EWA airport, terminal B, boarding gate 46

 

 

potlatch.doc <printed matter for waiting rooms>

Book 64 pages, full-colour, 240 x 290 mm, ISBN 2-9515349-1-4, 1st run 2001, 2nd run 2002

Free distribution on-going

potlatch.doc is a book specifically designed for waiting rooms. Following the visual paradigm of loss and exploring related issues through a diverse imagery (advertisement, photo-journalism, snapshot, illustration, children books, archive...), it unravels as a re-reading of an encyclopedic imagery of loss, in a waiting situation ironically considered as a potlatch, a waste, an unproductive expense.

The book is being given out for free to waiting rooms, in public institutions or in the private sector, as well as any other space where waiting is involved. The aim is to reach any waiting room equipped with a coffe table - and beyond, a random and untargeted readership that only the situation defines. Thus in a given city, where potlatch.doc is available in several waiting rooms, a basic map of boredom appears.

So far, potlatch.doc is available in public buildings, airports and airplanes, train stations and trains, bus stops, unemployment agencies, hospitals, doctors practices, beauty saloons, laundrettes, public benches, shops, notaries, gas stations, embassies, banks, post offices, insurance companies in Paris, Orleans, Nantes, Verdun, Nancy, Salzburg, Linz, Vienna, Mariazell, Innsbruck, Zurndorf, Verona, Hamburg, Goettingen, Kassel, Vallorbe, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Cape Town and New York. And more soon.

This mode of distribution seeks to connect the content of the publication with the context of reading and provides us with an alternative strategy to market-driven book-selling by emphasizing loss as a positive factor. Similar to the actual potlatch where wealth is created through destruction, potlatch.doc aims at turning a loss of time into a gain of awareness, in the context of a post-industrial society where leisure and newly discovered free-time open up new fields of reflexion.

 

 

 

Hall principal, Gare St-Lazare, F - 75008 Paris

 

Flight Gandalf Airlines 311, CDG-VRN

 

Fermata, Piazza C. Alberto, I ­ 37010 Pastrengo (VR)

 

Voiture 2 (1e classe), TGV 8822, Nantes-Paris

 

AMS airport, Schiphol Plazza

 

Treppenhaus, Berggasse 19, A-1090 Wien

 

Pausenraum, Bestattung Wien GmbH, Goldegggasse 19, A-1040 Wien

 

HEL airport, departure hall 3, check-in area

 

De Tweede Kammer coffeeshop, Heisteeg 6, NL- 1012WC Amsterdam

 

Allgemeines KrankenHaus, A-1090 Wien

 

Let's face It, house of health and beauty, 72 Upper Mill Street, Cape Town 8001, SA

 

Avant Premiere Coiffure Mixte, 6 rue Paul Bellamy, F - 44000 Nantes

 

Pamukkale Imbiss, Werner-Hilpe-Strasse, D-34117 Kassel

 

U-Bahnhof Baumwall, D-20457 Hamburg

 

East 52nd street / Park Ave, New York City

 

Woolworth Building, 33rd floor, 233 Broadway, New York City

 

etc...