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Heinrich Holtgreve —
Once We All Agree: Part 2

Storing and preserving money

People want to protect their property. This need is a private as much as a professional need. Solutions range from piggy banks to safes to modern bank data centers where immaterial money is “stored”.

In the Middle Ages, piggy banks were made of clay. Over time, the Middle English word for ‘clay’ — Pygg — and ‘pig’ phonetically converged, so that piggy bank can in fact be attributed to a pun.
Immaterial money — an umbrella term for money that does not manifest physically. At modern banks' computing centers, only a handful of IT specialists have access. The highest security measures prevail: fingerprint and iris scans, transponder cards. On the way to the server rooms at Deutsche Bank’s computing centre in Frankfurt, there is one final physical security hurdle: a locked cage door.
The perforated surface of the server cabinets favor security and air flow to the detriment of visibility.
The majority of trade takes place digitally. Even card terminals at supermarkets and cash points at bank branches transmit information via the internet. At Deutsche Telekom’s network control room in Bonn, the functioning of the entire domestic network infrastructure is monitored.
At Deutsche Telekom’s Cyber Defense Center in Bonn, virtual attacks on network infrastructure are analyzed.
Heavyweight antique and modern safes are piled up to the ceiling in a merchant’s shop in the Upper Harz.
The inner workings of an antique safe door.
The inner workings of a modern safe door.
One of the world's most-viewed images bears the title “Bliss” — depicting a green meadow against a blue sky with fleecy clouds. The image described is the desktop wallpaper of the Windows XP operating system. It was taken in California, in 1966, by US photographer Charles O’Rear. The safes in front of a depot in the Upper Harz remain unfazed by it all.
Job production at Deutsche Telekom’s Cyber Defense Center in Bonn seems well-considered.
Using a tag cloud, employees can trace which passwords are particularly popular with hackers in real-time.
Keys — pioneers to passwords.
The cat-and-mouse game of banks and hackers has its precursor in safes, deposit boxes and bandits.
Capital recorded in written form, in a rigid grid, in a bankbook from the 1950s belonging to the Rhein-Main Bank.
Immaterial money is stored on hard drives in a strict grid at a bank computing center.
Servers are plugged into switches — devices where threads converge — in order to distribute data between them.
Server racks in banking computing systems are categorized into cool and hot aisles. The former provide cool air which then passes through the servers’ processors and hard drives. The air carts away the heat before being blown out into the hot aisles.
A view of a server rack in a cool aisle. An acrylic cage ensures the cold is conserved.
The most efficient way to preserve antique safes is to line them up — however, without power supply or air conditioning.
Engineers made use of camouflage to secure money. This wardrobe is a safe. Its heavy weight and steel inner-workings are concealed by a painted-on wood veneer.
Traces of human presence at a bank computing center.

Heinrich Holtgreve — Once We All Agree

Heinrich Holtgreve uses his camera to visualise money in all its manifestations. He has travelled throughout Germany, seeking out places where money can be found: banks, museums, printers, tax offices, stock markets, fintech companies and even a Bitcoin mine. The idea of assigning value to things has always been a feat of abstract thinking. Holtgreve tries to retrace its development, from primitive practices to coins and paper money, all the way to electronic money. How has the relationship between immaterial and material value changed money? And, how does this transformation influence our lives? With his project, “Once We All Agree”, Holtgreve wants to provide food for thought regarding our relationship with money.

Heinrich Holtgreve has been part of the OSTKREUZ Agency since 2016 and photographs for renowned editors, publishers and agencies nationally and internationally. He lives and works in Hamburg.

Related series

Heinrich Holtgreve — Once We All Agree: Part 1

Heinrich Holtgreve — Once We All Agree: Part 3

Heinrich Holtgreve — Once We All Agree: Part 4

Heinrich Holtgreve — Once We All Agree: Part 5