Lost in Office Space Lars Tunbj^rkís Puckish Photos Depict Workplace as Dehumanized by Gary Tischler Quite a few of the photographs in Lars Tunbj^rkís exhibition ìOfficeî stretch across the walls of a conference-lecture room at the Swedish Embassy on M Street. The space seems like the perfect environment for the photographsóa voluminous collection of images that shed light on the cool, techno-dominated, conformist and ultra-modern world of office work spaces in a variety of locations. What Tunbj^rk sees and reveals in his photographs is the existence of a culture that is a world unto itselfóa prefabricated, wired environment that seems to have come straight out of the packages from a container store. Tunbj^rk highlights the offices themselves but what the companies actually do or make hardly seems to matter, nor does the locationónor, more tellingly, do the people. These photos demonstrate that todayís business world might add a new dimension to the idea of a global economy, but Tunbj^rk also reveals how singularly mediocre, emotionless and colorless this idea is in design, comfort and even humanity. Tunbj^rk shows us that in an office, itís very diffic ult to tell whoís there, what theyíre doing, how the time flies, what the conversations are saying, whoís heartbroken, whoís efficient, whoís rough around the edges or, for that matter, whether youíre in New York, Tokyo or Sioux Falls. You have a lawyerís office, a brokerís office, a Midwestern bank, a computer firm, a Tokyo export center, a telecommunications firm, a tax office in Sweden, an insurance company and a postal service, but you have to read the wall text to find out which is which. Tunbj^rkís view is at once puckish, funny, telling, wise and sometimes sad. Itís as if heís gauged the temperature of the various office spacesóand thatís exactly what they are, mere spacesóand found it just a little below or above the comfort zone, either too cool for comfort or a bit too stuffy. This world as Tunbj^rk sees it is full of monitors, cables, filing cabinets, headsets, digital digits, cramped spaces, uniformly lit desk areas, water coolers, cell phones, phone jacks and the occasional picture or flower. Heís also good at catching the leftoversósandwiches and candy wrappers, the debris of data spewed out by computers, crumpled-up papers and dull plants in need of watering. Tunbj^rk captures, for instance, the foreboding shine on a big, rectangular table in a conference room in the same way that he catches a Japanese executive staring blankly at wall space instead of the view outside the window. Repeated often are the angular or slouched forms of office workers leaning back and staring at their computersótheir body postures at odd angles, making wrecks of their clothes and looking as if theyíve fallen in love with their monitors. The only thing missing from this exhibition are the actual typing clicks and sounds of the printer runningóthe noises that a really adept and versatile computer can make. Tunbj^rk understands the harmless, dull details that surround people in office buildings: the sign-ins, the exit signs, the endless stream of office numbers. He even catches people on elevators between floors, as if trapped and trying to escape. This environment seems to be why people invented Muzak. You just glide, slouch, clock in and click through the day. Thereís a certain pecking order of course: Better lawyers have offices with windows and a stockbroker can have a guy come in to shine his shoes. But then thereís also the person squeezed in between desks, wearing those often-shabby clothes. Impressive uniformity only exists in the meeting rooms. And speaking of meeting rooms, Tunbj^rk depicts one such room as if it were an echo chamber: uniform chairs lined up, tidy floor, lectern, slide, microphoneóall ready to go except for the people. Tunbj^rk, who comes from a small town in Sweden, has always been interested in people, even if itís just parts of themótheir scuffed shoes, pant legs, high heels, a headless form by a water color or a faceless man stretched in front of a monitor. The photographs are not pretty or even artful in the usual sense. The colors, sharp like nails, get you to where youíre supposed to go. Itís not exactly a tragic worldóTunbj^rk has too much humor and empathy for thatóbut itís a small world, after all. If Tunbj^rk manages to make it richer than it isóhe seems to be an artist who notices everythingóyou canít escape the idea that itís a downsized world, smallish in both opportunity and adventure. ìOffice: Photographs by Lars Tunbj^rkî runs through April 29 at the Embassy of Sweden, 1501 M St., NW. For more information, please call (202) 467-2600. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.