Public Waiters

Since bike couriers started delivering meals for Foodora, Deliveroo or Thuisbezorgd, spontaneous meeting points have been formed in cities: places where these wheeled carriers come together to wait for new orders. These self-chosen central spots could be considered a physical manifestation of the gig economy. Fascinated by this new urban phenomenon, Jonas Ersland set up a camera at such a meeting point at Eindhoven’s Catharinaplein. The images are analysed by software that identifies the colour of the bikers’ uniforms and detects when they are waiting for work. The live stream on www.publicwaiters.com offers an automatically updated exhibition of how this new labour affects public space.