Seen Feb. 1, 2023, Beyond the Black Box, Royal Waiting Room Amsterdam Central. By Fransien van der Putt
Beyond the Black Box opened this week with SoAP-er Rita Hoofwijk’s presentation in the royal waiting room at Amsterdam Central Station. She launched there Jean.live, a website that plays with the way the central clock time, regulated time, determines our lives and invites us to suspend that control for the duration of a train ride.
The app is announced by NS on its internal information screens. I encounter mostly cancelled trains and screens, which in itself, of course, makes for deprivation as you indulge in the delays. Then I dream away and only check the app at home.
During the opening, Hoofwijk explained how she was inspired by the fact that in the nineteenth century central (Amsterdam) time was not established in the Netherlands until the introduction of the train. Before that, the conductor simply adjusted his watch at each station. Until then, the time was measured by the position of the sun, and was thus slightly different at each church or town hall.
Hoofwijk is also inspired by Jean Tinguely, the zero-artist we know from the little machines and machinery in museums and squares, who wrote a pamphlet in 1959 about being in time, moving with the flux, with the noise, by forgetting minutes and hours. Hoofwijk tells how in preparation she taped off the clocks on her devices and had a different life: she was never late, she could tell by the light what time of day it was, or by the behavior of the neighbors that it was probably dinner time, at least for them. She herself ate when she felt like it and slept as much as she wanted.
The app tries to entice the traveler during the trip to leave the screen the screen and dream away, looking around, making up stories with people you haven’t met and never will. I can’t manage to set up a full-screen display on my phone, so I look on my laptop. Using simple means, programmer Ehud Neuhaus and designer Yvonne van Versendaal have assembled a sequence of poetic gestures with Hoofwijk. Originally a dreamer, I think it will take little effort for me to accept Hoofwijk’s invitation on the train, not to work, not to read, not to append, just that little black screen in your hand, where real time becomes a dot in the dark, with no horizon, with the only orientation being your own representation of time.
Aside from asking a few questions, the app mostly evokes a different perspective and emphasizes the here and now of the journey, the people, the train. I’m very curious to see if and how people will take advantage of this de-stressing and physical awareness during their trip. The app or website excels in simplicity, omits any kind of spectacle. Is that just enough little to encourage less screen behavior?