-
The air seemed different as I crossed the threshold and stepped inside. Blinded by excitement and shiny new things I was eager to get my rare in-person shopping experience underway… My shot at giving retail another go, see how it is out there… it’s frightening. I typically purchase everything I can online and I was quickly reminded why that is my primary method when purchasing almost anything.
Welcome to the sterile, temple-like energy of the modern Apple Store’, where tech dreams meet customer indifference. These photos, taken during a frustrating, almost comical and all-too-common experience, I patiently waited to be helped, for one the Apple “experts” to say “hello” or “how can I help you.” I stood there, in the same spot, for 15 minutes, not looking at my iPhone, just posted up in front of the MacStudio looking around, taking it all in, the complete “Apple Store” experience. As Apple Experts casually walked right past me I was ultimately ignored, a ghost surrounded by glowing screens and floating forests of sales-floor design.
I wanted to present the way it feels, bend the architecture and symmetry, polished stone floors, glowing ring lights, indoor trees, digital displays humming with simulated joy, all arranged with dispassionate order. And yet, at the bottom of the frame, my signature appears: my feet. Grounded, waiting, human.
The irony is potent. Here’s a store filled with the most advanced communication tools on Earth, and no one says hello. The silence stretches across the frame, like a waiting room without a clock. It’s beautiful. It’s frustrating. It’s our future.
I bought my Mac Studio and Studio Display the next day, via Apple’s website. Not the smoothest transaction, but, here, now, at this moment my new set-up is tight. I can barely recall that much from the (3) three hours it took to complete my purchase.
- JAKE
-
“In ‘iNVISIBLE iCUSTOMER’, Jake Williams turns a routine shopping experience into a quiet act of protest. The piece is rich in architectural precision, but underneath its clean geometry is a powerful message: human beings are becoming background noise in the environments built to serve them.
Williams subtly positions himself, not as a central figure, but as an afterthought, seen only through his shoes. That passive vantage point becomes the emotional center of the piece. His presence is an act of resistance. A footnote becomes the headline.
This collage reminds us that when systems are so polished, so frictionless, they often lose the very friction that makes connection possible. ‘iNVISIBLE iCUSTOMER’ bites softly, but it leaves a deep impression.”
- D.A.R.