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Jim Ockuly    ›› website

Berlin
Germany

Universal symbol

This icon -- looking like it comes from an official set of standard graphics -- graces the "number one" area of a pay toilet called McClean at the Bahnhof Zoo train station in Berlin. (It actually costs more to go number two.)

Even human waste can be commodified. A connection to the word commode perhaps? In any case, the idea that you normally pay to acquire something is turned on its head here -- you're paying to get rid of something. Like getting a haircut or going to the dump.

August 2004