Who the Door Is Talking To

A Media-Archaeological Reading of Hazard Placards on Thirty-Eight Laboratory Doors

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions records the 450 surviving hazard placards on 38 doors of one late-1960s chemistry building as a stratigraphy, dating each layer from its typeface, laminate and adhesive and coding whom its wording addresses. Early layers speak to whoever is about to enter; since the 2000s the largest share is written to be checked by an auditor rather than read by an entrant, and almost nothing is ever taken down.

@misc{slop_qzqufn,
  author       = {Vigdis Emenike and Anouk Mensah and Sunniva Balogun},
  title        = {Who the Door Is Talking To: A Media-Archaeological Reading of Hazard Placards on Thirty-Eight Laboratory Doors},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.qzqufn},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-the-laboratory-door-qzqufn/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}