That can only mean one thing
2016
competition proposal, first prize
a collaboration with Juan Andrés Suarez
Social media would seem to shift architecture into a precarious position because its ubiquity forces architecture to pick a side: to either actively engage or disengage the relational forces of digital media. But architecture is indifferent. Digital imagery comprises the ken of today’s cultural vision, but the picture plane of social media is as much a mirror as it is a window. Digital content is shifting from words to pictures, making images more integral to our being (people now include themselves in the things they photograph), which flattens subject matter with authorship. In this context, architecture’s most effective agency is to frame these uncontrollable, artificial conditions.
We propose a 100x100m detached arcade in the shape of a square. The generic character of this architecture both contains and delineates The Festival. Stands, displays, Instagram feeds, #foodtrucks, people snapchatting concerts, security cameras, and the anxiety of the ellipsis all animate the #festivalplaza—upon which stands The Beacon: an 8x8x25m monolith of black marble. It both complies with and flouts the exuberance of The Festival. It is abhorred and adored. It is everything and nothing. Its permanence contradicts the ephemerality of digital reproduction through #memes and media feeds—but through this reproduction—it reflects and perpetuates us in an infinite string of updates surrounded by black marble. Take a #selfie with it. Snapchat your reflection in it. Vine yourself howling like a 2001 ape at it, play PoGo around it—but do not touch it, do not meditate on it, and do not theorize it.
︎governor's island, aerial view from 2000 ft.