13th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Altered Images
Bar code

“Barcode” picture series. Today’s world and society are more and more trying to limit the freedom of people movement creating different difficulties. Nowadays it seems impossible just to enter to the airport, to get on a plane and to fly away. You have to go through humiliating procedure of checking and scanning to find out whether you have explosive hazardous substances or not. There is also a big issue with the simple bottle of water which is taken away from you every time you cross the customs line. But what should you do if you have to take a pill or just satisfy your thirst? Thus you are forced to buy things extremely dearly from the airport shops. Such a sad situation. We fingerprint and do retina scan for visas and passports giving away all the information to the government which is tending to control all mobile population. Even in the shops you are checked by security to prevent robbery. You are checked purposely and for no reason. The man turns from the subject into the object of observation. Like a lab rat people are prosected in order to discover what they have inside. We are being scanned like a simple loaf of bread on a cash desk. And society humbly accepts this scenario. In my series of pictures I want to pay special attention on that fact. And I want to show people as a scanner sees them. Pictures taken in this technique emphasize similarity of people and products barcodes. All we can see around us is people with the barcodes. Like a bottle of Coke we are waiting to be bought, scanned, used, and then just thrown away.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 10.2015
Date Uploaded: 10.2015
Photo Location: Russia
Copyright: © Igor Sorokin