Photo Booth, 2012Intervention
In Photo Booth the artist employs a photographer to take candid, paparazzi-style snapshots of tourists, without prior consent, as they visit a historic amphitheatre in the south of France. The images were then printed and offered for purchase from a booth at the exit of the site, but with no further explanation.There is no mistaking these kinds of images for nice, tourist souvenirs, the sign for which you accidentally missed on the way in. The pictures are unposed, taken mostly from a distance on a large telephoto lens, the unsettling nature of this act in direct contrast with the beautiful, calm surroundings. Many photographs were sold, as if part of the tourist experience is receiving an unsolicited documentation of your time in a given location. Photo Booth calls into question what kinds of spaces legitimise certain kinds of behaviours, as well as the implications of an infringement on privacy in a public space.
Photo Booth was devised as a site-specific intervention for the Luma Foundation project To The Moon Via The Beach exhibition in Arles, France
