Exploring the effects of social media, LA is opening selfie museum

Friday, January 12, 2018

Fanning the photo-sharing obsession of the social media addicts, California is going to open its door of what is called ‘The Museum of Selfies’ – which is a new museum dedicated to the “science, art and culture of self representation.

Set in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles County just eight miles outside downtown LA, this museum will certainly be a beguiling tourist attraction for the pop-culturists. It aims to chart the 40,000-year history of self-portraiture and the “phenomenon of the selfie” in the era of social media and expects more than 2.4 million selfies uploaded per day.

The interactive installations at the 8,000 square-foot museum will explore a range of themes with a “educational yet playful approach”, with special attention given to the much-loathed food selfie and bathroom mirror selfie.

The ‘high-up selfie’ will have a fake skyscrapper which will allow visitors to climb and snap a virtual vertigo-inducing rooftop selfie, while a series of original works from various artists around the world will depict the “provocative and creative vision of the selfie phenomenon”.

Of the other attractions, there will be a “selfie-stick throne”, which, as the name suggests will be a chair made up of selfie sticks. The museum has kept a secret work which will be revealed on the day of its opening.

Apart from the attractions, the museum will also indulge into serious topics such as “narcissist” exhibit, where they will examine the negative impact of selfies in people’s lives and how it has become the reason for some accidental deaths.

All of the featured pieces have been commissioned by Tommy Honton and Tair Mamedov, the brains behind the museum, who are also escape room designers, and are sourced from independent and international artists.

The tickets will be priced at £18 ($25) and children under three will have free admission. The Saatchi gallery’s in London is also a similar example which exhibited “from selfie to self-expression”.

The Oxford English Dictionary in 2013 crowned selfie as the “Word of the Year”.

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