AMERICAN SELFIES Series:

The work of AMERICAN SELFIES is, in the proper sense, a big report about the USA - photographed by means of publicly accessible surveillance cameras via the internet, taken at my place of work in Zurich.

Billboards line the path along the American highways. Advertising is displayed as well as local, regional and national information. The cameras I access for this work have the purpose of monitoring the functionality of the billboards. For this they were fixed on long iron poles, which are mounted to the billboards, in order to allow a view from the distance of a few meters. In the pictures you can see the billboards but also the sceneries, landscapes, cities surrounding them.
A current image of the USA, perhaps reminiscent of a road movie in the sequence of pictures.
The cameras, mounted on the tips of the iron poles, are looking at the USA from an elevated position. The irone poles are included in the picture and reminiscent of our selfie-sticks.

The title AMERICAN SELFIES is almost obligatory in this habitus or arrangement. The country depicts itself in this way, producing selfies automatically and continuously.
If you want to understand a country, you have to look at its advertising.
It reflects the demands and offers, current longings and needs, the psychology, the constituent common archetypes. Relationships between state and citizens, social structures, self-understandings and taboos as well as communication practices are manifested.
In short: The current state of the USA can be seen in this report.

>>download pdf