Viral Architecture: Understanding collective tacit knowledge in an online subculture

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that theories of tacit knowledge—extended to encompass aspects of epistemology, ethics and aesthetics—provide a useful framework to explore the dynamic relationship between online architectural subcultures, their styles and underlying beliefs. To do so, I turn to a loose collection of accounts on Instagram, administered by young designers and academics, and linked through a traceable network of reposting, following and liking. These include meme accounts like @sssscvvvv, pages aggregating their owners’ idiosyncratic taste like @florisvanderpoel, and high concept photography like @estherchoi’s ‘Le Corbuffet’ recipe project. Brought together on Instagram-hosted ‘magazines’ like @malapartecafe, an architectural subculture has begun to coalesce around a distinctive posting style, involving both content creators and active followers. This combines interest in qualities of Instagram images themselves—through blurring or the messy aesthetics of memes—and cryptic captions disconnecting buildings from architect and place. Like other youth subcultures, these stylistic similarities are underpinned by frustrations towards existing social structures. Content creators wield popularity on social media to push against the dominance of older white male ‘masters’ and manifest dissatisfaction with systems of education and practice that exclude and silence young, outsider voices. While these posts might originate on a limited number of popular accounts, this ‘viral architecture’ subculture requires a distinctively active literacy from its followers, combining a fluctuating mix of references, within and outside architectural discourse. To ‘read’ a meme from @sssscvvvv might require understanding of internship conditions, ‘Object Orientated Ontology’ in American academia, #blacklivesmatter, and standard meme templates. Ultimately, I argue that this changeable body of references—assumed as shared by members of the subculture—should be understood as a type of ‘collective tacit knowledge’ (Collins, 2010), which is difficult to make explicit because it resides, in flux, in the subculture itself, understood through acculturation and continued contact.