Although it may not be a common experience for all of us, the elevator ride had become an integral experience for city-dwellers. As a person living in Hong Kong, almost all my daily activities involve the elevator ride. I dwell, work, eat, and shop in high-rises. Inevitably, my daily routine involves elevator rides. Sometimes 4 trips in and out of home to go to work; Sometimes 6 trips if I go and have a dinner in one of the shopping malls; Or sometimes even a dozen if I need to go out of the office to meet with someone in another office tower.
The elevator brought a revolution to architecture and made skyscrapers possible. But lately it seems to have a difficult time catching up with the beat. Elevators were also one of the rare places where you don’t get any reception on your smartphone. Everytime when I get into an elevator, there is always a sudden urge to check the Facebook or local news. Within a split second the conscious mind would discover that I am within an elevator. And the urge quickly become disappointment as if the world is owing me something.
Todays public spaces does not exist on the streets or plaza of the city, but on mobile networks. We interact with each other through the mobile devices. We walk around the city and at the same time flipping the screen of our smartphones without noticing who passes us. We have got so use to multitasking thanks to the mighty computing power of the smartphones. The “publicness” of the citys public spaces were replaced by the seclusion of the glittering screen of the smartphone. I would even argue that, at least in a certain degree, a public space do not exist anymore in anywhere in the city with mobile signals. While elevators seem to have gained some quality of the public space. Elevator ride in an high-rise building must involve encounters. You will never be able to know in advance who you are going to share the 10 to 20-second elevator ride with. This randomness makes every trip unique. Everytime when you take the elevator you are forced to confront whatever person you encounter. No matter how much you are not willing to, you will get to endure the terrible conversation between you and your awful colleague; Or you may encounter someone you fond of and could finally start a conversation with him or her. This 10 to 20-second of emptiness, of nothing-to-do, become the only moment where we have to confront someone physically without having the choice to withdraw from the physical space.
The collective nature of living in a city is the center of our social life. While smartphones disperse this relationship into an organic network, the elevator cabin deconstruct it into a much more direct and native structure at the very instance it closes its metallic doors. The mechanism and operation of the elevator formalize our social life into a predefined set of movements, gestures.
In an era where people seems not to care about anyone unless the communications come through via the smartphone, we still perform these rituals of the elevator ride and compulsively socialize.