Clean room, University of Lille, France Possibly 1989 - 2006

Lewis Baltz made this photograph of a clean room at the University of Lille in France. I love the commitment to capturing this high-tech scene with such a straight, unfussy approach. The colours are muted, almost bleached, which only adds to the sense of clinical precision. But look closer at that monitor. It's like a green portal amidst all the cool surfaces. The screens and buttons, all those interfaces, are just begging to be touched. There's a kind of haptic yearning here, an invitation to engage with the technology, even though the image itself keeps us at a distance. It reminds me of Thomas Ruff’s deadpan photographs of office interiors. Both artists share this fascination with the architecture of control. It’s not just about what these spaces look like, but how they shape our behavior and our ways of seeing. Are we looking at art, or the world, or something in between? The answer, like a good painting, is always both.