Alec Soth

Born in Minneapolis, 1969; lives and works in the Twin Cities

Silicon Valley poses something of a photographic problem. Documenting its physical topography is one thing, but visually describing its culture is another entirely. How do you represent what makes this nerve center of technological innovation tick? In other words, how do you photograph something you can’t see? It was precisely this indescribability that drew photographer Alec Soth to the area. As he summarized the challenge: “Whether it is for gold or citrus or celebrity, California has always attracted dreamers and prospectors. What is so fascinating about the most recent rush in Silicon Valley is that the harvest is invisible — the gold is in the cloud.”

We knew Soth, a keen observer with a gift for seeing the poetry and humor of the everyday, was up to the task. For this commission he photographed the campuses, cubicles, and data centers of the technology giants whose names are synonymous with the region: Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Facebook, among others. He also explored less celebrated locations: computer repair stores, meet-ups, and local watering holes. The portrait of the valley he produced is as unexpected as it is intriguing, upending stereotypes and telling stories that have largely escaped the traditional Silicon Valley narratives of success and progress. Ranging in tone from unabashedly romantic to laugh-out-loud comical, these works pose the question: how do our collective cultural fantasies about Silicon Valley match up with life as it is actually lived here? The photographs are also deliberately somewhat inscrutable. As Soth writes, “I wanted to strip the pictures of color and shadow and depict the whiteboard of possibility this place represents.”

Corey Keller
Curator of Photography

Interview