In a celebration of self-portraits in the social media age Tommy Honton and Tair Mamedov are set to open the Museum of Selfies in Los Angeles this Sunday — an interactive exhibition exploring the history and cultural phenomenon of snapping a photo of yourself.

And for those who think if a moment wasn’t photographed, it might as well have not happened — the good news is that at the Museum of Selfies, selfies are compulsory.

Event planner Lori Nguyen, 45, said she doesn’t take selfies very often because “I’m not, like, super young.”

But another visitor, Nina Crowe, said she takes “one a day.”

A man takes a selfie at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California Photo/AFP

Neither missed the chance to snap several at the Museum of Selfies, including at an exhibit mimicking the rooftop of Los Angeles’ tallest building.

In reality there’s a backdrop photograph of the “ground below” printed on a small platform, from which sprouts a tube that looks like the building’s antenna complete with a red signaling beacon.

Add a selfie stick, an “I’m afraid of heights” grimace and a click — and the result is very realistic.

The exhibition begins with mirrors, perhaps the most basic kind of selfie. But Honton and Mamedov view the concept as something more than just a simple photo.

“The selfies have a surprisingly rich history, and go back as far as people have been making art,” Honton explains.

“Rembrandt did hundreds of self-portraits, Albrecht Durer five, Van Gogh dozens. I mean they did their portraits too, what’s the difference?” he said.

“Yes, artistic technique and scale is one thing, but in reality, if cell phones and cameras had existed, everyone would have taken them.”

Vistors takes selfies at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California Photo/AFP

Another selfie museum opened in the Philippines in 2015, but there’s no sign it stayed open. Meanwhile in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb, the exhibition is just the latest in the city’s stream of quirky museums focusing on everything from rabbits and death to neon and velvet.

‘Selfie magnet’

The show is full of fun facts about the trend: women take pictures of themselves more than men, for example.

In Sao Paulo, 65.4 percent of selfies are taken by women — in New York, 61.6 percent. In Moscow, the divide is even more extreme, at 82 percent.

There aren’t statistics for Los Angeles, but Ally Bertik admits she is a frequent selfie-snapper.

A woman takes photos with a selfie stick at a mirrored installation on opening day at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California. Photo/AFP

“It shows off my good side. And I get to show people like ‘hey, this is where I am, maybe you guys should check it out too, this is what I’m doing.’ It’s just a fun way to like spread you know what I’m doing, show people where I’m at,” she explained.

Wandering through the museum, guests will be able to pose with Colette Miller’s “Angel Wings” and a work by Darel Carey, who creates multi-dimensional rooms using plastic tape — a concept the museum describes as a “selfie magnet.”

There are pieces by Brazil’s Rob Vital, German-Canadian Joseph Nowak, Italy’s Michele Durazzi — and a copy of the Russian government’s recommendations for taking a selfie safely, created following several accidents and as many as 12 selfie-related deaths in the country.

Also featured is David Slater’s controversial monkey selfie — which became embroiled in a legal battle over who has the copyright to photos taken by monkeys using his camera.

In a corner, meanwhile, are three statues resembling Michelangelo’s “David” — painted blue with a pink cell phone — and a Game of Thrones-esque throne created using selfie sticks.

You just “can’t avoid” taking a selfie there, says Mamedov, a Russian actor who arrived in the US four years ago.

The Museum of Selfies will be open in Glendale initially for two months. Its founders are open to extending its LA run and taking the exhibition to other places around the US, if not the world.

SOME OF THE figures seem to be concentrating on yoga poses. One is standing on its head, another lies down with its upper back and legs lifted, its “core” apparently hard at work.

Antony Gormley’s new creations, a series entitled “Rooting the Synapse” unveiled in Hong Kong this week, are as always modelled on his own form – but this time with jagged limbs branching out like plants, spindly and skeletal.

Britain’s best-known modern sculptor, Gormley has spent his career exploring the human body’s relationship to space, with his “Angel of the North”, a steel, winged behemoth installed on a hill in northeastern England in 1998, catapulting him to fame.

British sculptor Antony Gormley stands next to his 2017 sculpture “Signal” as he speaks about his exhibition “Rooting the Synapse” at the White Cube gallery in Hong Kong. /AFP

His shadowy human figures loomed from the top of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers between 2015 and 2016 as part of his “Event Horizon” show, causing curiosity and consternation in the streets below, where some feared they were people about to jump to their deaths.

Gormley, 67, insists his figures contain no narratives and are not trying to tell a story, but exist to stir up feelings in viewers.

“Your body is actually the most highly sensitive instrument that you have in order to experience the world,” he says.

Many have seen or even inspected up close the cast iron and fibreglass versions of his body that he has sculpted over the years.

In person, he is tall and serene, his eyes alert as he chooses his words deliberately.

While Gormley has in the past displayed his figures on beaches and in vast salt lakes as well as across dense cities, his latest sculptures are debuting within the stark white walls of Hong Kong’s White Cube gallery, inviting viewers to feel for a moment removed from the urban frenzy outside.

The twig-like bodies are sculpted from iron and partly draw on the patterns of ancient civilisations, such as the spiralling, angular motifs that the Greeks used in architecture and pottery.

But they are also reminiscent of electrical circuits – Gormley compares them with TV aerials, or “receivers of the signals of contemporary reality”.

A security guard next to “Stem”, 2016, centre, and “Feel”, 2016, left, by British sculptor Antony Gormley /AFP

Observing that people spend more and more time surrounded by screens and are taken to gyms to exercise “like they’re a dog”, Gormley says his latest works are supposed to look “familiar and unfamiliar at the same time” as they combine elements from both the natural and digital worlds.

“In a way I’m saying this is the human being now,” he explains.

Gormley says he wishes to depart from a tradition of sculptors who pursued beauty and ideals.

“I’m interested in making a plea for the life that exists independent of the accidents of appearance,” he says.

Movement is more evident in his latest series – some of the new figures appear relaxed, or are caught in a moment of imbalance.

One is bent over sharply, allowing its torso to droop under its natural weight. Another seems to be in free fall, its limbs splaying.

Gormley says these figures are “more open and more free” than his previous sculptures, which sought to connect with people through their silence and stillness.

The southern Chinese city provides a vibrant setting for his show, he adds, casting the exhibition as a response to the heavily designed and dense urban environment.

Decades into his life as an artist and devoted to a single theme, he describes his work as a stem, constantly budding with new possibilities.

While in Shanghai, where he had an exhibition last year, he found inspiration in watching people do tai chi in the morning – a relatively slow and gentle exercise – where they were not necessarily working but “just getting their bodies back into a kind of balance”.

He tries to achieve something similar in art.

“My work is my meditation,” Gormley says.