c8400.comconsumption 2017.03-05conceptMY CONSUMER DECISIONS GENERATED THE AMOUNTS SPENT AND THE AMOUNTS SPENT GENERATED THE IMAGE RENDERED. THE DECISION WHAT TO PHOTOGRAPH HAS BEEN DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM THE DECISION WHAT TO BUY.The work becomes clearer by itself as it unfolds onto everyday life. I consume. And I can’t stop consuming. It is an urgency as much as breathing or time passing. It is a nurturing and investment into the self. The self is not only consuming external supplies, it is also consuming itself. The body as a machine, a product with a predictable life expectancy. It will keep on going as long as the appropriate form of nourishment is supplied. If taken care of well, it may keep on working for a bit longer. But sooner or later, the end will come. Movement will cease. Production will cease. Consumption will cease. All will turn into air. I feel I am freely floating on a sea of financial data, in between ones and zeros that combine into infinitely large and never ending data streams. Some days I buy only a little, some days I buy a lot. It is pleasant to look back. Observe some traces of existence left. The storefronts of shops are still there. They are located within their own architectural context. They are a meeting point of immaterial flows and physical materiality. The executed transactions did not only result in a monetary sum being transferred, they also resulted from an input of cognitive labor from both sides: A cooperation between the front desk employee or front end developer and my own cognitive input into the consumer decision. Our eyes met for a split second. Something happened. “What you really collect is always yourself.”* _____ *) Baudrillard, J. (1996). The System of Objects. London: Verso. p. 91 |