Stop 2- Centre Place

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The second stop is a laneway that runs between Flinders lane and Collins street and has an amazing hipster vibe with an interesting collection of shops and restaurants. Having a short stop for refueling or retail therapy after observing the street art here would be recommended.

This laneway consists of various pieces hinting on the downside of society’s obsessive nature towards social networks. In mainstream culture, maintaining a profile on social media (i.e. on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter) is the norm; failing to do so leaves you miles behind a population consumed by the respective websites. Counterculture is depicted here with the criticism and rejection of a societal addiction to social media.

The first photo illustrates how one might be so absorbed in the virtual world of socializing that it quite literally becomes their life, devoid of any actual face to face interaction or connection with the natural world. In the second photo, the name of the leading social network website Facebook has been cheekily replaced with Fakebook, implying how inaccurate the depiction of one’s life can be through their account as they have the ability to censor what is shown to the virtual world.

Ironically, many admirers of these pieces would have snapped a picture of it and uploaded it to the very websites that are being critiqued. Will you be one of them?