This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Instagram is an integral part of how we communicate architecture today. It’s unclear how many offices, architects, or students use the social media app, but what is clear is that for many of us who have grown up as digital natives, it is increasingly fundamental to how we work. The app, which has become one of the most popular forms of social media for the general public, has found an interesting niche within architectural discourse. In recent years it has transformed from a mindless pastime to a powerful communications tool. Through hashtags and search engines, architecture students are able to connect with one another, tracking the development of projects across the world that they would otherwise never see. It is undeniable that Instagram has a presence in the hallways of our schools, one that has crept up rather unconsciously. Prompted by Tom Wiscombe, Chair of the B.Arch Program at SCI-Arc, a group of third year students—Nancy Ai, Anastasia Tokmakova, and Neil Vasquez—gathered at a local cafe to talk about the implications of Instagram and how to regain agency over its use. The conversation was moderated by Dutra Brown, also a third year student, and edited by Jake Matatyaou, SCI-Arc’s Liberal Arts Coordinator.

Nancy Ai (IG @ai_loveart): I remember I went to a summer program at Cornell three years ago and they took us to the architecture library. There was this one huge book and the TA, who had just graduated, told us “This is the bible.” It had all the important works. I don’t remember the title, but the idea that there is one book containing all of the work (which are also images) that we are all supposed to worship seems to be non-existent. Perhaps it’s been replaced by the hashtag? “Don’t read books, read hashtags.”

Anastasia Tokmakova: That’s a hashtag?

NA: We could make it a hashtag.

Neil Vasquez (IG: @neil_leonardo_): I know that I use hashtags to see the correlations between what people are posting, and why people would attach a certain hashtag to their work. How does that little phrase provide context to the image? How does it influence our reception or reading of the image?

NA: It’s like a universal index.

AT: A universal index of what though? It is just pictures. If you look at hashtags and visual trends as legitimate representations of what is relevant in other schools of architecture, in general, you, by default, accept the assumption that the aesthetic is the priority, which is problematic. I think that the assumption is actually much more important and worthy of examination than all of the trends and themes that they generate on Instagram, which will probably die out and evolve into something else soon anyway. Don’t you think that taking Instagram seriously is a serious statement itself?

Dutra Brown (IG: @dutrabrown): Well, as architecture students, we are learning how to make images, but we are also learning how to read images. I have to believe that, at this point in our education, we are able to look at these things critically, i.e. with the ability to evaluate and make judgments. I think that looking through Instagram hardly implies anything more than curiosity, so the opinion that material found on Instagram can only go so far as “aesthetic” is one dimensional. I mean, behind student work there are course requirements, instructors, and ideologies. Even the most mundane and technical things are tied to their historical and philosophical place in time (see John May, “Everything is Already an Image”, Log 40). Even though it is not always explicit, there are certainly traces/residues of aesthetic bias, taste, and preference in the work.

NV: Yeah, “the image” on Instagram is meant to attract you at first glance, and then it turns into whatever it means to you. It’s no longer about what it means to whoever posted it; it is all about what you think about when you see that thing. So it no longer becomes about the work, or even who posted the work, but rather how one interprets it.

DB: I agree. Architecture is still one of the arts. I could imagine that a lot of the anxiety about Instagram reducing the images we post down to pure aesthetic is shared amongst other creative fields such as music and film.

NA: Sure, there is a danger in the reduction to pure aesthetics or 2-D like paper, or I guess media architecture which can be seen in some of Peter Eisenman’s works where they don’t exactly translate well to a 3-D space. But I think there is a certain power in aesthetics that we may be currently overlooking. I don’t think aesthetics pertains to only the visual 2-D but to all sensory perceptions, where, for example, music has a very calculated rhythmic and harmonic organization in its physical and architectural organization (e.g. the spatialization of an orchestra) in order to resonate with an intended audience. With a social media platform like Instagram, we are also exposed to “bad” things—kitsch things—which I think is vital to both design and the cultivation of our aesthetic sensibility. One example I can think of is Tommy Wiseau’s film, “The Room,” where it was so full of “film faux pas” that it actually pleases us. And so aesthetics are always interconnected with cultural and ethical values where one could say something is kitsch or inauthentic. And this becomes interesting in judging architecture in a social platform where different cultures or students of other schools are able to superimpose their own tastes, preferences, and biases through hashtags.

NV: Even when we look at hashtags, we aren’t looking at it to necessarily see what GSAPP, for example, is up to; but rather to see what GSAPP is doing in terms of what I am doing. Is there actually an interest to see what these schools are doing or just comparing? And in this sense, when we look at these accounts and hashtags, to your point Nancy, Instagram, like “The Room,” begins to subvert the specificity of architectural discourse. In this way, the hierarchy of what we consider important to the discipline is broken down. We are able to incorporate different forms of narratives and critique into the broader sphere of the discipline.

AT: But, again, how can you really see what a school is doing based on Instagram images? Instagram is a powerful marketing tool, but to say that it represents anything besides branding or marketing is a stretch, even when it comes to student work. It’s a huge diversion of conversation and a distraction if you ask me. It’s as if we, as students, are too lazy to actually challenge each other verbally, i.e. with our ideas and our abilities to articulate them. That’s why it feels like our generation doesn't really have “the book.” I think we’re too scared to acknowledge what’s actually on the table for us—and there’s a lot.

DB: In your eyes, what is on the table for us?

AT: Well, each generation has its prevailing themes/events that inspire and challenge architects in new and particular ways. You know, like in the 60s and 70s you had hippies, the space race inflatables, and birth control. The 80s and 90s had their “thing,” too. Now if you think about the times in which we’re living, we are confronted with global warming, changing perceptions of gender, the housing crisis, shifting borders, globalization, digital currency… These social, political, economic, and cultural shifts shape the ways in which we live and have immediate effects on domestic/urban (public/private) uses of space, which are all too often ignored by the architectural community. It feels like architects in academic environments (especially young ones) are still too stuck on issues of formalism. So, in that sense, to me, focusing on visual representation is really a thing of the past and a form of escapism.

DB: But Instagram is only a tool that people use to share their work. In no means does it limit its content to visual representation. The fact that it currently has so many different types of users—ranging from high school students to local business to political campaigns—surely means that it is flexible enough to handle all the topics you just mentioned. Is it that Instagram prevents a close reading of the images we see?

NV: I do think that one could conduct a close reading of an image through Instagram, but I think that the main difference is the speed and tempo in which we view images. Everything is faster now. Attention spans are shorter. Not much seems to stick or have duration. The amount of data that we process, and the speed in which we process it, prevents us from gaining a clear sense of what’s going on (unless it’s just that: more images. But for the sake of what?). You only get a specific sense of what you want to see. So a close reading on the internet can only work depending on how specific you make it.

DB: Neil, you and Anastasia both seem to be saying that “relevancy” has an estranged relationship in the analysis of images when viewed through Instagram. In your case, you seem to argue that what is relevant is too malleable for an umbrella term, and so the definition changes depending on who is using the app. While Anastasia, in your warning of using Instagram as a “legitimate representation of what is relevant” in the discourse, you argue that the only takeaway is aesthetics. But perhaps aesthetics are the only take away if you do not allow for the diversity of personal experience?

AT: I see your point, but I find the idea of Instagram as a multifaceted and diverse tool as a little too dreamy. The app’s main domain and influence is undoubtedly image based and aesthetic centered. While it can represent an infinite array of concepts and even symbolize the presence of various interests and discourses within architecture, its actual power to communicate is very limited. As Neil just pointed out, the platform implies a form of bias (suggested images based on likes) and a fast pace of consumption, therefore not leaving much space for a legitimate and challenging representation of any particular subject. It might be great for connecting people at different schools and helping people stay up to date with each other’s work...I’m simply arguing that it’s a politically charged communication method and a misleading tool for serious exploration of architecture.

DB: I do agree with you that Instagram has limitations—of course it does. Every form of communication comes with its own kind of setbacks or holes for misinterpretation. So what I am interested in is how our reading of said images, as students, affects our own projects and education. If I were to look closely into how the structure and design of Instagram’s layout looks (the nine square grid we see at the front of anyone’s profile, the continuous stream of same-sized images, and the captions, comments, and any other descriptive text in small irrelevant font, etc.), it becomes clear that Instagram is borrowing all this from the serial conceptual artists of the 19th century and onward. Hilla and Bernd Becher’s work comes to mind. Now what Instagram has created is a mega series in which every image of any user has gained relevance and interest—for reasons that Venturi’s “Complexity and Contradiction” backs up (though he is not referring to conceptual art in his slide examples)—through the act of comparison, a provenly powerful analytic tool.

NV: Right. Because everything we are looking at is so broad, i.e. there is unlimited choice, so it’s up to each one of us to curate our own catalog of work or what interests us. It becomes much more of a personal interpretation or collection. The medium alters it in a different way, in the sense that we no longer have a definitive location to search for information and knowledge. We just have more information and data now, and it’s about how much we can process. We have so much information but we don’t have the means to process it all. Information, data, and knowledge can only be effective once it’s applied.

DB: It is because we have all that data, though, that even our own images begin to morph in meaning the minute that they are posted. If Instagram works as a series, the images that one posts would obviously agglomerate into the stream of data, adding to the commentary, and slowly shifting how we, as individuals holding our iPhones, process the images in front of us. Philip Fischer’s text “Making and Effacing Art” accounts for how content in artwork that is part of a series is reinforced through its self-created context: “Only one picture exists at any instant as a picture, the others are temporarily explication, frame, and criticism” (page 24). Now, Fischer is refering to work in a museum, which is curated at a higher level than Instagram. It is within this point, I believe, that Instagram offers a difference in how students digest and process the work. Because that “frame and criticism” that Fischer is describing is no longer curated under one museum or one school with a specific ideology. The ideologies and interests are mixed and made equal across the format.

NA: Instagram is Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi’s Las Vegas. Each image becomes its own billboard, competing with all others for attention. So maybe then our work becomes more interested in not exactly focusing on one kind of bias but maybe trying to appeal to—well, I guess, not appeal to everyone. But because everyone is fighting for that attention, it becomes either indifferent or our work becomes like a collage. The image in this case starts to lose connection to building and becomes a form/figure/object of its own. The work no longer gains meaning and value from chronology and, instead, is disengaged from its intended meaning. With this shift, a different type of experience for the viewer emerges. Moreover, this huge archive of works and images supports a large community of designers that are able to build on each other and discard the idea of the “starchitect,” which is very important because much of the architectural discipline depends on collaborative forms of practice.

NV: Yeah, I think that is a really good point. Instagram, in a way, is the new Las Vegas. Looking at the images of the billboards that the studio took, each one is basically the same with just slight differences. In that way you can read Instagram images as the same, with the strict format of the platform, but there are specificities to look for. And maybe those specificities can be found in the hashtags. Because if we take the idea of the sign and the signifier through the lens of Instagram, there is the relationship again of the image and the hashtag. But in the sense of Instagram, the signifier or the hashtag is always tucked away, directing us to the sign. By subverting the hashtag, there is no discursive validation that dictates the ways in which a hashtag is used to signify.

NA: It’s all on the same platform so there is no hierarchy. Everything is flat.

AT: There’s something problematic about comparing Venturi’s research to our use of social media. Take “Learning from Las Vegas”—its purpose to include more phenomena in the conversation is clear and comprehensive. Instagram doesn’t offer a unified or developed message of any such kind. You can’t take someone’s gallery nearly as seriously as you can take a book or a project. It’s casual, ambiguous, and temporary by definition.

NA: No. I think I have to disagree with the idea that there is not one unified narrative in that. There are certainly narratives to be found by just looking at one account on Instagram, and I think you can even track a more global narrative by looking at those hashtags. The hashtags can be a way to locate yourself within the discourse based on who is posting similar or even opposing projects and ideas.

AT: OK, so now we’re drowning in the sea of different hashtags and narratives, all of which we scroll past in seconds. What’s the message of that? I find it quite naive to say it has one.

NV: There is no one message. And that’s the thing about Instagram and the internet: It is a flat platform, open to anyone who has an account. Anyone can share and voice their opinion. I agree with your point that, yes, maybe we aren’t producing anything new, that we’re only perpetrating or recreating other work that we see. But then it is through the analysis of these tendencies that we can make an argument for the way we want to represent and justify our work. Instagram is too large of a platform for there to be a singular, overarching argument for the way architectural discourse is heading. The field of architecture is too wide and too broad for this and cannot do justice to the work being produced.

NA: And to add to that, I think social media implicates a type of sampling that many contemporary projects are applying. But apart from the negative connotation that comes with copying, I think sampling can be used very purposefully and creatively. For example, in Neil and my skyscraper project, we made “collection” folders of projects with fins we found on Pinterest and Instagram, in addition to the influence of the brise-soleil system of our precedent study of Portman’s Atlanta Marriott Marquis. From there, we were able to find an architectural vocabulary for local moves that would enhance our initial interest in transparency and the effects of light and shadow in our project. Of course, like the productive sampling of music, people don’t do it out of laziness of producing from scratch or to gain temporary appeasement from familiarity of original works, but to use it differently and add to the narrative. This is what happened when Drake sampled Kanye’s “Say You Will" and when Lady Gaga sampled David Bowie’s “Win” in her song, “Fancy Pants.” Successful sampling is, in fact, very difficult to achieve because it requires you to take something specific about a work that speaks to you and to inject yourself into that narrative, translating it into your own idiomatic expression. And so, like Las Vegas, within the general “strip” narrative, different things are competing for attention simultaneously and trying to create their own narrative by editing and adding to the same techniques. And so we find very intriguing and inventive ideas from the minute differences that come out of editing and adding.

NV: Yeah, I would agree with you Nancy. I think we, as young architects, can be trapped in the idea of making something new and innovative—something that has never been seen before. This mentality does not provide the discourse with the framework to fully analyze contemporary issues, which leaves us in a speculative fantasy. In a way, it’s not about building new infrastructure; rather, it is about improving and maintaining the existing one. This problem of innovation is similar to that of the tech industry, where young developers want to create new technologies to disrupt current industries instead of taking the time to reflect on what is already built and how it affects users. Since innovation and profit is the primary motive, the user is always an afterthought. Our goal as young designers is to recognize what the current issues are within our discipline and improve them. Through the means of Instagram, we can begin to distinguish the attributes that make an image compelling and influential. Architecture in the age of social media has the ability to expand and reinterpret the subjects that the discourse has experienced in the past and make it influential for this generation.

DB: Well, there is a distinction between “Learning From Las Vegas” as an artifact—meaning it is a finished project—whereas Instagram is never finished because there is no end date to the posting. It’s always open for new information and therefore editing. This makes it an ideal tool for documentation rather than a means to a polished final result. I think we need to move away from the popular belief that Instagram solely serves as self-promotion.

NV: I know that the Instagram accounts that I find the most appealing to look through are the ones that have a semblance of process. If I find an account that is posting only final images of projects in no particular order, it’s really tough to connect with it. Dutra, if I look at your account, it is organized in such a way that I can read chronology in the images. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we go to SCI-Arc, which has really taught us to value the process behind our work.

AT: I think that its format and its use implies a kind of marketing function. You know we were talking earlier about how these things are used as online portfolios and things that employers ask to see. It becomes a portrait of you as a student, and the obvious sort of reasoning behind it is that it’s your marketable face; your business card. These images become the substitute of people's work.

NA: Well, I don’t think architecture needs to be built.

AT: I don't think so either, but it's weird that the images become the final product. The image is bigger than the person who actually made it.

DB: But how different is that from how architects usually associate images? Regardless of how you define architecture, I believe that image making needs to be included, and I think it always has been. Architects create images to demonstrate their intentions, so why is there that stigma that Instagram and other forms of social media can’t amount to anything more than visual communication?