The collection of photographs that makes up the @maboneng_official Instagram account looks at the Maboneng Precinct through a Detective's gaze. In Eclectic Atlases, Stefano Boeri refers to this type of gaze as a way of investigating, it is the invitation to enter the inhabited space with our body in order to seek out the traces left by new lifestyles; to see more by seeing small. It looks at the clues to ways of living, social behaviors and local identity.
This project was inspired by a collection of screenshots of photographs by various Instagram users. The selection is mostly random but filtered to follow the brief, all photographs were found through checking in at Maboneng on Instagram. It looks at the power of social media and how one can often become someone completely different online but also how it often glorifies the reality or only show a sample of what could be reality.
The word sample refers to taking something for analysis or to take a portion of something as a study to lead to an estimate. Boeri talks about the sampling gaze as a way of identifying a new urban phenomenon; it’s not a topographical map but a way of sweeping through a territory with a precise gaze determined by the parameters of an optical field. It spot checks the things we can no longer see.
In the sapling gaze study I tried sweeping through Instagram picking up the characteristics of Maboneng, a way of sampling I often use as an introduction to a new area. Compared to the early version of the Detective’s gaze I did, this study emphasises the glorified version of reality the photographs can provide which was later also achieved in creating the @maboneng_official account.
This project was inspired by a collection of screenshots of photographs by various Instagram users. The selection is mostly random but filtered to follow the brief, all photographs were found through checking in at Maboneng on Instagram. It looks at the power of social media and how one can often become someone completely different online but also how it often glorifies the reality or only show a sample of what could be reality.
The word sample refers to taking something for analysis or to take a portion of something as a study to lead to an estimate. Boeri talks about the sampling gaze as a way of identifying a new urban phenomenon; it’s not a topographical map but a way of sweeping through a territory with a precise gaze determined by the parameters of an optical field. It spot checks the things we can no longer see.
In the sapling gaze study I tried sweeping through Instagram picking up the characteristics of Maboneng, a way of sampling I often use as an introduction to a new area. Compared to the early version of the Detective’s gaze I did, this study emphasises the glorified version of reality the photographs can provide which was later also achieved in creating the @maboneng_official account.