Remember? We wondered: what is the essence of an office?
There was a long list. Then a short list. And the jury decided:
The copy room.
The copy room, gobstopper. Where masks drop, skirts fall, smiles freeze, and truth bursts in with flashing light. Paper goes missing. A twilight zone. Transformation. Tampering. Duplication. Shredding and perforating.
A territory of sighs and complaints. Fingers on buttons. Paper cuts. Bodies chatting. Drawers sliding. Paper needs to go in a slot. No, not like that, like this! The other way! More paper. More! A3, grab A3!
A planet with its own layer of ozone. A maddeningly thick air. You end up doing things you didn’t think yourself capable of. It’s that room. There’s a guiding, cosmic force in there.
And all the other parts of the office—the wheeled chairs, the meetings, whiteboards, the 9-to-5—it’s all a façade. A façade, a buffer, around that copy room. The office is the fruit around the pit. The storm circling the eye. And its essence lies in that shadowy, reproductive corner.
The Office. Until May 5, MOHA – Alice Pons, Olivia Reschofsky, and Zsofia Paczolay – is holding office in a building without walls, ceiling, or door. The Office is located in Budapest.