Essay: No Date

We first need to talk about exactitudes. Exactitudes is the title of a decades-long photographic project by the Dutch artist duo Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek. Since the 1990s, Versluis and Uyttenbroek have been photographing people in identical poses against neutral backgrounds and grouping them into cohorts of late-modern society according to specific phenotypical similarities: corporate lawyers, gabbers, fit girls. For example.

The phenomenon that Versluis and Uyttenbroek call “exactitudes” reflects a paradoxical pattern: people who believe that their appearance and demeanor express individuality and nonconformity are easily confused with one another within their own milieu. In other words: all fit girls look more or less the same. Just like all corporate lawyers. People adopt visual codes to signal belonging, and our era is – regrettably – deeply in need of belonging, which is trivially assumed to be the solution to a wide range of identity problems.

Exactitudes is a kind of visual anthropology of identity and self-expression, subcultures and fashion cycles. Clearly, it is nothing new that the declared pursuit of individuality produces visible conformity. Today this is oddly called “living one’s truth”, complete with the involuntary irony that is itself a sign of the times. But essentially, none of this is new. At its core, it is simply the dynamic of fashion as such, which, as the sociologist Georg Simmel recognized more than a hundred years ago, forever oscillates between imitation and differentiation, between the collective and the individual.

Simmel was an unconventional academic thinker, ahead of his time and above all intellectual trends – but of course there are fashions of the mind as well. Visual uniformity is one thing, but it never stops there. There are also the mental templates of the group, thinking in clichés and conventions, already identified by the equally unconventional Hannah Arendt as a form of unthinking thought. And that brings me to Rolex.

Wonderful status noise

A Rolex is a wristwatch and, as such, first and foremost an object. It is astonishing – and remarkable – how many pre-agreed worldviews have become attached to this object. And have been for ages. It is almost reflexive. Especially in circles that consider themselves enlightened and progressive. “Rolex wearer” is still a synonym in these milieus for something like status-hungry neoliberals – whatever that is supposed to mean these days. Presumably: assholes.

A person who wears a Rolex, to some people, is apparently labeling himself. I’ve worn one for what seems like forever. A no-date Submariner. I wear it all the time. Except at the beach. Or at home. In those places, I never wear a watch. Which is why my Submariner has no date – otherwise I would constantly have to reset it after lying on the sofa for days, watching everything there is to know about the life of Diane von Fürstenberg on Disney Plus.

If you think about it more carefully, beyond simplistic clichés, a Rolex is a phenomenon unlike almost any other object today, for three reasons. First, we live in an era in which the consumption and ownership of things is moralized and burdened with the need for justification more than at any other point in the history of civilization. Second – and this cannot be denied – a Rolex is a priori strongly coded, since acquiring one involves considerable effort (not only in terms of price, but also due to a curated scarcity of supply). And third, it is extremely visible and recognizable, undeniably a symbol – that too is beyond dispute. The only question is: what exactly does it symbolize? What social position is being marked here?

Rolex wearers are diverse. Rolex as a brand, sponsor and mentor cultivates all kinds of narratives: from the deep sea to Everest, from motor racing to classical music. Tennis, film, yachting, literature, golf, fine art, equestrian sport. What do all these stories have in common? (…)

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