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project by Magdalena Kallenberger
IDEA
Take a seat while you wait
The two protagonists of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play "Waiting for Godot"
spend the duration of their time on stage waiting in anticipation of Godot,
a person they have never met and who never actually arrives. Near the end of
each Act, a boy arrives with a message he claims is from Godot: the message
being that he will not be coming today, but will come tomorrow. While the
audience waits with the protagonists for the unfulfilled moment of Godot’s
arrival, it is the waiting itself that is revealed to be the play’s
essential meaning, not the Godot's absence.
There are two aspects of "waiting" that I find fascinating: firstly, "the
waiting” itself as a passive action that through the anticipation of an
activity keeps us from accomplishing our goal, and secondly the use of this
passive act of waiting as an active plot developer or element of content.
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ACTION
The sound of waiting
A person nears the chair and a voice invites him or her to take a seat and
wait for Godot. As the person sits, a voice coming from the chair says "Have
a seat, please... please wait a little ...Godot is coming soon... please
wait a little...", and as the person rises again from the chair, the voice
says “What a shame to leave now… Godot will be here in just a few more
minutes!” and then repeats itself again with the words "Have a seat,
please... please wait a little ...Godot is coming soon... please wait a
little..."
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TECHNOLOGY
Here’s how Herman works:
A motion sensor reacts to the person coming closer, triggering the voice
module to say "Have a seat, please... "
As the person sits, the pressure of his or her bodyweight activates the
pressure sensor, which in turn triggers the Walkman to play “Please wait a
little….”. When the person stands up again, the pressure sensor activates
voice module II, which says “What a shame to leave now…”
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weblog
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