Waiting for Lost Things

Waiting for Lost Things Malin Bergman - Support Structures - Studio 8 - KTH 2018

Time, Waiting, Maintenance & Lost Things The narrative that unfolds before you is tied to the theme of time. It travels through the maintenance system for lost things and pauses in the waiting rooms of the public transportation system.

The project is a mixture of realism and fiction. Through mapping and a series of design proposals the support structure for lost things is created.

With the rhythmic rattle and singing tracks came standardised time. Mankind came to measure the movement of neutrons, linking atomic clocks together to unite us under two ticking hands. Time and its devices became a support structure for infrastructure.

Network Time Protocol

NTP

NTP is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols in current use. NTP was designed by David L. Mills of the University of Delaware.

12:18

TAI

International Atomic Time

The first atomic clock was conctructed in 1949 at the the U.S. National Bureau of Standards.

- International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)

The UTC scale is adjusted by the insertion of leap seconds to ensure approximate agreement with the time derived from the rotation of the Earth.

These leap seconds are inserted on the advice of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS).

UTC

Coordinated Universal Time

Westerstrands urfabrik in Töreboda provides SL with clocks.

”A practical scale of time for world-wide use has two essential elements: a realization of the unit of time and a continuous temporal reference. The reference used is International Atomic Time (TAI), a time scale calculated at the BIPM using data from some two hundred atomic clocks in over fifty national laboratories.”

- International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)

Infrastructure of Time

The elements of stadardised time as a support structure for infrastructure

At an endstation along the red line a worker moves to the choreography of infrastructure and time. The train comes to a halt. A wave of people sweeps through the station. The driver walks from one end to the other. In the middle of this performance the maintenance worker moves systematically through the train, collecting traces of the commuter. A voice echoes through the speakers, counting down to departure.

Train driver

Maintenance worker

Choreography of Maintenance

Repetitive movement of maintenance at the endstations of the metro system

MĂśrby centrum

Ropsten

Fruängen

Norsborg

Endstations of the Red Line

Fruängen

Mörby centrum

Norsborg

Ropsten

Office as a Waiting Room

Mapping of the maintenance worker’s office at the endstations of the red line

The maintenance worker is tied to the infrastructure of time. The timetable frames each session of labour, but within the structures of time gaps emerge and the act of waiting becomes labour. The waiting room becomes the scenography for this performance.

Maintenance & waiting

Office of the maintenance worker Norsborg metro station

During these few minutes of still labour the worker is allowed to reclaim time. �I think about life�, Khalifa answers when asked about the act of waiting. He sits in his office, his waiting room. Outside the window the digital sign is counting down to the next departure.

Conversation with Khalifa in his office at Norsborg metro station.

K: When the next train comes you can follow me on the train while I work. I’ll give you a task. You can help me look for trash.

M: Can I wait here with you?

K: Sure, come in.

M: How long have you been working for MTR? K: I’ve been working with them for six years. I started out at Kungsträdgården, cleaning trains with a jet washer. Then I had an injury while working in Gamla stan so they moved me here. Before that I used to work at Arlanda. The presence of the planes was very nice, seeing them depart and arrive.

M: So you have been working with infrastructure for a long time. Which station is your favourite metro station?

K: My favourite station is Kungsträdgården.

M: Why? K: It’s very nice. There are a lot of tourists at the station.

M: Do you live near by?

K: No. I live in Akalla. I travel 1 hour and 10 minutes every day to get to Norsborg.

M: What do you do while you wait?

K: I think about life.

Khalifa

Dialogue with maintenance worker Norsborg metro station

”Train to Ropsten departs in eight minutes.”

A voice announces the arrival of lost things. Khalifa rises from his seat and pushes the rattling wagon towards the train. Newspaper, sweater, wallet, goldfish, crutch, phone, candy wrap. The grabber moves from side to side.

Collecting the forgotten fragments that rest on the seats in the leftover warmth of the commuter. ”Train to Ropsten departs in four minutes.”

Arrival of Lost Things

A voice echoes through the speakers onto the platform, announcing the arrival of lost things.

For each session of labour the Hourglass of Lost Things slowly fills up. Measuring time through the act of maintenance and the collection of lost things. Visualising a support structure of the public transportation system.

Creating a space for the lost things while waiting to be carried onwards in search of their owner.

Hourglass of Lost Things

The collection and storing of lost things as a measurement of time and labour

A train arrives in the stillness of the night. The Hourglass is emptied and the items are rolled onto the train. It takes off into the darkness of the tunnels, moving from endstation to endstation. In one of the wagons a table has been set up.

In silence the workers are systematically and meditatively counting and sorting the lost items.

Sweater Wallet Bag

IIII IIII II IIII IIII IIII I II

The train reaches its final destination, SL’s Lost & Found Center. The neatly sorted items are carried into another waiting room, a storage. Eagerly waiting for their owners.

Counting the Lost Things

Transportation of items to SL’s Lost & Found Center Marina Abramovic - Counting the Rice

T-centralen T

SL Lost & Found Center

SL’s Lost & Found Center Klara östra kyrkogata 6

Waiting room for Lost Things

Storage room at SL’s Lost & Found Center Klara östra kyrkogata 6

Time thickens as the commuter’s tense body sinks into the saggy sofa, worn down by the weight of thousands of waiting bodies. 54. The commuter strokes the padding.

The surface is rough from being mangled by numbers of impatient hands. 56. The mind wanders off to all things that have been forgotten or lost. Things that have been left at trains or devoured by moving boxes. 59.

Keys and umbrellas Hats, scarves and gloves Other When entering each person is categorised by the item that they have lost. The space is filled with people repetitively eying their notes and throwing glances at the number sign. 63. The commuter rises from its daydream and walks towards the counter, hoping for a reunion.

Waiting for Lost Things

Waiting room at SL’s Lost & Found Center Klara Üstra kyrkogata 6

Like a tide the shelves are being emptied and stocked up.

The commuters sweep through the storage, collecting their lost things. But some objects rest like rocks in moving water, never retrieved. The ones who are lost forever are packed up and once again moved to the Endstation for Lost Things.

Towards the Endstation for Lost Things

Items that are forever lost are after three months of waiting transported to the Archive of Lost Things

The Endstation for Lost Things lies within Hรถgdalstoppen, a manmade hill constructed out of debris. A sculpture of lost fragments of Stockholm. A series of domes has been dug out of the mountain to give room for the support structure for lost things. It consists of a hidden archive which stores the items who are forever lost. The space is filled with mechanical creeks from the grabber that are systematically sorting the objects onto the shelves. All of these items trace back to the human presence within the public transportation system, where each objects ties together the narrative of the commuter. The archive connects to a small factory equipped with an art machine where the lost things reach their final destination.

Högdalen T Högdalsdepån

Maintenance tracks Hökarängen T

Högdalstopparna

Endstation for Lost Things

Endstation for Lost Things

Situated inside Högdalstoppen that connects to the maintenance hall, Högdalsdepån

Högdalstoppen is situated south of Stockholm and consists of three manmade hills next to Högdalen’s industrial area.

The hills were constructed out of debris between late 1950s and early 2000s.

Högdalstoppen 2 is the highest point in Stockholm with its 102 meters above sea level.

Högdalstoppen

A manmade hill. A sculpture of lost fragments of Stockholm

Högdalsdepån Maintenance hall

Högdalsdepån is situated at the foot of Högdalstoppen and serves the metro system of Stockholm. It provides a space for storage as well as maintenance for the trains. The depot is to be developed as a step of the extension of the metro system.

Högdalsdepån

Large scale maintenance. The endstation for the trains of the metro system

The Endstation for Lost Things

At the Endstation for Lost Things the forgotten objects of the commuter are transformed into sculptures. Through the Art Machine the fragments are molded into an object frozen in time. Creating a collective memory of the commuters and visualising the support structure for lost things. They are placed at the metro stations as a part of the public art, as a memorial and narrative of all the things that were lost in time.

Anton AlvarĂŠz - Ceramic machine Ylva Wilhelmina FranzĂŠn - Hulk Hogen

The Art Machine

A factory for the making of sculptures of lost things. The final destination for the objects.

Anton AlvarĂŠz - Ceramic machine Ylva Wilhelmina FranzĂŠn - Hulk Hogen

Production

The lost things are molded into a sculpture and creates an object frozen in time.

Anton AlvarĂŠz - Ceramic machine Ylva Wilhelmina FranzĂŠn - Hulk Hogen

Sculpture of Lost Things

The sculpture becomes a part of the public art at the metro stations. A collective memory of the commuters.

Reference List Articles Bishop, Peter. 2013. “Surveying ’The Waiting Room’” Architectural Theory Review, 18:2, 135-149.

Dissertations Karami, Sepideh. 2018. “Interruption - Writing a Dissident Architecture” PhD diss., KTH School of Architecture and Built Environment.

Art work Abramovic, Marina. 2015. ”Counting the Rice” [Performance] Tasmania: MONA. Alvarez, Anton. 2017-2018. Selected works [Ceramics] Franzén, Ylva Wilhelmina. n.d. ”Hulk Hogen” [Ceramics]

Marina Abramovic

Counting the Rice Performed at MONA June 10, 2015–October 13, 2015

Extractions from readings Peter Bishop Surveying ”The Waiting Room”

”In formally designated waiting rooms, there are usually ’cues’ (posters, message boards, advertisements, pamphlets, seating arrange- ments, and so on) that try to create a pedagogical or performance space in order to orchestrate the various possible moves, shifts of identity, and the performances or performativity of waiting.”

- Peter Bishop p. 139

”Austerlitz reinforces the fact that waiting and waiting zones do not have to be experienced passively, but can be engaged with, dynamically, reflexively, and critically. This moves waiting from a seemingly banal activity towards a form of active engagement with the architecture of time – space.”

- Peter Bishop p. 143

Anton Alvarez

Selected works, 2017-2018 Coloured porcelain

Extractions from readings Sepideh Karami Interruption - Writing a Dissident Architecture

�In the story of active waiting, the one who waits is the one who transforms the time and pushes it out of passivity.�

- Sepideh Karami p. 136-137 The restricting design of waiting rooms aims to prevent unexpected happenings that the duration of waiting might trigger, and that could as a result disturb the programme of the space.

The restriction and control of waiting spaces and waiting behaviours by those in power manifests the subversive potential in the act of waiting. Although this potential depends on situation and context, to some extent waiting always has potential to produce chance encounters, disruptive acts or chaotic events.

- Sepideh Karami p. 137-138

Ylva Wilhelmina FranzĂŠn

Hulk Hogen Casted and modelled stoneware 10x10x15 cm