video excerpt

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A fictitious surveillance video of a motel facility.

Situated in Baker, CA, The Royal Hawaiian marks the decline of an american dream – between 1950s' chique and faux wood, yet officially opened but already half abandoned. A site on the one-way street to ruin. Its surveillance monitors turned old and thus are frequently showing more noise than proper images.

Is important information being concealed?
Having a closer look, the cameras mostly show irrelevant angles like a palm tree in the wind, a piece of lawn or concrete – even indoors the protagonists are a piece of curtain, or the close-up of toilet paper...

The concept of surveillance is being led to absurdity – Closed Circuit Television long before the algorithm-controlled omnidirectional super surveillance of our times. Instead the ailing system draws a fragmentary portrait of a declining place, which, at once provides a voyeuristic glance into some potential private sphere.