Waiting room No. 2
/ 2023
Multimedia Installation
Thermal printers, dot matrix printer, queue stands, 600 x400 cm stage and waiting room
Video: Juan Bermudez
Places like train stations and bureaucratic offices, designed for efficiency, also create moments of stagnation, where individuals had to synchronize their time to an idealized, abstract standard. This creates a new form of "systemic waiting" that can be predicted, measured, and controlled.
Just as liquids conform to the vessel that contains them, time is shaped by the social, technological, and political factors of a specific era. The six printers in this artwork tirelessly produce five distinct definitions of units of time. From the precision of our current concept of a second to the rhythm of a Sanskrit treatise in Indian astronomy, the "moment" as conceived by medieval monks, or the nanocentury devised by IBM at the dawn of the computer age.
The emergence of a new definition of a second makes us consider how we wish to define our future units of time. Will an abstract measure, like the hexadecimal minute or other proposals, be relevant for a future where humans might not even exist or inhabit Earth?
Waiting room No. 2
