only criterion for success being an objective measurement of audience engagement.