These photographs were taken during my visit to a crowded St. Peter's Basilica in the summer of 2012. Despite being physically on site, my experience of the work in St. Peter's Basilica involved the mediation of several digital screens. There was a multiplicity of digital images peppered around each site -- phone and tablet screens reproduced an artwork's likeness in myriad sizes, tones, and angles, and often included geometric overlays in bright reds and greens. These visual reproductions vanished as quickly as they appeared —screens, hovering in sitelines and displaying tiny masterpieces, blinked, then were promptly lowered. Moments later, they reappeared above heads in a crowd nearby to repeat the process over. The screens were so prevalent that I often saw an artwork through a fellow tourist's phone or tablet before seeing the actual piece itself. My first glimpses of Michaelangelo's La Pietá, for instance, were mediated by strangers' digital devices, despite my close proximity to the sculpture.
This project serves as my reflection on how the photographs we produce as tourists become not only our own private memorabilia, but an integral part of the experience of the site itself.