Room X
Strolling through Paris by Instagram in 2019, I came across a hotel room view that was simply irresistible. Perfect Paris-DNA; dense geometric building structures, the grey roofs, the orange chimneys and an intriguing industrial interior behind the old high windows on the opposite side of the street. No distracting landmarks.
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I sent the author of the Instagram post a message asking for the name of the hotel but she replied she forgot it. I asked near which metrostation the hotel was located, but I received no more answers from her.
I could now either forget the room or dive into the map of Paris and of course I almost drowned.
I marked the locations of the other photo's of her trip and started to compare the shapes in the photograph with the streets on Google Earth. Over a period of two days I had scanned the grey area's on the map but I had not found Room X.
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I read her Instagram posts over and over again and finally Sherlock got the clue that he had overlooked: she wrote next to one of her photo's that she explored the city each day 'on foot'! This meant that Room X needed to be within walking distance of the magenta dots.
I finally found the hotel - nothing special, about € 80 per night - but with a great view from the attic room. We visited Paris this winter and stayed one night in the tiny room. On the other side of the street a bakery that seemed to feed the whole of Paris.
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This fall the resulting work Room 702 will be available worldwide through the Lumasplatform.