Work Report for Museum Ludwig

In April 2014, I managed to get a part-time job. I was excited but nervous. It was to work as a performer in Museum Ludwig. I had to dress formal and look decent. So I bought a suit. On the opening day, the artist guided three of us, the ‘name announcers’, by himself. We had to stand at an exact position at the exhibition entrance. We had to ask every visitor for their names and then announce them really loudly into the exhibition space. The job was shift-based. Each shift lasted for 4 hours. I worked 4 shifts a week. At the beginning, it was not easy, especially when I wore a watch. I thought 30 minutes passed, but when I look at my 40-year-old mechanical watch, the minute hand just turned by 30 degrees. In order to kill boredom, I counted how many spotlights there are on the ceiling; how large the space is by counting the number of tiles. I tried different strategies of taking breaks, every 5 minutes for 30 minutes or every 10 minutes per hour, to make things feel faster. I watched the daylight change on the wall. I imagine how the weather changed outside, and how the tourists took photos of the Dom. Another colleague asked me another day, ‘How do you feel standing 4 hours straight?” ‘I don’t feel anything anymore. I just look at the white wall’, I smiled.