An
interactive public piece designed for "Live Live", a
partnership between Robert Morris College, the Museum of Contemporary
Art in Chicago, and the Chicago Transit Authority.
THE
CONCEPT: Through the simple act of picking up a telephone, people
may become uninhibited to speak to the person standing next to
them on the CTA platform.
THE
INSTALLATION: is designed to be a catalyst for conversations between
people who do not know each other. The distance that is generally
inherent when speaking on the telephone makes talking to strangers
on the phone easier than talking to them in person. By taking
advantage of this phenomenon, it is my hope that the installation
"Someone Somewhere Else" will provide a shared experience that
will help people to break through the barriers that keep them
from conversing with each other in public spaces.
THE
EXPERIENCE: People on the CTA platform will see three odd-looking
telephones hanging on the wall. The unusual shape of the phones
is designed to entice people to pick them up. What a participant
will hear on the other end is someone talking about their travels.
The voice may be from another time or place, but the stories are
common denominator experiences of traveling. It will be unclear
as to whether the voice on the other end is real or recorded,
and periodically the voice will ask the listener questions. ("Where
are you going?" "Which train do you take?" etc.) Any response
by the participant will be broadcast to the other nearby phones,
causing the other listeners to wonder what is going on. My hope
is that the participants will realize that they are not just talking
to the recorded voices who are talking about travels, but they
are also talking to each other. Some of the voices on the "other
end" are actually people standing right there on the platform
with them. Perhaps their shared experiences of hearing stories
of travel, combined with their realization that the phones are
connecting them together will give them a reason to start a conversation. |