How can you give the surrounding of a no longer functional bridge keeper’s house a new meaning? In 2016 we were invited by Stichting Weeshuisjes and curator Ivonne van der Velden to do a residency at a bridge keeper’s house at the canal Zuid Willemsvaart in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This house is located at the canal and a crossingpoint for landlubbers in cars, bikes, skateboards and pedestrians. There even is a button on a streetlight for people who’d like to cross the streets with a bit more time, for example the elderly from Antoniegaarde.
We used the intersection for a series of weekly interventions. How do you change the way speed is experienced at a place where patience is necessary? We suggested alternatives for crossing the streets. We dared pedestrians to cross the street as slow, or even as fast as possible. We wrote the names on a small scoring board. The record of slowest crosser is on the name of DJ NO CASH with a time of 16 minutes and 02.38 seconds!
Next to that, we displayed a small movie from a pageloader in the house. How much patience do passengers have? When the Zuid Willemsvaart was still in professional use, the bridge stood open regularly and forced people to wait a moment. Now the bridge is always closed and the traffic wants to cross as quick as possible. Not always possible due to the traffic lights, but still, it doesn’t force waiting in the same way a missing piece of street does…
We collaborated with the Running Junkies to recreate this situation in the form of a live page loader. We tested the situation for the first time without much staffing. This resulted in a dangerous situation when an impatient car driver drove next to the runners, even though the performance took place for only one minute.
We hired a few volunteers to make the situation safe for the Running Junkies and after a short briefing we installed the camera and blocked off the intersection. See the video from the performance here:
Mari Durieux, one of the runners, wrote a small blog about his experience. You can read it here (in Dutch).