SAMI PARKKINENAUTOPILOT 29.3.2025 – 19.4.2025

Humidity has condensed on a metal surface and the droplets of water have started to move the dirt on the surface. In Sami Parkkinen's photograph, the iconic star, one of the many symbols that link the car to outer space, is missing from the Mercedes-Benz front badge.

In his essay “New Citroën” (La nouvelle Citroën, 1957), Roland Barthes depicts how the seamless and smooth surface of the contemporary car distracts the spectator from realizing that the object is a machine designed, constructed and assembled by humans. For Barthes, the surface of the Citroën DS signifies a transition toward a new phenomenology of production and objects. It marks a transition from a world where artefacts are constructed by assembling parts together, to one where artefacts hold together “by sole virtue of their wondrous shape”. Barthes writes that DS has descended among us from the skyscraper of Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang.

This “new phenomenology” concerns the relationship between car, technology and science fiction. In the latter, the science and technology coexist in a seamless and perfected manner – or, as Arthur C. Clarke puts it, as “magic”. The most magical futures, envisioned in science fiction, have driven the historical momentum of automobilization. When optimistic futures have been exposed as impossible ones, the omnipresent fear of the future becomes the generator for more visions. Bulletproof windshields are assembled on this magical object, and control of the vehicle is about to be fully automated.

The surface of the magical object is smooth and polished. The surface reflects the image of its surroundings – the petroleumscape – and accumulates the material from it. The virtue of the wondrous shape falls apart. The soot, that consists of the smallest particles of incomplete combustion, covers the surface. The reflection shows also that the car is a planetary machine. This machine has had the power to force societies to tear apart the surface of the planet. Meanwhile, the exhaust gases from this machine travel to the upper atmosphere, where they will lurk future generations.

Text: Frans Autio

Autopilot (2024→) is a collaborative project by photographer Sami Parkkinen and doctoral researcher Frans Autio. The project brings the methods of photography and environmental humanities together. Autopilot is focusing on the infamous objects made of metal and plastics that are overwhelming our streets: the passenger cars, and analyses the cultural, environmental, temporal and aesthetic qualities of them.

Finnish photographer Sami Parkkinen (born 1974) employs photography and sculpture to investigate the human consciousness and the need to rebuild society. Parkkinen's work has featured in international joint and solo exhibitions since 2009 including The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize exhibition at National Portrait Gallery, London in 2015 and Circulation(s) – Festival de la Jeune Photographie Européenne, Paris in 2016. During both of these exhibitions, Parkkinen's works were displayed in large-scale poster reproductions at underground stations in Paris and London. Parkkinen has also had solo shows at the Finnish Museum of Photography in 2010 and most recently at the National Museum of Finland in 2021.