Das Warteraum-System 2021, excerpt of video performance / documentation by Roman Häbler

DAS WARTERAUM-SYSTEM.

“Welcome to the Waiting Room System. It‘s the perfect space for your liminal moments: wherever you need to go and whatever needs to be approved. The best thing? You don‘t have to take care of anything! Everything will be arranged by the professionals of the Waiting Room System. Just take a number. Take off your coat. Take off your daily occupation. Choose a chair. Sit down. Arrive. For now, your only role is to wait: For the weather to change, your package to arrive, the class to be over, your promotion to be granted, your train to come, your crush to answer, the time to pass. And while you are sitting here and time flies by, the System will arrange everything. It will all proceed perfectly, as long as you go with their instructions and let them do their job.”

Das Warteraum-System 2021, posters of the video performance

DAS WARTERAUM-SYSTEM is an installation and performance video specific to the site of the actual doctor’s practice waiting room of the former Stasi (Staatssicherheitsdienst – State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, GDR) building in Leipzig. The work, which found its form through video documentation, can also be experienced on site and as a participatory performance. It’s your choice: do you see yourself as the distanced observer, do you want to observe the work from within or do you want to fully dive into the experience as part of the work?

Das Warteraum-System was created in the context of ENCOUNTER WITH THE SLEEPING GIANT a project of the MFA program PUBLIC ART AND NEW ARTISTIC STRATEGIES at the Matthäikirchhof in Leipzig.