JOÃO ENXUTO & ERICA LOVE

Marcel Breuer’s Atlanta Central Public Library was designed in 1969 and finally completed in 1980. It embodied modernist notions that arrived late and never came to pass. Now it serves as a critical internet hub for the mostly poor population of downtown Atlanta. Despite the expansion of libraries in the suburbs, this library has been severely defunded, understaffed, with ongoing threats that the building will be sold or razed. This is happening despite a long cue of patrons waiting to use the few remaining computer stations to tend to life matters that have migrated online. Waiting for the Internet is a fixed frame durational video that surveys the computer lab waiting area for as long as it takes to get an open computer. On the morning of November 25, 2015, the wait for a public computer station at Atlanta’s Central Library was 40 minutes. This video documents that wait.