The Surf Bench Project

The Surf Bench Project focuses on humans in public waiting areas. Places where people experience time. By observing these places a strong visible emotion sticks out, nervosity. Often caused by a lack of information on the duration of waiting time, or the missing of given activities and entertainment, time is strongly experienced and as a result considered passing very slowly.

In our performance-society the feeling of being watched by others while being on standby is often the reason why we see people in waiting areas chain-smoking, scrolling purposelessly through their phones, or non-stop cleaning their glasses. All observed activities are executed by our hands, our tools for being productive. Sitting around watching people or meditating is not considered a productive benefit for our society.

But there are some non-manual occupations highly valued by our society. Like social interaction, education, or the discovery of something new. The analysis ofpresent waiting areas shows that one object is found in most of them. The waiting bench. An object without any characteristics helping us to get through that nervous time in between. This object gets often abused or violated, caused by the need for entertainment of the user. They get engraved with a key or impulsively tilted till they break down.

The surf bench is the result of this observation. A bench that makes us curious to explore its function, promotes the interaction between people, keeps us busy and teaches us physics by using our hands.