The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, built at the beginning of this century, has already appealed to the imagination of many. In horror and suspense films such as those by Hitchcock, this sample of human capability often appears as an unreal, or threatening monument. Since it was opened, more than a thoUSAnd people have jumped from it. Only a few managed to survive the fall of many metres. For dubious reasons, the authorities recently terminated the statistical research into cases of suicide. They surmise that reaching the magic number 1000 will only serve to increase the attraction for the gloomy ones among us. Reason for the Bureau of Inverse Technology thoroughly to investigate the situation. With a rumbling sound tape in the background, you read their account in text inserts. From this you learn that most jumpers prefer the side of the bridge that offers a view of San Francisco, that there are warning notices on the bridge to convince doubters that it is not a good idea to jump and that there are telephones there with a direct line to the SOS help service. In order to avoid losing interesting statistical material surrounding suicide, the Bureau suggests a post mortem technology: a camera under the bridge that starts running as soon as anything falls. It is the so-called 'suicide box' for which they have applied for a patent. Now and then you see shots from the camera. Something falls past, but you cannot see exactly what it is. Sometimes it goes just to fast to see if it is a body or something else. Sometimes it is low flying birds who, in their cruising ignorance have triggered the avid camera. We are, by now, used to surveillance cameras. We know that metres of tapes of us are stored in all the files of public places where, unnoticed, we have been watched by countless video cameras, but it is a bizarre idea that even your last flight is stored in the public domain.
– Willem van Weelden
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Bureau of Inverse Technology are Kate Rich & Natalie Jerimajenko
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