Location: Sinai, Egypt.

Photo Credit: Haubitz +Zoche.

The ‘Sinai Hotels’ (2002-05) is a series of four trips to the Egyptian peninsula that documents various hotels in diverse states of completion. These buildings, somewhere between ruin and completion, are captivating illustrations of Baudrillard’s hypothesis of reality’s transition into hyperreality, which is a dimension that makes reality disappear by dissolving the difference between the real and the imaginary. The series provides a clear view of the interchangeable ghettos being constructed in vacation spots, and is a warning signal for the jumbled mess of speculation, bad investments, embezzled government subsidies, and fear of terrorism. Haubitz+Zoche’s buildings evoke the intangible, model-like simulacrity of digitally manipulated photographs, but the hyperreal arises out of its factual circumstances. The desert loneliness of the scenes and their utter lack of people add to the surrealism of the visual world, giving it a cool melancholy and an apocalyptic atmosphere.