‘Mirror Mirror…’

As Pichler anticipated -
‘if one lets media or technology more in general, isolate and insulate, it will be to the detriment of other abilities.’

The digital revolution has brought about enormous sociocultural change, connecting people, companies, and institutions. Today, as a result, we have become an image-based culture where public opinion is easily swayed and strategically manipulated through the constant bombardment of image-creating technologies. This has created unsettling consequences in the discourse of architecture, where images have constructed fantasies and appearance reigns over essence.

Images have been ever-present in human society, through multiple mediums, so why should present society be affected negatively by their supremacy? This insistent obsession with digitally produced images not only has overruled history and theory but reveals the underlying problematic in the representation of architecture, with a clear imbalance between imagery, content, and ideas. Images have seized the throne without any copyright, explanation or text to validate their underlying ideas; furthermore, they are being consumed at the speed of a swipe, like visual fast-food and a form of instant gratification.

With such a plethora of digital images are we becoming immune to the image and less effective at reading and understanding the world? Are we relying on the image and erasing the memory that will help us build and understand the future?

The increased focus on individual promotion and the effects of the image on our mind have created the profound alienation and cultural breakdown which we are experiencing today. Have we constructed fantasies to live in, rather than experiencing the immediate reality? Are we fantasising about living someone else’s life through the digital medium, therefore living by proxy?

Participants

In no specific order:

Cynthia Davidson, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Luca Galofaro, Aaron Betsky, Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto, Julia Hinderink, Martha Thorne, Giovanna Carnevali, Marc Zehntner, Kristen Whittle, Bart Lootsma, Richard Elliot, Amin Taha, Jane Rushton, Mirko Zardini, Caroline Bos, Louisa Hutton and Matthias Sauerbruch, Angela Deuber, Stefan Sagmeister, Beatrice Colomina, Mark Wigley, Benjamin H Bratton, Marcin Szczelina, Stefanos Roimpas and many more.