Fauxliage documents the proliferation of disguised cell phone towers in the American West. By attempting to conceal an unsightly yet essential technology of the modern world, our landscapes are now sown with a quirky and unsettling mosaic of masquerading palms, evergreens, flagpoles, crosses, cacti, and more.
But the towers are simulacra. They are water towers that hold no water, windmills that provide no power, and trees that provide no oxygen; yet they all provide five bars of service. Beneath their often-whimsical camouflage lies a deeper narrative of surveillance capitalism, where big tech and government entities commodify our every digital interaction. The environmental repercussions are equally concerning: the aging faux trees shed plastic needles, adding to the ecological toll of our digital age. What started as an attempt to reduce visual pollution is now creating plastic pollution.
I traveled to ten western U.S. states to photograph the variety of concealments. The towers pose the question: how much of an ersatz landscape and manufactured nature are we willing to accept in exchange for connectivity?
As fifth-generation (5G) technology advances, these elaborate towers may become architectural remnants of the past, and fade into obscurity like drive-up photo kiosks, phone booths, newsstands, and drive-in movie theaters. Coincidentally, those functionalities are now seamlessly integrated into our handheld devices, a poignant reminder of the evolution of the technological landscape.
About Annette LeMay Burke
Annette LeMay Burke is an award-winning American photographic artist and Northern California native who resides in the heart of Silicon Valley. Her work explores the evolving western U.S. landscape and its connections to human experience. Through her lens, Burke captures the subtle yet powerful changes in our environment over time, uncovering the tangible and ephemeral traces left behind. Her work delves into the metaphorical clues embedded in landscapes, reflecting both her personal ties to the West and the pervasive influence of technology on our interconnected world. Burke holds a BA in Geology from the University of California, Berkeley, and following a successful decade in high-tech, she now focuses on her artistic practice.
Burke’s images were selected for LensCulture Critics’ Choice 2022 and 2024. In 2023, Burke was a finalist for the UK’s Earth Photo competition and exhibited at London’s Royal Geographical Society and multiple Forestry England sites; she was named the International Runner-Up for the Australian Geographic Environmental Award at the Head On Photo Festival and exhibited along the Bondi Beach Promenade in Sydney; and she was a finalist in the Hellerau Portrait Photography Award in Dresden, Germany. Her work was selected as a winner of Photolucida’s 2022 Critical Mass Top 50. In 2021, she was awarded first place in the Lenscratch Vernacular Photography Exhibition, won the Imago Lisboa Photography Festival in Portugal, and was a semi-finalist for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today in Washington DC.
Burke’s work is exhibited widely throughout the US and internationally at institutions such as Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Candela Gallery in Virginia, Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Oceanside Museum of Art in California, Museum of Nature in Cantabria, Spain, and Association of Photographers in London.
Her images have been featured in The New York Times, L.A. Times, The Times (London), Hyperallergic, Sierra Club Magazine, Newsweek Japan, Elle Decor Italy, Fraction, All About Photo Magazine, KATALOG, Dezeen, EXIT Image and Culture, The Riv Magazine and the Daily Mail. Her prints are held in public and private collections, and her book is included in over 45 libraries worldwide.
Burke’s monograph, Fauxliage: Disguised Cell Phone Towers of the American West, was published by Daylight Books in 2021. Ann M. Jastrab, Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California, contributed the forward. [Official Website]
