Photojournalist Exploration of the New York City Automated Teller Machine (ATM)

By Jason Brill (Parsons School of Design)

Project Link: https://www.artsteps.com/view/61aa823142dd8938ea0dc1e7

This conversation explores a final project for a graduate course (Anthropology & Design: Objects, Sites, Systems) taught by Shannon Mattern. Focusing on the ATM as an embodiment of socio-technical evolution and cultural values, I developed a photojournalist exhibition as an artistic medium as well as a design-centered tool for epistemological inquiry. Installing scans of 35mm film photographs into a virtual installation accompanied by supplementary text, I created a cohesive and immersive environment to learn and experience different layers of the ATM. By mixing the analog images with a digital environment, I brought attention to three interconnected concepts:

1.     The ATM’s unique blend of the physical and digital within its interface

2.     The endangered status of the ATM in the age of emerging digital currencies

3.     Our multiple and situated embodied experiences of these digital-physical interfaces

I produced this project as an ethnographic exploration of the ATM in New York City, where I used photography to illustrate the ATM’s historical, ethnographic, and cultural significance. The process was explorative—the more I investigated different neighborhoods and their ATMs, the more I understood how the ATM functions as a symbolic object of community and ownership. Specifically, by focusing on the ATM within the urban environments of New York City, I was able to examine how the ATM conveys messaging on economic policy, physical spaces, privacy in a technocratic society, and socioeconomic equality, as well as new pandemic-driven safety standards.

Reflecting on my journey, I found that everyday objects like the ATM embody a deeper meaning for individuals and communities. Photographing this subject, I needed to adjust my approaches to, and expectations of, investigation. I found flexibility to be integral, particularly in my approach to how, when, and where I would shoot the ATM. The adaptive ability required me to pivot on the range of material I was photographing depending on what my experiential research revealed. One such example was extending the time of day when I’d capture the ATM beyond just a daytime setting to all times of the day. Shooting the ATM at different times revealed novel social behaviors and physical interactions around the machine and also evoked engaging aesthetic perspectives in the photographs themselves. Through this adaptive process and methodology, I learned how everyday objects might be interpreted in dramatically different ways, from their functional design to how people interact with them in unforeseen ways, based on the social positionality of the user-observer. The discrepancy between the intentionality of the object’s design versus a community’s and individual’s embodied and emplaced use of them reveals valuable insights regarding the political and economic systems that shape our institutions. I believe it’s up to us, as researchers, designers, and technologists, to ask ourselves questions about the micro experiences of everyday objects and how they produce our macro contexts.

A luminous ATM artifact captured on Metropolitan Avenue at night radiates through the pitch-black setting. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

A Notated Conversation with Shannon Mattern

Jason: This assignment grew out of the design-justice ethnography midterm, and from that grew into this slightly larger scope. Could you maybe talk a bit about this midterm project?

Shannon: Sure! Because a course called Anthropology & Design cultivates an expectation that we’ll engage in some creative, hands-on work, I wanted to give everyone an opportunity, early in the semester, to do a short-term ethnographic exercise. I developed this assignment for fall 2020—our first fully online semester, which followed immediately after a summer of unrest—and sought to be respectful of the fact that various students would be more or less comfortable without outdoor exploration. So, I aimed to create a framework that would work in myriad environments—physical and virtual, public and private—that would permit both self- and other-directed application and would critically guide, and offer a political purpose for, students’ observation. Sasha Costanza-Chock’s Design Justice had been published shortly before, and it seemed a perfect framework for the context—one that would encourage students to acknowledge where justice, injustice, inclusion, exclusion, accessibility, and inaccessibility are manifested in their everyday lives, everywhere from social media to the street corner. You chose to focus on a hybrid site: the ATM—a private virtual interface that manifests materially, even architecturally, in public space.

Then, you expanded your design-justice ethnography for your final project, which required you to develop a rationale for visiting and comparing multiple neighborhoods as part of a multisited ethnography. The ATM is such a quotidian interface that most folks might not even regard it as a product of “design.” But it is: it’s where interface design and user experience design, service design, product or industrial design, and architecture converge. And that point of convergence mediates a critical dimension of people’s economic lives: access to money.

Jason: I just remember when that project was assigned, I, who came to the class with a background in software engineering, was a bit stressed about the object I’d choose. I recognized that it would require me to think about objects through this whole new critical lens.[1] There was a certain mindfulness that came with the investigative portion of the project, which I found pretty liberating. From an engineering or design perspective, the ATM might seem rather low-fi—the device simply dispenses cash from a robust internal container. Upon my design research and photojournalist journey, I began to notice how people craft their own worlds around these objects, and how the built world, individuals, and subcommunities encroach on and surround them. Nestled in these objects, I found plants and stickers and signage, examples of community embodiment, which felt like a way for the community to stake some kind of self-ownership over these standardized corporate machines. The midterm prompt also allowed me to view the ATM through this lens of inclusion and exclusion through the notion of community embodiment.

Paper ATM advertisements displayed at a neighborhood grocer comically expose the reliance on digital finance with physical signage. Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: Yes—there’s a social depth to this interface. And your photos demonstrate how justice and injustice are manifested in the multiple design decisions that result in an ATM’s existence. First, we have the logistical decisions that banks and credit unions and local shops make to determine the “geography” of ATM distribution—or, how to deploy these machines throughout an environment, depending upon its demographics and economic activity and traffic patterns and countless other considerations. These decisions—which determine access to financial activity—shape economic justice, as Lisa Servon explores in her research on “unbanking.” Then there’s also the design of the interface, the physical design of the object, the design of the software and hardware that connect them to a networked financial system—and the protocols that allow for financial activity. Your object was well chosen in that it allowed us to see how these multiple dimensions of design converge in this object—and that many of these objects then take on distinct social lives within their communities.

Jason: Yeah—then this work by Lisa Servon has an additional level of criticality through its discussion of Glass-Steagall legislation and banks’ predatory practices. Especially when we look at fees, particularly during the pandemic, we see this increasing reliance on the ATM when it comes to unemployment compensation—three- to four-hour lines at the one ATM in the city that doesn’t charge the high fees. You see this renewed reliance on an archaic object that’s losing significance today.[2]

Shannon: Significance in certain communities.

Jason: Yes. I’d go to coffee shops that, technically, legally have to accept cash, although they say that payment is accepted only via card or Apple Pay. Given the rise of electronic payments, what will become of the ATM in, say, ten years?

A red, box-shaped ATM nudged between two residences bestows the creativity of the physical placement of these devices, as well as the design statement that it can bring to a residence. Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: Right. And your photos capture how these vitally important social and economic dynamics are playing out around these humble objects—through the decoration or personalization of the machines and through the formation of lines of people, often, especially those working within marginal economies, queuing up to use them.

Jason: I think there’s a phrase we used last semester: ATMs are an object of contradiction.[3] We talked a bit about ATM vestibules becoming sites where we have to grapple with homelessness as well. Also, it is a point of shelter with intimate spaces—definitely another interesting point of contrast there.

Juxtaposing a discreetly placed ATM within a business with corporate imagery reflecting on the nearby window to evoke questions of corporate and financial fraternizing. Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York.

Shannon: Now that we’re focusing on the physical spaces ATMs occupy, I think we could talk a bit more about some of the methodological choices you made—especially regarding how to structure your fieldwork. I know you made some sampling choices in terms of where to go and what to focus on.

Jason: Yeah—I remember one of those design choices was whether I should stick to one place throughout different times of the day. I arrived at a different decision because of my innate preferences when it comes to photojournalism—the exploratory feel of going to different neighborhoods and even finding different ATM sites was its own journey. Sometimes I’d walk around a neighborhood, identify an ATM, and revisit it later. You learn a bit about a neighborhood and an object through an anthropological lens[4] while uncovering scenes of a neighborhood. 

An eye-catching shielded ATM exposed on a relatively bleak, white background bestows vibrant graffiti. East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: Could you share a case where you returned to an ATM multiple times and learned more about its social life?

Jason: An experience in Chinatown, while dining at a cash-only restaurant, sparked a crisis around an ATM. I panicked since I didn’t have cash at the time, so I ran to find an ATM. The first two or three ATMs were sort of empty, archaic objects, literally with their guts ripped out, and all of their mechanics empty like shrines. Finally, in this panicked mode, I found a Bank of America ATM site, with a door, of course, that you needed a BoA card to get in (which I didn’t have). I sneaked behind a cardholder to get in. The contrast between those two ATMs—the ones that were almost shrines versus these corporate objects. That was a site I later returned to in Chinatown; there’s this whole life of an ATM[5] in that neighborhood that I found fascinating. There are these iconic blue-boxy ATMs that you don’t find anywhere else, and, of course, the signage is particular to the neighborhood as well.

An iconic box-blue ATM nestled behind a window with the text “Noodle Village”. Chinatown, Manhattan, New York.

So that was one instance, and then another example was at Oslo Coffee at Williamsburg. I spoke with the owner about his ATM,[6] which was out of use. I came back twice, and he lived up to his promise and opened up his ATM for me, proudly showing me this ATM and its insides, including the router. You know, the inside is hidden from you; you can’t access it, but it’s fascinating seeing the inside. And he was so proud of this ATM, going on about how much money it generated for him and how it was a valuable aesthetic for his coffee shop as well.

Oslo coffee store owner opens up his outmoded ATM to investigate the inside gadgetry. South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: I loved how you used the term “shrine.” I wonder if you could speak more on how this object is, in many contexts, no longer serving the function it was engineered to serve—it’s not dispensing money anymore—but it’s taken on a new cultural purpose? What about it makes it feel shrine-like to you?

Jason: I think there are two elements. The first is that the object itself, as you mentioned, isn’t functional. Why is it even there? Is it just a relic of the past, or is there this promise that it might perhaps function again? Moreover, what was the story behind it? Who was taking out money from it? Who owned it?[7] And there’s also this animistic quality to them, where they look kind of like a face.

Then walking into bodegas and finding ATMs there. A lot of store owners are particular about their ATMs. I should’ve asked beforehand but didn’t before taking a photo of one, leading to me getting yelled at. I think that’s pretty insightful—the bodega owner mentioned how the ATM is private property. Going back to the coffee shop example, there are in fact many possessive qualities to them. Moreover, referring back to the “shrine” term, I think these objects fit into larger contexts of money in our world today. To me, the ATM is sort of a shrine to cash, which is decreasing in use today, as we rely more and more of these digital technologies to facilitate our transactions. In that way, just as the Blackberry might be a shrine to old ways of texting, the ATM might be a shrine to old ways of transacting. 

A bodega’s overflowing chip selection camouflages its ATM within the interior. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: Well maybe it’s a kind of memorial as well of a past economy, or a material economy?

Jason: Yeah, I think something that my mind goes to when you say that is how capitalism is the lifeblood of American society. You could say that the way that money moves and our economy is a religion in itself. And then it’s like, if that’s a religion, then the ATM is sort of an object of that.

Full of community-driven decorations, ranging from branches to stickers, this non-functional ATM has taken on a new life and purpose. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

Shannon: I mean that’s a pretty interesting contradiction. A city like New York is stuffed with all these manifestations of capitalism. Consider the skyscrapers of the Financial District; we’re supposed to be impressed by their feats of engineering, by the sublime physical spaces that capitalism can build for us. But then, on a more quotidian level, we have our everyday shrines, the things that allow us to plug into the inaccessible systems inhabiting those skyscrapers. A shrine of a different scale maybe.

Shot at dawn with a meticulously placed leaf on top, we can question the ‘normalcy’ of ATMs. This ATM both serves its technical purpose and purports an artistic statement. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

References Cited

Alabi, Ken. 2017. “Digital Blockchain Networks Appear to Be Following Metcalfe's Law.” Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 24:23–29. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1567422317300480.

Bik, Holly M., et al. 2016. “Microbial Community Patterns Associated with Automated Teller Machine Keypads in New York City.” MSphere 1 (6). https://doi.org/10.1128/msphere.00226-16.

Brown, Dalvin. 2020. “Minorities Spend More on Banking Fees than White People, Survey Says.” USA Today, January 16. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/15/bank-fees-minorities-millennials-pay-more-than-anyone-else/4465861002/.

Bátiz-Lazo, Bernardo. 2009. “Emergence and Evolution of ATM Networks in the UK, 1967–2000.” Business History 51 (1): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076790802602164.

Curran, Kevin, and David King. 2008. “Investigating the Human-Computer Interaction Problems with Automated Teller Machine Navigation Menus.” Interactive Technology and Smart Education 5 (1). https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17415650810871583/full/html.

Lin, Daw-Tung, and Ming-Ju Liu. 2006. “Face Occlusion Detection for Automated Teller Machine Surveillance.” Advances in Image and Video Technology 2006:641–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/11949534_64.

Mcandrews, James J. 2003. “Automated Teller Machine Network Pricing—a Review of the Literature.” Review of Network Economics 2 (2): 146–58. https://doi.org/10.2202/1446-9022.1023.

The National Coalition for the Homeless and The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. 2006. A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the U.S. https://nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport/report.pdf.

The New York Times. 1990. “Banks Try to Oust Homeless from Their Lobbies.” The New York Times, May 29. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/29/nyregion/banks-try-to-oust-homeless-from-their-lobbies.html.

 
Notes

[1] The journalistic process required not only different physical locations to study the ATM but different times of day and different approaches to shooting (interview vs discreet). Each photograph contains a snippet into the image’s micro and macro anthropological significance. Accompanying groups of photos with supplementary text snippets, I provide a bit more contextual background on the photographs, while also allowing people to interpret the photographs on their own. Moreover, the ATM mediates the digital and the physical world, which I wanted to reflect on in the choice of film photography and virtual installation as a medium.

[2] In an increasingly digital world, cash maintains a critical, however fleeting monetary niche. Today, 92 percent of money is digital; nonetheless, restaurants in New York City must maintain the ability to accept cash as a form of payment. The ATM acts as a sort of funnel into cash-only transactions. ATMs are run by the private sector, typically meaning there’s some economic incentive for companies (usually banks and financial institutions) to install them. How are these ATMs profitable, and is brand awareness enough for banks to invest in them (Mcandrews 2003)? Moreover, how do fees function within this notion of profitability, and what social and economic impact do fee structures have on the people paying them (Bátiz-Lazo 2008)? Some research shows that socioeconomic status can directly impact how much someone pays in ATM fees (Brown 2020).

[3] Perhaps it could be insightful to think of the ATM as a public good, rather than a profitable product for extracting cash—the same resource that the ATM holds. Thinking of the ATM through the lens of a public good introduces another range of potential research questions—one of which is the use of the ATM space as a shelter for the unhoused.

[4] The ATM acts as a keyhole to the many anthropological factors that drive people’s relationships with money. We can look toward Lilly Irani’s work in Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India to grasp how anthropological methods might be deployed throughout the design process for technological innovations. Irani notes the significance for designers to label “thoughtless” everyday practices to add a dimension of criticality in learning to see the world. She notes how “Thoughtless Acts encourages designers to ‘notice and document their habits, workarounds, and unspoken rules.’ To designers, these are the habits and accidents that social beings are made of—the very stuff of culture.” I applied this method of documentation to the ATM through a photojournalist observational framework.

[5] ATM sites exhibited signage indicative of their environment, including the businesses that they were placed in. Bodegas, for example, nestled their ATMs among a barrage of chips and cleaning supplies, whereas outdoor ATMs in a trendy area might employ branches and graffiti as a decorative marker of the object. Banks, on the other hand, exhibited a sharp and brutalist approach to ATM design, promoting inaccessible environments with locked, closed entryways and a sharp, sleek physical interface. I found the variance in the environment hosting ATMs to be indicative of the ownership and relationship that we hold with the technological object.

[6] In documenting the ATM, the following questions guided my photojournalistic exploration, prying into the object’s design factors and how they might relate to the larger issues at stake:

1.    How does the ATM act as a sort of gateway, and mesh network, for the world of cash-mediated economic exchange?

2.    What design insights can be garnered from generating fieldnotes on using the ATM, both from personal use as well as observing others? How can points of frustration throughout the interaction process be alleviated, and to what benefit?

3.    Can the ATM be viewed as animistic? What humanist qualities can be abstracted from the ATM, and why?

Employing these research questions in my choice of sampling method, I chose several neighborhoods and ATM sites that depict varied use of the ATM on multiple contextual levels. I interviewed one store owner, for example, on the frustrations, benefits, and connection with their store ATM. As a user of the ATM, you are intentionally displaced and removed from the internals of the machine. The inner workings of the object, like the internal router or the receipt holder, were very technically difficult to replace and fix. Nonetheless, this store owner was extremely proud of their ATM, boasting this ATM’s profitability for the business. While this relationship with an ATM felt highly personal, and the design of the ATM reflected this attitude, a corporate or abandoned ATM might appear completely different.

[7] Through a research-driven and photojournalist approach to these issues and larger debates, I hope to create a pressing and introspective statement about the ATM today, as well as some historical insight into this machine. As cash becomes more and more obsolete through the exponential growth of financial assets through digital networks, as outlined by Metcalfe’s law (Curran and King 2008), how can the ATM be a historic marker, or even a relic, of how our society operates today, how it was in the past, and how it might be in the future.