Bell Payphone Labs. 2008-2010
This project was made at the Canadian Film Centre's Telus Media Lab, a collaborative work with Pearl Chen.
Bell Payphone Labs was created to explore the role of technology in the social sphere. Our objective is to explore the payphone as a destination by creating site-specific, public installations. We re-engineer new life into payphones to create new ways of experiencing an orphaned technology that is now taken for granted. Our faux-corporate website humorously showcases payphone-related projects while inviting participants to look around them more often by offering opportunities to map payphone sites or submit payphone-related stories and projects. This opportunity facilitates a dialogue with many different users and generates qualitative, meaningful exposure.
A viewer could stumble upon a site-specific installation of the Bell Payphone Labs project on the streets of Toronto such as a disco ball in a phone booth and enjoy it for its aesthetic qualities. Another unsuspecting payphone user may find that their call cannot be completed and, when they hang up, they receive a gumball instead of their coin back. These two projects are examples of how a Bell Payphone Labs installation may seem a bit out of place and entice the viewer to become more curious.
Finding themselves within an inside joke, the user is re-introduced to an orphaned technology that they can still experience today.
Installations/Exhibitions:
Bell Payphone Labs was created to explore the role of technology in the social sphere. Our objective is to explore the payphone as a destination by creating site-specific, public installations. We re-engineer new life into payphones to create new ways of experiencing an orphaned technology that is now taken for granted. Our faux-corporate website humorously showcases payphone-related projects while inviting participants to look around them more often by offering opportunities to map payphone sites or submit payphone-related stories and projects. This opportunity facilitates a dialogue with many different users and generates qualitative, meaningful exposure.
A viewer could stumble upon a site-specific installation of the Bell Payphone Labs project on the streets of Toronto such as a disco ball in a phone booth and enjoy it for its aesthetic qualities. Another unsuspecting payphone user may find that their call cannot be completed and, when they hang up, they receive a gumball instead of their coin back. These two projects are examples of how a Bell Payphone Labs installation may seem a bit out of place and entice the viewer to become more curious.
Finding themselves within an inside joke, the user is re-introduced to an orphaned technology that they can still experience today.
Installations/Exhibitions:
- Broken City Lab: Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation. Participating as Bell Payphone Labs. Windsor, Ontario. July 1-11th 2010
- Telus InterActive Art and Entertainment Programme at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. Hard Launch. Nuit Blanche Toronto, Ontario. Lennox Contempary, 12 Ossington Ave October 2nd 2009.
- The Artists's Project. Liberty Grande, Exhibition Place. Toronto, Ontario. March 5-9 2009.
- Telus InterActive Art and Entertainment Programme at the Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab. Soft Launch. 2489 Bayview Avenue. February 2009.
