Alex Ball

It has become phenomenally easy to both document and share experience. Snapchat has surpassed Twitter and in the UK Instagram has overtaken Facebook. As a result we are no longer a text-based society but instead one based on image.

However the ease of production and consumption of images result in images that are fundamentally meaningless. Tumblr is nirvana for such images, a constant stream of contextless banal consciousness posited as art. Instagram isn’t too far behind, with experience often curated purely to be shared (#picoritdidnthappen) 

This mentality begins to influence architectural representation. Through my research I have identified an emerging genre of architectural imagery on social media, the formula for which can be broken down into seven new typologies. Instant politics was designed through these typologies. 

Politicians have long been aux fait with the power of the image and today is no different. We see carefully choreographed shots of Cameron’s home life in Hello, Corbyn at Glastonbury and of course Trump.

Capitalising on the opportunity the refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament, Instant Politics envisages a future in which politics becomes pure theatre. A temporary home for politics has been set up in Stratford, new models for politics for a mass media mass consumer society are tested. The buildings themselves essentially act as a backdrop for various political moments.