Alpha++ Models

Starting point of the photography series »Alpha++ Models«, are global places, in particular megacities at which in the title Alpha++ also refers to, namely the highest possible rating in the competition of a so called world city. The photographs were taken since 2012 during several stays among others in Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York, Santiago de Chile, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and the Smart City Songdo.

The photographs take on the aesthetics of the global centers of the world. From the world-highest buildings to the adjacent shopping malls and observation decks, the eye travels further from the entrance areas to the template-like designed green spaces with artificial lakes and water fountains. Induced by permanent cleaning of the area, it gets a sterile, slick almost virtual look. There are fast changes in perspective and scale, between aerial views of Dubai’s downtown, to meticulous built models of futuristic new towns in the information center of Songdo and further to two-dimensional promises of not yet realized luxurious apartments on gigantic billboards in Hong Kong. The golden-mirrored glass and metal façades share the urban area with various forms of nature, which is fitted seamless in geometrical structures, at times as a green wall or as an accurate trimmed hedge.

At the edges of the planned cities it happens that a nicely pruned path suddenly ends in undergrowth. And the unlettered street signs of the smart city point as empty placeholders to the unknown future. Here and there pop up fragments of human bodies looking a bit misplaced in their individuality between the repetitive apartment and office high-rise blocks.

The urban shots are fringed by marinas and fast motor yachts, which go under diverse flags, oftentimes by those of tax havens. The tight borders of national states seem suddenly softened. The boats as vehicles of the sea are becoming here symbolic joints of the geographical far distant global places. The sea – linkage of various places in the world and not only by an apparent unstoppable capitalism.

At first glance the composed pictures with their shiny colors look appealing. On closer inspection the almost deserted spaces radiate a death-like atmosphere, similar to 3D renderings. Besides the reduction of the photographs to apparent virtual computer graphics, there’s an other translation taking place of the 3D spaces to an almost 2D flatness. The predominant grid patterns of the façades and exterior areas act like a blanket, which covers the cityscape and reduces the mobility through the flattening. The viewer is invited to look underneath the layers of glass façade, wall cladding and fake greenery to reconsider what our cities should be like – bringing these templates back to life.