Nigel Ip

While throngs of art collectors, advisors, gallerists, and enthusiasts were briskly ushered into the art fairs that competed for attention during the five days of Frieze Week, another line was patiently forming at the Town Hall opposite the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, where Prada was hosting the 13th iteration of their Prada Mode contemporary cultural series.

The main attraction was Elmgreen & Dragset’s site-specific installation, The Audience, a 104-seat cinema where a looping, out-of-focus film is screened while five seats are taken up by hyper-realistic sculptures of cinemagoers in varying states of attentiveness. A gentle spotlight picks them out and visitors are invited to sit with them.

There is an older woman with popcorn in hand, a male couple leaning on each other’s shoulder, a grumpy older man, and a spectacled mother with her baby asleep in a bassinet below the seat next to her. The film itself is a conversation between a painter and a writer discussing their creative practices while in their flat.

The installation blurs the boundaries between the observer and the observed, a common enough theme in modern and contemporary art that still feels increasingly relevant. I have always been fascinated by the unconscious performativity of human beings in daily life to present some version of themselves for an unsolicited audience. Seriously, my life motto is ‘everything is marketing’.

Attending on the last public day of the event, the sculptures were occasionally swarmed with ‘influencers’ looking for opportunities to have their pictures taken, armed with ring lights and ‘boyfriends of Instagram’ (e.g. personal assistants and photographers, friends, actual boyfriends). While the installation commented on anonymity and presence in a cinema experience, these ‘influencers’ unwittingly represented the other side of the coin in The Audience‘s double-message: we all have a desire to be seen, validated, and for other people to know it.

Off to the side, a smaller screen with a director’s chair has a live broadcast facing one of the sculptures, adding to the validating power of being associated and documented with an experience. While I am tempted to connect it with Guy Debord’s La société du spectacle (1967), in which one’s consumption of social experiences have been replaced by consuming their representations of said experiences, that is really only half of the story.

Outside of ‘influencer rush hour’, the experience was more nuanced. There was a pronounced feeling of intrusion and not making a fuss, exacerbated by the fact everyone was watching you as you approached a seat. Who is he? Where will he sit? Will he sit next to a sculpture? What will he do? Watch the blurry film? Take a selfie? Be obnoxious and spend 10 minutes recording content for his ‘followers’? Yes to all of the above.

Early visitors could even grab free popcorn in branded boxes to complete the immersion. However, there were also genuine participants, sat elsewhere, watching the film, but also watching us. Overall, it’s like people-watching on steroids and social anxiety.

Meanwhile, at the bar on the upper mezzanine, a young woman sits alone at a table, staring into her phone. She seems to be on a FaceTime call with a companion who is talking about his recent breakup. This is The Conversation, another hyper-realistic sculpture that is unsettlingly convincing given the setting. How many of us haven’t sat alone at a bar staring into our phones? The artwork reframes our understanding of companionship and solitude in the digital era, seeking the comfort of virtual intimacy rather than pursuing connections in physical reality.

This was a strangely enjoyable experience. Despite queuing around the building for up to an hour in light drizzle, it felt like a reflection of humanity’s state of self-awareness and raises questions about what we might consider ‘being present’.

Were we really there if there are no pictures to prove it? Can we truly ‘live in the moment’ anymore in this age of documented experiences? Most importantly, can we avoid becoming a true society of the spectacle?

Prada Mode London (15 – 19 October 2025) was at Town Hall, Bidborough Street, WC1H 9AU, https://www.prada.com/gb/en/pradasphere/events/2025/prada-mode-london.html