American sociologist Alvin Toffler analyzed in depth the transition from an industrial, materialistic society—obsessed with producing goods, objects, and images destined to circulate—to the new electronic, immaterial society. In his book The Third Wave, he profoundly examines the mechanisms of immaterialization in post-consumption society. He traces, for example, the evolution of money—from a medium of exchange during the barter system to currency, and now to multinational companies and a globalized economy. Coins and banknotes are becoming obsolete, replaced by credit cards and personal identification numbers that provide access to our accounts.

Notably, certain companies issue their own credit cards and conduct internal monetary transactions for their clients, effectively creating their own currency—a privilege once exclusive to the state.

While the world of global communication and entertainment offers comfort of all types and colors, a pervasive network of supervised and interconnected institutions has established a system of management and control that often escapes our perception and immediate attention, operating undisturbed to oversee almost everything.

It is difficult for a photographer to depict something as intangible as immaterialization. However, Baboussis’s familiarity with the traces of the invisible has perhaps enabled him to find the end of the thread in this Babel of contradictory signals, where the most significant elements are often the least visible. To describe the evolution of this condition, Baboussis identifies a new symbol, a totem, with which we interact so frequently that we hardly notice it. This monument of our immaterialized daily life, in one of its most globalized forms in our everyday monetary transactions, is none other than the ATM (Automated Teller Machine).

In 1997, Baboussis photographed, frontally and in color, the ‘busts’ of ATMs, which stand precisely at the intersection between the materialistic society of urban centers—those managing money—and the new mechanisms that exercise and control the global economy through electronic signals and pulses of bits. Practically, ATMs exist to provide a specific service: allowing people to access cash at any time without having to carry it, by entrusting it to the bank. Symbolically, behind the ATM lies the banking institution and global electronic control. In a world that has embraced globalization, human beings lose their identities as autonomous individuals and become digits, personal identification numbers, abstract entities.

By presenting ATMs—using them as visible reference points for an invisible process, away from the circulation of capital that envelops our financial lives 24 hours a day—Baboussis invites us to reflect on the reality in which we are immersed: a reality largely invisible and, therefore, challenging to capture on camera. True to his photographic style, he discovers a commonplace object, familiar to the average person, and selects it as both a natural reference point and a stimulus that could lead us all to broader reflections. He continues his exploration of the relationships that define financial and monetary value on one hand and invisible objects on the other, which are nevertheless considered precious, as they are hidden in the vaults of a bank’s basement. Behind the metal shutters lie the objects each owner deems valuable.

If we compare the first images Baboussis captured in mental clinics with the more recent ones taken in bank basements, we realize they possess a perfect circularity. The forms of the institutions constitute the visual level. ‘Value’ is absent. The gaze leaps from the starting point and, as it is obstructed, returns toward the artist and ourselves: we gaze together with him. The gaze resumes exploring the visual level and finally turns inward to ponder what is missing here and what lies beyond this very image.

Daniela Palazzoli, Contemporary Art Historian, Exhibition Curator