Smithsonian.

com
How Instagram Is Changing the Way We Design Cultural
Spaces
As neighborhoods, restaurants and museums become more photogenic, are we
experiencing an Instagramization of the world?

Little Children on a Bicycle( Emily Matchar)

By Emily Matchar
smithsonian.com
November 8, 2017

The city of George Town, in the Malaysian state of Penang, has long drawn tourists to its streets, where sherbet-colored
shophouses, intricately tiled courtyards and historic temples and mosques prove irresistible photo fodder. But in recent years
something else has been attracting camera-toting travelers: dozens of street art murals that practically beg to become selfie
backdrops on Instagram.

On a recent trip to Penang, a short flight from my home in Hong Kong, I watched young travelers patiently line up on a sidewalk
in George Towns historic Armenian Street. One by one they crossed the street to stand in front of a mural of two children painted
in trompe loeil style to appear as if theyre riding a real bicycle that has been fixed to the wall. The tourists would throw a leg
over the bike, or pretend to pull on the seat, or simply stand and flash a smile and a peace sign. Their friends would snap a photo.

And then, presumably, theyd upload it to Instagram. Searching the hashtag for Little Children on a Bicycle, the murals name,
yields more than 500 results. The hashtag #PenangStreetArt brings up more than 42,000.
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Penang is one of a number of cities capitalizing on the wild popularity of photo-based social media apps such as Instagram,
which has 800 million users (thats more than a tenth of the worlds population). Its part of a wider phenomenon of public and
private spaces being designed to appeal to users of such apps. This phenomenon is subtly changing our visual landscapeson the
streets, in restaurants, in stores, in museums and more. Call it the Instagramization of the world.

Restaurants have been at the forefront of Instagramization. Since social media mentions can make or break a restaurants success,
owners have become attuned to what visual aspects of food and dcor appeal to customers. This means restaurants have become
lighter and brighter; candlelight may be romantic, but it doesnt make for good food photography. Restaurant designers are going
for photo-friendly background materials like slate and whitewashed wood, and using plain white plates. Some are deliberately
incorporating Instagram-appealing visuals that feature the restaurants name or logofloor tiles, neon signshoping theyll
wind up in a snap. Chefs even cop to creating dishes specifically designed to go viralrainbow-colored unicorn food, over-
the-top stunt food (think waffles topped with a slice of cake, anything wrapped in bacon that isnt normally wrapped in bacon).

For things to sell these days, it has to be Instagrammable, a Los Angeles restauranteur told the website Thrillist.

Retail stores have the same incentives to get their spaces and products on social media. Theyre encouraging picture-taking
with whimsical furniture or cut-out clothing silhouettes designed for visitors to stand in and snap photos. In an era where some
say social media is killing traditional retail, theyre doing what they can to harness its power.

[Instagram] is making the client really aware of the importance and the power of design, whether its in wayfinding or branding
or experiential design says Laureen Moyal, founder and partner at the branding and design studio Paperwhite.

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Moyal, the designer behind some of New Yorks most-Instagrammed restaurants, says businesses have been paying attention to
how things will look on social media for several years. But its ramped up very aggressively over the past year or so, she says.

Whether menu design or choice of light fixtures or tableware, people are really trying harder than they ever have because they
realize its making a very notable difference, Moyal says.

Museums have gotten in on the game too. Large-scale, immersive exhibits such as Wonder at the Smithsonians Renwick
Gallery two years ago, featuring pieces like a room-size thread rainbow and mountains made of index cards, have become
Instagram hits in recent years. Their popularity has inspired a rise in similar exhibitionslarge, colorful, interactive. Even
museum building design and architecture is becoming Instagramized. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles rearranged mirrors in
its decorative arts gallery to make mirror selfies easier, while San Franciscos Museum of Modern Art added terraces designed as
selfie spots. On its website, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama describes its summer art series as
Instagram gold and offers an online slideshow of the top places in the museum to take a selfie.
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Its impossible to prevent [photo-taking] so why not get with the program and the 21st century and allow it as much as you
can? says Nora Atkinson, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at the Renwick Gallery.

Atkinson says she and many other curators do worry that museumgoers deny themselves a deeper experience of the art by only
experiencing it with a phone in front of their faces, and often try to think of ways to bring a better balance. Her next exhibition is
called No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man. While it will allow photography, it will also encourage visitors to be in the
moment by engaging physically with the works, touching sculptures and adding their own messages to a billboard.

Perhaps the apotheosis of Instagramization is an entirely new category of cultural institution, the made-for-Instagram
experience. The best-known example is San Franciscos The Museum of Ice Cream (#museumoficecream, 93,000+ posts), a
series of rooms that basically function as photo sets: a pool filled with rainbow sprinkles (theyre plastic), a white unicorn you
can sit on, a ceiling hung with pink bananas. The museum has been wildly popular, with six-month runs selling out in 90
minutes. The digital media company Refinery 29 has run a pop-up installation called 29Rooms (#29rooms, 29,000+ posts) for
several years, featuring spaces designed for picture-taking and sharing: a giant typewriter you can walk on, a snow globe you can
sit inside, neon signs with grammably inspirational sayings like care no matter what and a well-made choice can be
beautiful. In Asia, so-called trick eye museums of trompe loeil paintings intended as photo backdrops exist in cities large and
small. Here in Hong Kong, the popular trick eye museum on Victoria Peak lets you insert yourself into Van Gogh paintings and
pretend to dangle over the mouths of 3D painted monsters, all for the camera.

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When I talk to Patrick Janelle, hes just gotten back from a trip to The Museum of Ice Cream. Janelle is no ordinary
Instagrammer. He has 460,000 followers. Hes been Instagramming professionally for about two and a half years. When he
photographs a salad it can easily get 5,000 likes.

These days, everything is experienced twice, Janelle says. First in real life, and second when we share it on social media.

So even if something isnt designed especially for social media I think theres always an emphasis on how does this render
digitally? he says.

Instagram seems to be changing what aspects and elements of a city travelers find worthwhile. Travel media is increasingly
producing stories with titles like The Most Instagrammable Street Art in LA and The Most Instagrammable Places in
London. Notably, these lists often include places well off the standard tourist track. A recent piece in TimeOut Hong Kong
listing the top 10 best places to Instagram in Hong Kong included places like a public housing estate with bright colored towers
and a cargo pier known as Instagram pier (#instagrampier, 9,500+ posts) for its photogenic sunsets. These arent places that
people, either tourists or locals, would have necessarily been likely to spend time before Instagram. Previously ignored bits of
urban infrastructuremanhole covers, crosswalks, subway tunnelsbecome sought-out spots.

Moyal says she and her team frequently see tourists near their studio in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood not traditionally
considered a tourist draw. Many of them are there to photograph the neighborhoods colorful graffiti (#bushwickgraffiti, 4,700+
posts).

I dont think the graffiti is made for that purpose, she says. But the fact that people respond to it positively makes it easier to
justify and so it influences the creation of more art.

Michiel de Lange, a professor of new media studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, says many cities are trying to brand
themselves via visual storytelling. One increasingly popular strategy is so-called pop-up urbanism, where a city turns empty
lots into temporary beer gardens or makes a busy street into a pedestrian playground for a weekend. Such events are often
irresistibly Instagramable.

A former student of mine called this phenomenon Urbanism made to Like, based on the idea that projects like these can be
easily shared and liked through platforms like Facebook, and hence generate the buzz they intend to achieve, de Lange says.
But some say the Instagramization of the world is leading to a troubling homogeneity. Writing in The Guardian, art and design
writer Kyle Chayka suggests social media is spreading a generic hipster aesthetic across the globe. You can travel from London
to Los Angeles to Hong Kong and find coffee shops, hotels and offices with the same Instagram-friendly reclaimed wood,
industrial lighting, white walls and pops of color.

Why go anywhere if it just ends up looking the same as whatever global city you started from? he asks.

Then theres the idea that social media encases you in a bubbleyou see where people like you are going, what theyre eating,
what theyre liking, via Instagram or Facebook, then do the same yourself. As de Lange points out, this is antithetical to the
values of urban theorists like Jane Jacobs, who posited that one of a citys greatest purposes was to bring diverse groups of
strangers together.

Then, of course, theres the belief that viewing the world through your phones camera is an impoverished way to live. Instead of
snapping pictures you should simply be looking, critics say.

Janelle, as big an Instagram booster as they come, does think theres value in not always trying to snap a picture. Hes the
cofounder of the Spring St. Social Society, which creates pop-up events around New York and Los Angeles, throwing dinner
parties in old subway stations and putting on secret cabarets. His events arent always photo-friendly, he says. Often, the lighting
will be quite dim. Because, hey, its romantic and beautiful that way.

Ultimately what we want are really wonderful experiences, Janelle says. And sure we want to be able to document them on
social media, but we also crave things that are just really wonderful and special in real life.

About Emily Matchar

Emily Matchar is a writer based in Hong Kong and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her work has appeared in The New York Times,
The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Washington Post and other publications. She is the author of .