Elevator of the Post CS building, Amsterdam, april 12, 2008

The aim of this study was to design an architectural invention to observe or see public (street) life from close up without being seen yourself, so that the observation becomes as objective as possible.

I chose the elevator of the Post CS building as a hiding place. I built a second wall in the right side elevator. I placed the wall with a distance of 50 cm from the back wall of the elevator and covered the new wall with approximately the same carpet that was used as a cover for the other walls. My intention was to hide behind the fake wall for 4 hours and observe the people and film them with a video camera through a small hole in the wall. For the length of the experiment period I would not be able to leave the place.

watch the video


Backgrounds of hiding and observing

Being observed
I have a fear of throwing up in front of people.
Having to throw up in front of people means being out of control while people are watching me.

Being confined
If I’m in a place where I can’t escape, where I’m closed in, it becomes a big fear. I don’t feel in control anymore because I can’t leave the place. Confined places, which frighten me the most, are elevators, public transport and airplanes.

The twist
Being hidden in a confined place and being the observer myself

In my hidden observatory, I twist the situation: I built my observatory, which is a tiny confined space, inside an elevator, another confined space.
This made it possible for me to share my place of fear with other people without them being aware of me and to observe them instead of being observed myself.

I was curious if being confided into a narrow space with other people would still be a threatening experience for me if I could no longer be seen. On forehand, I was not sure if I would be seen, if people would recognize the wall as being fake and discover me. I was not sure if I could be in control of the situation.

Experiences in the observatory
The experience was great. To my surprise I felt very cozy and comfortable in the hiding place. I felt safe from the people. I had my absolute own private space although I was confined together with people in the cage of the elevator. My hiding seemed to be perfect. People entered the elevator and didn’t recognize any change. They behaved as if they were alone. One man burped loudly while standing in the elevator. The construction seemed to be invisible until someone, who turned out to be an architect with an office in the building, entered the elevator. He immediately saw that something was different and started knocking against the wall, then banged very hard until the wall started to give way. I had to speak up to make him stop and so was discovered. In this moment I lost control over the situation.

Boundaries of being hidden
I wanted to find out what would happen if I would experiment with the fact of being hidden.

When a friend entered the elevator, she started talking loudly to me – to the wall - and I talked back. People reacted very astonished, some of them asking what was going on, if this was an installation, where I was (apparently they didn’t discover the place of the fake wall). One woman said: “ She must be in a backpack”. Obviously she couldn’t imagine where I was hidden, where this voice came from. I kept control over the situation and could play with the hiding. One moment, I was perfectly hidden, another moment, I revealed a part of me (my voice) without being seen.

Conclusion
As long as people did not try to physically invade my hiding place (like that architect) the experience was completely fearless for me.
It turned out that people were completely unaware of the observatory.
Only when I tried to interact through speaking, did some people notice it.

Drawings