>A few years ago I read a book by Marc Augé called “Non-places, an introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity”. After reading it I began to make a series of photographs of places and experiences described in the book, supermarkets, cinemas, airports, places of commerce. I feel that there are forces that necessitate the construction of certain types of architecture, where high volume consumption and engagement with the architecture needed to be simplified. Could a huge international cinema industry survive without multiplex cinema complexes? It probably could but it needs the multiplex architecture to facilitate this. Where large crowds of people could be accommodated and the same film showed simultaneously and repeatedly.

The supermarket is there on the outskirts of our towns and cities, allegedly taking away business from smaller shops on our high streets. Swept in through wide thoroughfares onto the aisles then lined up, against a vast array of checkouts, we are processed by these places, I felt this was a physical reality to the experience of shopping in a multiple. There is nowhere to stand still in a multiple; every space contains something to be sold. I did once stand still at checkout while the shop worker tried to sort out a problem with my purchase and it was a powerful experience to observe the high flow of people moving through the checkout.

The airport departure lounge is a place where we are also controlled, at each stage our identity is checked and checked again before we allowed to fly. For some the departure lounge is a place of anxiety at the prospect of flying, excitement of going to the place they are visiting, for the frequent flyer (the “powerfully rushed” as the late Ivan Illich might have referred to them as) it may be a place of stultifying boredom.

All of these places are usually only visited by the car, hence the image of the car park. Multistory car parks can be harsh, brutal examples of architecture, perfect for the job but difficult places to be in. Making the photographs here was quite a difficult process, to be in a car park without a car is a slightly disconcerting even depressing experience.

The aim of these first four photographs was to describe the place where the user interacts with the architecture, the checkout, the screen, the departure lounge and the space where you leave your car. I photographed them empty because I felt firstly that people using them had a right not to be photographed and also I wanted them to look empty, to isolate the place where the “solitary contractility” takes place (Augés phrase). These aren’t perfect images and as with everything, with the benefit of hindsight I could have described these places differently. But at the time the first four images seemed complete to me. The following images are studies I made in the same places but weren’t used for the finished piece but were part of the editing process.