We were to make use of the school and/or its surrounding to deliver a message to the audience. There is a ravine underneath the bridge at my school and as soon as the project was given, I knew already that I was going to do something about that site because 1) the ‘gap’ is an interesting stage play with and 2) nobody I know has done a piece there.
The absence of telephone booths nowadays appeal to me like how we don’t write letters anymore. I’ll tell you an interesting story. It was about 2 years ago and I wasn’t too happy with the insincere communication in our ‘global world’. The online community sites provide convenient ways to say what’s up or where are you but they all felt like dead communication. So I deleted all my online community accounts except email and started to write letters to people around me. 2 weeks before the new year of 2008, I wrote 40 greeting cards and letters. I wrote about 14 to my families and relatives which I didn’t really expect to get replies from to be honest and the rest to my friends. I sat down and reminisced about the past with every single person. Spent quite a time writing them. A couple of weeks passed and I received one letter back, about 15 emails saying thanks and that they would write back soon (still pending I guess), the rest I don’t know what happened. But it was totally worth it because I got one that was personally, sincerely written for me. It also feels good that my tangible personal messages will be stowed somewhere in their rooms. (Furthermore, I also got rid of my cell phone for about half a year but that didn’t work well because my parents got worried. I love them.) Anyhow, I still write letters to that person once in a while and so does she.
I wonder if the technology is getting us any closer to each other. Communication once only functioned with a special reagent called ‘effort’ from both parties. Today our communication is different and our fingers have its own brains to write messages. A tin can telephone works when two persons pull the tin cans apart creating tension on the wire that is attached to the diaphragms and I liked that idea.
At first I was going to set up some sort of stands on both side of the space with tin cans placed on top. But I also noticed something interesting, which is that all the telephone booths at school were removed a while ago. Yeah, where did the phone booths go? Will the new generation of kids find it funny that such narrow room existed on the streets to just to make calls?
So this project is about communication. A telephone booths that were set up with tin cans. A set of artifacts that are rare today.
About this project…
- Building this thing took much more time than I scheduled. Probably spent more than 20 hours in the model shop.
- The cost of mistakes: apprx. $20 The total cost: $88.05…
- The exhibition date: 2010.03.19 – 2010.03.26
