Ritzo ten Cate photographs phone zombies

Sunday 3 September 2017, 22:22 by Michelle Peeters | 5,915 views | 7 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Staring at your screen, earphones in, each in their own world. Ritzo ten Cate photographs people just as they look up from their phone, completely oblivious.

Ritzo ten Cate (39) from Groningen positions himself with his camera in busy places and waits for the moment when someone looks up and realises they are being photographed.

Caught in the app

He catches people in the act, as it were, and his photo series has therefore been given the name 'Caught in the app' (a variation on 'Caught in the act').

Ritzo became fascinated by the phenomenon of 'phone zombies' when he himself (in the middle of the Pokémon craze) ended up at a station without even knowing how he had got there. Totally bewildering.

He started watching out for phone zombies and discovered that they really are everywhere. People who are completely in their own world, on another planet. That gave him the idea of capturing them. Of capturing The Look.

Oblivious

They aren't really there, I can see it in that look. When you are in a phone world, you have to synchronise, as it were, when the 'real' world tries to make contact. And because that goes on all day, your system has to reconnect continuously. That makes you tired and worn out, says Ritzo.

Ritzo foresees long-term consequences from this phone addiction. He thinks the consequences are often underestimated. He sees parents sitting in their own bubble for minutes at a time, with a child in the buggy. Completely unaware that he is photographing them.

Attachment problems

He also foresees problems such as attachment issues caused by the loss of real contact. If you spend more time on your phone than with your child, or your partner, you are actually saying: 'That phone is more important than you.' Just think what that does to personal relationships.

With this photo series, he wants to make people aware of the risks and bring them back to the real world for a moment.

You can follow Ritzo ten Cate's activities via ritzotencate.blogspot.com

Source: Trouw

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