I went into central Zürich on Saturday to do some shopping and enjoy a walk, two activities that now involve negotiating with what appears to be the entire international arrivals hall. The streets were packed, but somewhere along the Bahnhofstrasse I realised that not everybody had come to admire Zürich or buy things. Some had come to be photographed having the sort of life in which buying things in Zürich would be too ordinary to mention.
I kept encountering these little productions: someone in carefully casual business clothes, a companion operating a smartphone, and a conspicuously expensive background. Some had brought proper cameras and tripods. The outfits were respectable enough, yet there was something unmistakably carnivalesque about the proceedings. Nobody had dressed as a pirate or a cowboy. They had come as a person with an investment portfolio and somewhere terribly important to be.
The walking was particularly magnificent. Most of us walk because we are over here and would prefer to be over there. This was walking with a message, somewhere between a couture runway and the opening credits of a programme about people you would hate to have dinner with. Every movement suggested purpose, authority and a schedule of almost unbearable significance. Unfortunately, the existence of a camera operator made it rather obvious that the pressing engagement was with the next three metres of pavement.
Zürich is beautifully equipped for this business. A recognisable stretch of Bahnhofstrasse supplies wealth, discretion and financial credibility without requiring any supporting documents. The boutiques provide the backdrop; the luxury cars parked nearby complete the biography. You need neither the budget to shop there nor the keys to drive away. A flattering angle takes care of ownership, provided the actual owner does not return halfway through your lifestyle.
What fascinated me was how completely the setting explained the intended character. The clothes said business, the posture said importance, and the shop behind them supplied the money. Whether any of it corresponded to their actual lives was impossible to know and almost beside the point. Even a genuine millionaire looks faintly ridiculous when a companion has to document how naturally he passes a handbag shop. Presumably, without photographic supervision, he might pass it incorrectly.
The familiar tourist photograph used to make a fairly modest claim: I was here. This seemed to ask considerably more of the scenery: please confirm that I belong to a superior income bracket. A city becomes useful less for what you might discover in it than for what strangers might infer about you from a tightly controlled rectangle.
There is also something wonderfully obedient about all this supposed individuality. The wardrobe, the luxury backdrop, the studied air of being too occupied to notice the camera: everyone appearing to audition for the same vacancy. You would think a generation so enthusiastic about personal branding might occasionally produce a different person. Instead, the Bahnhofstrasse seemed to be hosting rolling interviews for the position of Assistant Regional Millionaire.
I carried on with my shopping, increasingly impressed by how much could now be acquired without entering a shop. The boutique, to its credit, had made no promises; it had merely provided a wall. The entire claim to success had been assembled on the pavement. Generation Instagram, you really are pathetic.
Have fun posing!
//Alex
alexreusch 