Patrick Raddatz: At the Control Room, 2007
Photographs, ca. 57×70cm framed

Control rooms are the nerve centers of a world permeated by systems of abstraction. In these concentrated places, the ‘status quo’ of the systems that surround us forms an aesthetic surface. Signals and values serve to make control decisions for the system. Here the human and the system communicate using the control room as an ‘interface’.

However, (information) architectures are only seemingly neutral and arranged according to inherent necessities. The photo series by Patrick Raddatz reveals how much user interfaces are not purely functional but are a ‘projection screen’ for the utopias of their times; subject to fashion and taste, they ultimately turn into cultural clichés of our society.

This text is taken from the NODE10 catalogue, written by Eno Henze and Marius Watz and edited by Valérie-Françoise Vogt. Please read the introductory curator text for an overview of the exhibition topic.