Not Gonna Reach My Telephone – Reflections

Initially we had looked at the stage area to be the site of our interference, but one feature of the bar area caught our attention and we switched our site due to the interesting nature of the bar area’s skylights. Working with this feature we brainstormed many different design ideas including multiple unique hangings done by each member of the group. Upon a visit to Fabricland, a roll of red translucent vinyl was spotted and immediately gave one group member the idea of a phonebooth. A trip to ValueVillage later and an assortment of old telephones was added to our group’s inventory.

Andrea and Wyatt came into help the group at a very crucial moment, during the refining stage of the project. The 2nd year buddies helped bounce around ideas of what was possible, what would work well, and how we could construct the booth. Wyatt, having experience in welding and metal work was able to tell us how to construct a metal frame for the booth, and what kind of supports it would require to be moveable (one of the possible ideas for the booth) while remaining accessible. Andrea helped us brainstorm the remainder of the composition including placement of the phones, how to hang the vinyl and additional accessories for inside the booth. Discussing the design with Wyatt and Andrea helped us solidify our final product and make it both feasible, effective, and constructable within the available installation time.

The final product, the culmination of our design, had three parts; a main focus, secondary focuses, and then accessories that added to the overall persona of the piece. The primary focus was the phone-booth which utilized the “skylight” on the far side of the bar area. We hung four large strips of the red vinyl to create a very fluid booth that was accessible from all sides but still signified a structure. The strips were stapled up inside of the skylight so that there was no seam, the booth merely stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The skylights gave the booth a natural light from the inside, and yet made the booth almost opaque from the outside. The secondary focus of the project were the telephones hung by their cords from the remainder of the skylights. The phones were hung by their cords which were stapled up inside the skylights. These phones were hung at a height that enabled them to interfere and be interfered with. To accessorize the phonebooth a phonebook and a speaker were installed within it. The book was screwed into a piece of plywood and then covered with a piece of plexiglas to make it untouchable and useless as a phonebook. A speaker with attached mp3 player was double-side taped to the top of the booth where it sat and played a continuous ringtone to further interfere with the party.

The installation made use of the entire space and interfered as much as we had hoped that it would. At Kosmic the phonebooth itself was utilized by different people for varying purposes, and the telephones were in use all night, and were popular enough to be taken home by different guests.

The team worked well together as was discussed at the post-Kosmic debriefing. We all involved ourselves as much as we could based on our varying commitments and schedules. What really helped the overall success of our project was having one team member manage and coordinate the rest of us. She threw herself into finding meeting and working times that we could all commit to. This helped ease any tensions that may have been growing, or may have started to occur, and led to a relatively stress-free and fun Kosmic installation.