This series, published here in this form for the first time, translates into cinematographic sequences the overlay techniques first presented in 1995 at the Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart. There, early digital scripts—programmed over long studio nights in Cologne with the uncanny ambience of the Twin Peaks soundtrack playing on repeat—controlled nine overlapping analog projections. Removed from everyday speed, these freeze frames allow the viewer to give equal attention to people, objects, forms, patterns, and the ways in which they interact. On the cusp of the digital era, this was one of Streuli’s last major series before his transition from 35mm to medium-format in 1996 and then digital photography in 2001.
The urban space and bodies depicted subtly foreshadow the rise of digitisation, surveillance, and the commercialisation of New York’s public space. While people today are hunched over their phones, lost in their devices, the earlier bodies appear more immediate, embodying a tangible presence in the world. But ultimately, as Streuli noted while working on this series, most striking are the similarities amidst the differences in his photographic cycles over the years. It seems evident that things must change to remain the same.
