Laura Paolini's Art Website
  • Recent Work
    • Text Me When You Get Home (2021)
    • Footage (2021)
    • Documentation Study (It's Like Talking To A Wall) (2021)
    • It's Like Talking To A Wall (2021)
    • The Heart is An Organ That Pumps Blood (2020)
    • Documentation Study (Make Your Bed) 2020
    • Make Your Bed (2020)
    • Three Weeks In Quarantine (2020)
    • Shell Scene And Fountain Scene (2020)
    • Getting Out of Bed (2019)
    • Sitting in a Chair (2019)
    • Helsinki Performance (2015)
    • Onnenkissat (2015)
    • Optimism (2012)
  • OLDER WORK
    • I'm Tired Of Being Fucked (2011)
    • Untitled (Of Mice and Men Revisited) 2010
    • Bell Payphone Labs (2008 - 2010)
    • Crocodile Tears(Crying Cat) 2007-2010
    • Instant Gratification (2008)
    • Blowing Hot Air (2007-2010)
    • Going Down (2008)
  • NEWS
  • Bio/Contact
  • Thank yous

Bell Payphone Labs. 2008-2010

Picture
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:
  • 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.






Proudly powered by Weebly