Post Post Post
Aleks Mergold
Not unlike other Instagram pop-ups like Museum of Ice Cream or Color Factory, the physical experience of this pop-up is of secondary importance. Intentionally designed as a vacuous sequence of "insta-worthy" moments woven into vacant offices, these spaces are made only for consumption by the phone camera.
Post Post Post uses satire to explore a new type of physical space built for virtual consumption (now commonplace), while revealing the inconsistencies between our IRL selves and our curated online personas.
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Social media is a game of hyper curated images. From photos of trendy drinks to videos of a beach holiday, posts and profiles can be used to re-fashion ourselves into anyone. Through careful cropping and curation, social media becomes a platform for self design, and content (creating something to share) becomes a substitute for experience (living in the moment).
Given that my thesis advisors were older and unfamiliar with social media, this exploration began from first principles, which included the history of communication, the psychology of self design, and the techniques behind posing and photography.
These principles were used to create an algorithm for generating "sets" that had the ideal arrangement and camera angle for filming content, with the most minimal footprint.
Once the form the of the sets were generated, the next step was figure out the arrangement and create a journey. To do this, observational studies were conducted at Instagram museums like Color factory. Setup as an "artistic experience", a series of colorful stage sets are optimized to convince your social media audience that you're having fun. However, the actual experience of being present was loud, hot, bright, and at times, claustrophobic; this is a physical space designed not for human occupancy, but for virtual dissemination.
60 Hudson in Lower Manhattan was also never meant for human occupancy. One of the US's most important telecom hubs, the majority of the building is dedicated to servers, conduits, and miles of fibre cables that keep the internet running.
What if an Instagram pop-up were sandwiched in a data center? The act of taking a picture at a "cafe", while surrounded by loud, hot servers s not unlike what the Color Factory offers - regardless of what you're surrounded by, the only version that matters is what's captured in the post.
This is a pop-up inserted into available-to-rent spaces in a New York City data center. A series of optimized backdrops for taking photos, it is an opportunity to tell your followers about your bathtub in the penthouse of 432 park ave, the great time you had at the mainstage of coachella, and your travels to art basel.
Told as a short story, this design proposal embodies the same spirit as someone taking a picture with a Lamborghini parked on the street, and passing it off as their own.
Authenticity is not of value.
