The Watch

“Watch porn” is one of the many microgenres of popular photography. The genre experienced a heyday as the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown changed many people’s perception of time and their time management. This was also a perfect moment for completing a work I had considered for years (following in the footsteps of Christian Marclay). The Watch is a collection of 548 amateur photographs of men’s wristwatches, arranged in chronological sequence of the time shown on the watch faces.
2020
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 728 pages
softcover, perfect bound
numbered edition of 60 copies
64 €


She looks better in pictures

Taking a snapshot used to be a casual but somehow meaningful act. Yet today, the omnipresent smartphones have turned it into a completely insignificant act. Snapshots are no longer made as references for future memory but are made for the moment only to be immediately replaced by the next, never to be looked at again. Scenic landscapes, historic towns, even works of art are mere stage sets for selfies and social media influencers. She looks better in pictures is a reflection on the work of art in the age of Instagram. It presents photographs made in front of the Louvre’s most popular attraction: the painting known as La Gioconda or Mona Lisa.  
2019
digital print, color
21 x 21 cm, 720 pages
hardcover, sewn
25 copies
160 €


Land’s End

A series of street views taken in Silicon Valley in the vicinity of new technology companies. The photos show locations where Google Street View comes to its limits and the non-accessible spaces controlled by corporations or governmental agencies begin.
2018
digital print, b/w
21 x 14.8 cm, 20 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies

New Topography

A series of real estate photographs in the aftermath of the global financial crisis when signs advertising foreclosure auctions became a significant topographical feature in vast parts of the USA.
2018
digital print, b/w
21 x 14.8 cm, 20 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies
8 €

sind wir dumm

An experimental exploration of the search engine and its role in confirming popular prejudices through search suggestions (in German language). Read my notes about the work here (also in German).
2017
digital print, b/w
19 x 12.5 cm, 312 pages
softcover, perfect bound
100 copies
20 €

[logo] SUCKS

There are two kinds of things in the world, things that are ok and things that suck. Many of the things that suck are strictly speaking not really things. They are companies or services. It’s not a big surprise that many of these are related to the internet. These amorphous entities are the pillars of the digital universe. Amazon sucks, Facebook sucks, Google sucks, and so do all the other companies that infiltrated modern life and that seem to be so indispensable in present age. For the contemporaries who share the feeling that these things suck I made a set of prints. Each print is based on the logo of one of the entities that suck.
2016
18 linocuts, hand-printed on 120 gr acid-free dorée paper, 29.5 x 21 cm each, stamped with archival ink, in a semi-archival box (31 x 22.5 x 3 cm).
Edition of 20 copies (+ 1 AP), 360 €

Sorry. A Book of Errors

Incorrect password. Unknown username. The application encountered a problem. The server does not respond. Please try again later.
We write letters and we share photos and we buy things and we book trips and we pay taxes and we talk to friends and we watch movies and we read books and we do a lot of work with computers. Computers are ubiquitous, and so is their relentless logic. There’s no “maybe”, no “nearly”, no “approximately”, no “not quite, but I know what you mean.” The computer knows only two options, right or wrong, yes and no, zero and one. Computers pretend to be perfect and we know we are not. The result is a flood of error messages. Things go wrong all the time, and this is – according to the computer – usually our fault. Unknown error, please try again. Sometimes you wonder whether buying a computer was error number one.
This book is comprised of more than four hundred error messages in six languages collected by a user over the course of two years.
2016
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 144 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies
16 €

Are you searching for me?

There are many Joachim Schmids. Some play a role in public life, others don’t. People who wish to learn what we do or what we did, what we wrote or what we said, begin by searching the internet. It’s all there: names, dates, pictures and the rest. Thanks to the search engine the world has become transparent and there are no more secrets. Or so we think. If it’s me you’re looking for, most of the information you’ll find is not correct.
This book was first published in 2012. The original print-on-demand edition is discontinued and replaced by this second edition, re-designed in a different format.
second edition 2015
digital print, b/w
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 48 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies

Netzerscheinungen

Netzerscheinungen (2006/2007) are three multi-channel digital photo installations that are based on photographic imagery found on the internet:
Menschen und Dinge. 853 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert (People and Things. 853 Pictures for the 21st Century)
Orte und Zeichen. 692 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert (Places and Signs. 692 Pictures for the 21st Century)
Waren und Träume. 781 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert (Commodities and Dreams. 781 Pictures for the 21st Century)
The three volumes contain a selection of photographs, organized in the same 66 chapters that build the structure of the installations.
2014
digital print, colour, 3 volumes
21 x 24.8 cm, 40–48 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies

Land’s End (2013)

A series of street views taken in Silicon Valley in the vicinity of new technology companies. The photos show locations where Google Street View comes to its limits and the non-accessible spaces controlled by corporations or governmental agencies begin.
Sixteen pigment ink prints, 20 x 15 cm on 25 x 20 cm paper, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP
A catalogue is available in the series of white books.

New Topography (2013)

A series of real estate photographs in the aftermath of the global financial crisis when signs advertising foreclosure auctions became a significant topographical feature in vast parts of the USA.
Twenty pigment ink prints, 20 x 15 cm on 25 x 20 cm paper, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP
A catalogue is available in the series of white books.

X Marks the Spot

Dallas, Texas, Dealey Plaza. The site where John F. Kennedy was assassinated is a major tourist magnet. White Xes on the pavement mark the spots where the president was fatally shot – in the middle of a freeway on-ramp. Visitors often wait for a gap in traffic, hurry to one of the Xes, get their photos taken and leave the road before the next cars arrive. Some of those photos end up in online photo sharing sites such as Flickr, with captions along these lines: “I don’t know why I felt the need to stand by the X but judging from everyone else, it would appear to be the thing to do.”
A webcam is positioned in a window on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository, the site where, on November 22, 1963, an assassin allegedly fired the shots that killed Kennedy as the presidential motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza. The camera’s perspective exactly matches that of the assassin: it now shoots the tourists shooting their own memorial photos, and we can watch this in real time.
The book combines snapshots taken by tourists at Dealey Plaza with footage from the webcam.
2013
digital print, colour
14.8 x 10.5 cm, 84 pages
softcover, sewn
100 copies
second edition 2014: 100 copies

X Marks the Spot (2013)

Dallas, Texas, Dealey Plaza. The site where John F. Kennedy was assassinated is a major tourist magnet. White Xes on the pavement mark the spots where the president was fatally shot – in the middle of a freeway on-ramp. Visitors often wait for a gap in traffic, hurry to one of the Xes, get their photos taken and leave the road before the next cars arrive. A webcam is positioned in a window on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository, the site where, on November 22, 1963, an assassin allegedly fired the shots that killed Kennedy as the presidential motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza. The camera’s perspective exactly matches that of the assassin: it now shoots the tourists shooting their own memorial photos, and we can watch this in real time.
Twenty-one pigment ink prints, 18 x 24 cm on 24 x 30 cm paper each, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP


^ Hollybush Gardens, London November 2016

The ABC of Popular Desire

The ABC of Popular Desire is a visual index of the most popular internet searches made between January and May 2013. Based on data provided by meta search engines, the compilation reveals internet users’ real interests; sports, celebrities, entertainment, new products, catastrophes, crimes, and the occasional political event.
Arranged in alphabetical order, the survey turns out to be an unpredictable mix of photographs that were, like the news agenda itself, hot one day and forgotten the next. For many, the absence of expected searches may be surprising, but this could also indicate that the data we receive from the search engine is as biased and tailored as the results of the searches we perform.
2013
digital print, colour
29.7 x 21 cm, 32 pages
softcover, saddle-stichted
100 copies

Found on Flickr

This book is the printed version of a weblog published from August 2008 through December 2009 when I explored the realm of the photo hosting site Flickr while working on the project Other People’s Photographs. The book includes photos found on Flickr, observations, comments, and questions that emerged in the process. It can be read as a casual journal that provides an insight into the making of the project.
2013
print on demand, b/w
21.5 x 14 cm, 272 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
20 €

Are you searching for me?

There are many Joachim Schmids. Some play a role in public life, others don’t. People who wish to learn what we do or what we did, what we wrote or what we said, begin by searching the internet. It’s all there: names, dates, pictures and the rest. Thanks to the search engine the world has become transparent and there are no more secrets. Or so we think. If it’s me you’re looking for, most of the information you’ll find is not correct.
2012, 2013 (expanded version)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 64 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition (discontinued in 2015)

Joachim Schmid, O Campo

A catalogue featuring the complete series O Campo, published on the occasion of an exhibition at Sala BBK in Bilbao, organized by Fundación Athletic Club. Introduction by Galder Reguera (text in Basque, Castilian, and English).
2012 by Fundación Athletic Club, Bilbao
offset, colour
22 x 17 cm, 64 pages
hardcover, sewn
ISBN 978 84 8056 312 3

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Photography

The internet is flooded with billions of snapshots, many of which are hosted on photo sharing websites like Flickr. With millions more added every day, we often wonder why people decide to take these pictures, why they save them, why they put them on public display. You’ll find answers to all these questions in this book. In addition, you’ll also find answers to questions you never asked.
2012
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 80 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

Awesome Errors, Dreadful Glitches

The internet is flooded with billions of snapshots, many of which are hosted on photo sharing websites like Flickr. With millions more added every day, we often wonder why people decide to take these pictures, why they save them, why they put them on public display. Awesome Errors, Dreadful Glitches is about the photographic errors, mistakes, glitches, and malfunctions that so many find fascinating. Contrary to popular belief, people do not simply delete pictures when they go wrong, they often develop an affection and curiosity for them, uploading them to photo sharing sites in huge numbers and helping create an apparently booming sub-genre of photography.
2012 (the 2012 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 80 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

The Missing Pictures

Eight pictures based on placeholders for missing pictures collected from various websites.
2014 (the 2012 print-on-demand edition is discontinued)
digital print, b/w
21 x 14.8 cm, 12 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies

American Photographs

Walker Evans’ American Photographs is considered by many to be one of the most important photobooks ever published. Made on the occasion of his one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1938 – the first MoMA exhibition devoted to the work of a single photographer – the book went on to influence generations of photographers.
This remake of a classic explores the possibility that in the past decades, almost everything has been photographed and that in the photographic universe anything we wish to see is readily available to us. Drawing on the constantly growing resource of online photo hosting sites and using the original captions of Evans’ celebrated photographs as search terms, this new edition of American Photographs offers a modern equivalent of Evans’ masterpiece, compiled entirely of found photographs and created with the help of a search engine instead of a camera.
2011
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 110 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
40 €

The Coach House / An Inventory

I have been living with Marshall McLuhan’s books for more than thirty years, so when I was in Toronto, in the spring of 2010, a visit to McLuhan’s institute was inevitable. McLuhan was the man who anticipated the internet four decades in advance of its inception, the man “who perpetually stated his loathing and contempt for most of the electronic age, yet a man who perversely and ironically is considered its biggest cheerleader.” Mulling over the impact of McLuhan’s writing as well as the impact of the internet on the perception of his ideas, I decided to test the internet and specifically the search engine, that mnemonic slot machine that the modern world relies upon, using McLuhan as an example. The Coach House, McLuhan’s professional home, a tiny building behind a grand old mansion on the university’s campus, served as my object of investigation. On the anniversary of McLuhan’s death, December 31st, 2010 a Google image search for “Coach House” Toronto produced “about 12,100 results.” The search engine presented a selection of 908 “relevant” photographs. All of them are now printed in this publication. Five of these images relate in some way to the coach house in question; two of them show the house itself and a further two show Marshall McLuhan at this coach house.
2011 in collaboration with Graphic Design Museum Breda and NPN Drukkers
offset, colour
16 x 22 cm, 96 pages
softcover, sewn
250 copies
24 €

L.A. Women

In December 2010, Los Angeles Police Department released one hundred and eighty photographs that were found in the possession of a serial murder suspect. All of them are photographs of women. These women may or may not be residents of Los Angeles, they may or may not be prostitutes (as were the women in the investigation). They may or may not be murder victims. We don’t know. We don’t even know whether the arrested suspect took these photographs himself.
Without knowing where the photographs come from, most of them wouldn’t be worth a second glance; for you and me, that is. Of course this is different for friends and family of the women depicted. And it is certainly different for the person who took these pictures. From the testimony of one surviving victim we know that the woman was first photographed, then shot, and then raped before she was dumped in the street.
Most of the women were clearly alive when the photos were taken; some are smiling, some are posing. Some appear to be asleep, they may or may not be sleeping the big sleep. Some of them may have been shot soon after or just before the photographer shot the picture. We don’t know.
It is actually the fact that we don’t know anything – apart from the context where these photographs come from – that makes them so eerie. We want to know more but the pictures don’t tell us. We look at them and they look at us. That’s all there is.
L.A. Women received an honorable mention in the 2011 Photography Book Now competition.
2011
print on demand, colour, uncoated paper
18 x 18 cm, 154 pages
hardcover with dust jacket
open edition
96 €
(a slightly different edition of 50 copies with one extra sheet was launched at the 4th International Photobook Festival Kassel in 2011)

Seventy-Five Are Better Than Thirty-Two

Millions of tourists travel to New York City every year. Many of them visit the Museum of Modern Art. Many of them take photographs inside the museum. Many of them show Andy Warhol‘s thirty-two pictures of Campbell‘s soup cans. Thousands of these snapshots are to be found on photo sharing sites. Seventy-five of them are collected in this book – works of art in the age of digital photography.
Nearly forty years after Warhol made his Mona Lisa paraphrase Thirty Are Better Than One he might well agree today that seventy-five are better than thirty-two.
2011
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 160 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition / discontinued

Lost Memories

In the age of digital photography, taking snapshots has become a reliably constant background sound of everyday life, in fact everywhere we turn there is somebody taking photographs. It has got to the point that we can’t imagine life without the possibility of a camera recording it. Losing a camera, and indeed these visual recordings of everyday activities is, for most people, an awfully emotional scenario to find oneself in. And it happens more often than we may think. Perhaps unsurprisingly a number of websites have been created as an antidote for this. Their purpose? To reunite people with their lost cameras and in turn, their lost photographs. 
Lost Memories documents some of these Internet messages, or pleas of people who are desperately seeking their lost cameras. Many of them are heart-wrenching distress calls that disclose the importance of photographs in modern life. The book is a compilation of such desperate attempts to retrieve personal lost treasures. Every cry for help evokes Bruce Chatwin’s observation that “to lose a passport was the least of one’s worries; to lose a notebook was a catastrophe.”
2012 (the 2010 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 80 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

But Is It Art?

The internet is flooded with billions of snapshots, many of which are hosted on photo sharing sites like Flickr. With millions more added every day, we often wonder why people decide to take these pictures, why they save them, why they put them on public display. Studying the captions and descriptions of these photographs we see a variety of reasons for their existence. But is it Art? is a new addition to my series of black books exploring the realm of online photo hosting sites. The book contains images that are screenshots, specifically from the website Flickr. Each image shows people’s attempts at creating photography “after”, “based on”, “in the style of” or “inspired by” well-known artists, to varying degrees of success. As individual attempts these samples may be charming, hilarious or bold (and sometimes embarrassing), as a group they raise more interesting questions of originality and authorship.
But Is It Art? was shortlisted for the 2011 Artists’ Book of the Moment award.
2012 (the 2010 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 120 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

Quick Response

Quick Response is a hands-on introduction into the realm of QR code applications and demonstrates a way in which two-dimensional bar codes can be used to view images. People have to “read” this book by taking photos of each page using a cameraphone. The phone’s QR code reader will then decode the abstract image to reveal that each of them is an encoded URL for a photograph hosted on Flickr. The series of photos demonstrates the variety of modern commercial, artistic and subversive QR code applications. In addition, the book demonstrates a new way of appropriating other people’s photographs.
2012 (the 2010 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 40 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

O Campo

O Campo, or in its translation The Field, is a photographic compilation of football fields in Brazilian cities. The images were taken via satellite and they show the rather oddly shaped football pitches that seem to be built wherever possible – the desire for playing the game has clearly surpassed and ignored the limitations of natural topography and FIFA’s laws of the game. According to the official rules and regulations (which are included in the book as an epilogue) you would not be allowed to play football on any of these fields. However, the careers of some of the world’s best football players began on these very same fields despite their askew angles, odd proportions, mis-shapen border lines and pitch markings. Studying the architectural contexts of these fields we also get an idea about the social context where these players come from.
O Campo received an honorable mention in the 2010 Photography Book Now competition.
2010
print on demand, colour
20 x 25 cm, 40 pages
softcover (hardcover with dust jacket on request)
open edition
48 €

Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Nine Swimming Pools, A Few Palm Trees, No Small Fires

Between 1963 and 1972, Edward Ruscha published fifteen artist’s books, his first being Twentysix Gasoline Stations; a book which is considered to be the first modern artist’s book, and has become the iconic precursor and a major influence on the emerging international artists’ books culture. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Nine Swimming Pools, A Few Palm Trees, No Small Fires is a modern remake of some of Ruscha’s famous books, all grouped in one volume. Unlike the original books it relates to, this work was made entirely at my Berlin studio. I didn’t visit Los Angeles to make the book and I didn’t use a camera either. The camera is out there.
2009
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 198 pages
softcover (hardcover with dust jacket on request)
open edition
64 €

Joachim Schmid Is Martin Parr · Martin Parr Is Joachim Schmid

In September 2009 Martin Parr sent me his VIP pass to the Berlin Art Forum, that he had recently received and knew full well, he would be unable to attend. I saw this as an opportunity to visit the fair and take photos in the spirit of Martin Parr. I was to be Martin Parr for the 23rd September. For those that know anything about my work, this must be a surprise, as my career in the art world is based entirely on orchestrating other people’s photographs.
I then invited Martin to be Joachim Schmid, and he decided to trawl through the “Martin Parr, We Love You” group on Flickr. This was established a few years ago as a forum for photographers who had been seemingly influenced by his photographic language. So in the spirit of Joachim Schmid, Martin looked for the most “Parr-like” images. The resulting two sets of images are what you will find on the pages of Joachim Schmid is Martin Parr · Martin Parr is Joachim Schmid.
2009
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 40 pages
softcover (hardcover with dust jacket on request)
open edition / discontinued

In Dialogue

This book is the result of an experimental process of non-verbal communication. Between November 2008 and January 2009, Marcelo Brodsky and me had a dialogue without any words, without any emphasis on a particular subject, without any pre-conceived ideas — a dialogue about nothing. The two of us took turns exchanging photographs by email, each one a direct response to the previous one, creating a continuous and meandering photographic ping-pong through the visual universe. Despite the lack of obvious subject matter the resulting sequence of photographs creates meaning. For the viewers it is an invitation to retrace the decisions made by two brains working in visual rather than verbal mode.
2009
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 40 pages
softcover (hardcover with dust jacket on request)
open edition / discontinued

The Missing Pictures

Between 2006 to 2008 I completed a series of works based on imagery found on the Internet. These works are a continuation from the Archiv project, altered to suit the circumstances of modern technologies. Digital photography, Internet, and photo sharing sites have created a new visual environment and new forms of producing, distributing and using photographs. Digital multichannel photo installations such as Netzerscheinungen and Reload were my response to this new situation, researching the realm of online photography for recurring motifs and patterns. A small selection of photographs incorporated into these works have been presented on my website. Since receiving several complaints by photographers who found their images on my site I have replaced the images with placeholders denoting a removed or missing image. This has also turned into a new book. The book contains the complete set of these icons indicating that something went wrong with a photograph. It goes without saying that these were found on the Internet as well, just like the photographs they replace.
2012 (the 2009 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 40 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

Cool Pictures, Cool Stuff

The internet is flooded with billions of snapshots, many of which are hosted on photo sharing websites like Flickr. With millions more added every day, we often wonder why people decide to take these pictures, why they save them, why they put them on public display. Studying the captions and descriptions of these photographs we see a variety of reasons for their existence. One of them is simple, striking and apparently quite popular: “I thought it looked cool.” There is an incredible number of photographs on Fickr that people have taken because they thought something looked ‘cool’. 
The book consists of 116 images based on various perceptions of what people consider to be ‘cool’. Each picture is accompanied by the photographer’s original caption. The resulting collection of images is very revealing and often hilarious.
2012 (the 2009 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 120 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

When Boredom Strikes

The internet is flooded with billions of snapshots, many of which are hosted on photo sharing websites like Flickr. With millions more added every day, we often wonder why people decide to take these pictures, why they save them, why they put them on public display. Studying the captions and descriptions of these photographs we see a variety of reasons for their existence. One of them is simple, striking and apparently quite popular: boredom. There is an incredible number of photographs on Fickr that people have taken just because they’ve been bored. 
The book assembles 156 photographs made on account of boredom. Each picture is accompanied by the photographer’s original caption. In stark contrast to the title this book isn’t boring at all, but very revealing and often hilarious.
2012 (the 2009 Blurb edition is discontinued)
print on demand, b/w
17.5 x 11 cm, 160 pages
softcover, perfect bound
open edition
12 €

Reload

Reload brings together photographs from various online image searches. The selection begins to show something of the way in which we photograph everyday scenarios and highlights what we deem to be ‘event’ enough to capture. All of these photographs depict a kind of achievement. The book Reload is an abbreviated version of a digital multichannel photo installation that shows 900 photographs.
2014 (the 2009/2012 print-on-demand editions are discontinued)
digital print, colour
21 x 14.8 cm, 40 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies

Cyberspaces

Cyberspaces is a series of interior photographs taken from many webcams. It is a collection of pictures that are devoid of actual human presence. The focus of the image unclear, you will start to hunt the image for human presence, for any object that will help identify the scene you are faced with. Bedrooms and chairs, rooms with garish colours stare blankly back at you, until a pair of shoes come into view. Plastic stilettos. And then the vibrators appear. This is a series of screenshots taken from interactive pornography websites, but without the sex worker.
2014 (the 2009 print-on-demand edition is discontinued)
digital print, colour
21 x 14.8 cm, 28 pages
softcover, saddle-stitched
50 copies
8 €

The Showbag Book

This book is composed of snapshots found on the many sites of the world’s ever-growing online picture pool. Each book is customised for the individual buyer, containing 24 to 240 pages. There are no two identical copies of The Showbag Book. The books range from 24 to 240 pages. Please specify the desired number of pages when ordering your copy.
Print on demand, hardcover with dust jacket, 18 x 18 cm, 24 – 240 pages, 20 – 236 photographs
2008 ongoing
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 24–240 pages
hardcover with dust jacket
unique editions, signed
price on application
email orders only

Other People’s Photographs (2008–2011)

Assembled between 2008 and 2011, this series of ninety-six print-on-demand books explores the themes presented by modern everyday, amateur photo­graphers. Images found on photo sharing sites such as Flickr have been gathered and ordered in a way to form a library of contemporary vernacular photography in the age of digital technology and online photo hosting. Each book is comprised of images that focus on a specific photo­graphic event or idea, the grouping of photographs revealing recurring patterns in modern popular photography. The approach is encyclopedic, and the number of volumes is virtually endless but arbitrarily limited. The selection of themes is neither systematic nor does it follow any established criteria — the project’s structure mirrors the multifaceted, contradictory and chaotic practice of modern photography itself, based exclusively on the motto “You can observe a lot by watching.”
The series Other People‘s Photographs includes these titles: Airline Meals · Airports · Another Self · Apparel · At Work · Bags · Big Fish · Bird’s Eyes · Black Bulls · Blue · Bread · Buddies · Cash · Cheques · Cleavage · Coffee · Collections · Colour · Commodities · Contents · Currywurst · Damage · Digits · Documents · Dogs · Drinks · Encounters · Evidence · Eyes · Faces in Holes · Fauna · Feet · First Shots · Fish · Flashing · Food · Fridge Doors · Gathered Together · Gender · Geology · Hands · Happy Birthday · Hotel Rooms · Images · Impact · In Motion · Indexes · Information · Interaction · Kisses for Me · Lego · Looking · Maps · Mickey · Models · More Things · Mugshots · News · Nothing Wrong · November 5th, 2008 · Objects in Mirror · On the Road · Parking Lots · Pictures · Pizza · Plush · Portraits · Postcards · Purple · Pyramids · Real Estate · Red · Room with a View · Self · Sex · Shadow · Shirts · Shoes · Silvercup · Sites · Size Matters · Space-Time · Statues · Sunset · Surface · Targets · Television · The Other Picture · The Picture · Things · Trophies · Tropic of Capricorn · Various Accidents · Wanted · Writings · You Are Here.
2008–2011
print on demand, colour
18 x 18 cm, 36 pages each
hardcover with dust jacket
open edition, numbered and signed
price on application
email orders only
see also the 2 volume paperback version

View more photos

The Coach House Project (2011)

I have been living with Marshall McLuhan’s books for more than thirty years, so when I was in Toronto, in the spring of 2010, a visit to McLuhan’s institute was inevitable. McLuhan was the man who anticipated the internet four decades in advance of its inception, the man “who perpetually stated his loathing and contempt for most of the electronic age, yet a man who perversely and ironically is considered its biggest cheerleader” (Douglas Coupland). Mulling over the impact of McLuhan’s writing as well as the impact of the internet on the perception of his ideas, I decided to test the internet and specifically the search engine, that mnemonic slot machine that the modern world relies upon, using McLuhan as an example. The Coach House, McLuhan’s professional home, a tiny building behind a grand old mansion on the university’s campus, served as my object of investigation. On the anniversary of McLuhan’s death, December 31st, 2010 a Google image search for “Coach House” Toronto produced “about 12,100 results.” The search engine presented a selection of 908 “relevant” photographs. All are now printed in The Coach House / An Inventory. Five of these images relate in some way to the coach house in question; two of them show the house itself and a further two show Marshall McLuhan at this coach house.

The Coach House book is a collaboration of Joachim Schmid and NPN Drukkers. The book was produced on the occasion of the exhibition Graphic Detour at the Graphic Design Museum Breda (opening in June).

Nine Errors (2010)

In early 2010 I published Quick Response, a hands-on introduction into the realm of QR code applications. People have to “read” this book by taking photos of each page using a cameraphone. The phone’s QR code reader will then decode the abstract images to reveal that each image is an encoded URL for a photograph hosted on Flickr. The series of photos demonstrates the variety of modern commercial, artistic and subversive QR code applications. In addition, the book demonstrates a new way of appropriating other people’s photographs.
The series Nine Errors was made when Breda Photo Festival invited me to participate in their exhibition Another Street View in September 2010.
Photographs were presented as an online exhibition that was accessible via smartphone. Stickers with QR codes refering to the exhibits were spread around the city of Breda. So the exhibition existed only on the displays of smartphones in the streets of Breda. Instead of providing the expected images for an exhibition in public space that would be accessible exclusively for the owners of smartphones and that would support the idea of turning public space into a machine-readable surface, I decided to subvert the system by introducing (images of) a series of errors.
In the following years I continued pasting my stickers refering to error messages over existing QR codes in various cities.
A catalogue is available in the series of white books.


^ Breda 2010


^ Berlin 2011


^ Bordeaux 2011


^ Salzburg 2011


^ Berlin 2011


^ Paris 2013

2011–2013 in Amsterdam, Bamberg, Barcelona, Bayonne, Berlin, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Breda, Brussels, Cologne, Erlangen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kassel, Lausanne, Lisbon, Łódź, London, Mannheim, Marseille, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Naples, New York, Nice, Palermo, Paris, Pau, Rome, Rotterdam, Salzburg, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Utrecht, Venice, Zurich.

O Campo (2010)

O Campo, or in its translation The Field, is a series of photographs of football fields in Brazilian cities. The images were taken via satellite and they show the rather oddly shaped football pitches that seem to be built wherever possible – the desire for playing the game has clearly surpassed and ignored the limitations of natural topography and FIFA’s laws of the game. According to the official rules and regulations you would not be allowed to play football on any of these fields. However, the careers of many of the world’s best football players began on these very same fields despite their askew angles, odd proportions, mis-shapen border lines and pitch markings. Studying the architectual contexts of these fields we get an idea about the social context where these players come from.
Sixteen pigment ink prints, 30 x 40 cm on 40 x 50 cm paper, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP

Netzerscheinungen (2006–2007)

Three multi-channel digital photo installations that are based on imagery found on the internet:
Menschen und Dinge (People and Things), 2006, 57 min. loop
Orte und Zeichen (Places and Signs), 2007, 46 min. loop
Waren und Träume (Commodities and Dreams), 2007, 52 min. loop
A three volume catalogue is available in the series of white books.


^ Menschen und Dinge. 853 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco 2007

Waren und Träume (2007)

Waren und Träume. 781 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert
(Commodities and Dreams. 781 Pictures for the 21st Century)
Multichannel digital photo installation, 52 min. loop

Orte und Zeichen (2007)

Orte und Zeichen. 629 Bilder für das 21. Jahrhundert
(Places and Signs. 629 Pictures for the 21st Century)
Multichannel digital photo installation, 46 min. loop

Cyberspaces (2004)

Die Serie Cyberspaces entstand, nachdem ich bemerkt hatte, daß ich zuviel Zeit im Internet verbringe. Vor dem Computer sitzend stellte sich mir beim Aufenthalt im Virtuellen die Frage nach dem Authentischen. Ich beschloß, dieser Frage an einem konkreten Beispiel nachzugehen, und suchte Bilder von der Beschäftigung, die ich gerade ausübte: Sitzen. Um im Sitzen Bilder vom Sitzen zu machen, begab ich mich im Internet auf die Suche nach Menschen, die vor Computern sitzen. Das Thema meiner Arbeit habe ich also nicht mit den Augen oder dem Gehirn gefunden, sondern mit meinem Hintern.
Während ich vor dem Computer sitze, sitzen Millionen von Menschen rund um den Globus ebenfalls vor ihren Computern. Dieses massenhafte Sitzen ist eine Tätigkeit, die in der Vereinzelung ausgeübt und deswegen wenig gesehen wird. Preiswerte Technik und globale Vernetzung machen einen Teil der Sitzenden sichtbar. Eine kleine, über dem Monitor angebrachte Kamera liefert uns in bescheidener Qualität Bilder der Menschen, die sich vor dem Computer aufhalten. Die für Überwachungszwecke entwickelte Technik wird in Chatrooms genutzt und findet ihre kommerzielle Anwendung im Sexgeschäft.
Der Computer-Monitor wird zum Schaufenster eines globalen Bordells, die Kreditkarte öffnet die Tür. Kommuniziert wird wie in jedem anderen internationalen Geschäftszweig über die Tastatur in schlechtem Englisch. Anbieter und Abnehmer sind an keinen Ort gebunden, der Betrieb ist 24 Stunden am Tag geöffnet. Ich habe mich als Kunde registriert und meinen temporären Geschäftspartnerinnen meine Wünsche übermittelt. Meine Anweisungen waren einfach und leicht verständlich: aufstehen, rausgehen. Die Kreditkarte gibt Weisungsbefugnis – wer zahlt, bestimmt was vor der Kamera passiert. Die Kreditkarte ist eine Erweiterung der Kamera, sie dient als ihr digitaler Fernauslöser. Ich habe den Auslöser betätigt, sobald nur noch der unbelebte Raum zu sehen war.
Das Resultat sind Bilder verlassener Räume, in denen Sitzgelegenheiten stehen. Es gibt in diesen Bildern Indizien, die auf die Nutzung der abgebildeten Räume schließen lassen. Die Räume sind Teil der realen Welt, doch nur im Cyberspace sind sie zugänglich. Wir dürfen allerdings nicht vergessen, daß wir es auf dem Bildschirm nicht mit animierten Figuren, sondern mit lebenden Menschen zu tun haben. Auf den Stühlen, Sesseln und Sofas sitzen Frauen, die das tun, was ihre zahlenden Kunden zu sehen wünschen. Das ist gemeint, wenn von der neuen Dienstleistungsgesellschaft im Zeitalter der Globalisierung die Rede ist. Es geht hier um eine große Menge von Arbeitsplätzen in Ost-Europa und Süd-Ost-Asien. Hinter jeder Kamera steht eine Ich-AG. Die Geschäftsidee ist die Entsorgung von überflüssigem Sperma in den reicheren Ländern. Die Produktion von Bildern spielt dabei eine zentrale Rolle.
In meiner Variation dieser Bilder sehen wir die Bühne, auf der die Dienstleister ihre Haut zu Markte tragen. Die abgebildeten Kulissen und Requisiten haben erzählerisches Potential. Doch die Erzählung findet nicht in den Bildern statt. Die Bilder sind Auslöser und Projektionsflächen der Imagination. Ich habe beim Herstellen dieser Bilder eher beiläufig ziemlich viel über Prostitution gelernt. Dieses Wissen ist in den Bildern aufgehoben. Ich weiß allerdings nicht, wieviel von dem, was ich über Prostitution im Cyberspace weiß, aus den Bildern stammt. Ich weiß ebenfalls nicht, wieviel und was die Betrachter meinen Bilder entnehmen.
JS, Berlin, Oktober 2005

The images were derived from footage of commercial online sexcams.
36 Lambda prints, 36 x 48 cm each on 50 x 60 cm paper, edition of 3 copies + 1 AP
A catalogue is available in the series of white books.