An interactive art exhibit in the Cambridge Sculpture Garden is bringing a piece of the past to modern times. Artist David Jensenius has placed a 1980s era phone booth with a rotary phone from the 1950s inside the garden. It’s part of an art exhibit celebrating the 25th anniversary of Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA). People are encouraged to use the setup to either record a message or listen to messages from others. “It’s really fun. We’re getting people that are leaving messages that other folks are responding to. And it’s fun,” Jensenius said. The idea came to Jensenius through video games. “There was a game called Control and there were objects of interest, and they were just sort of random objects in the world that had special powers. And I really like the idea of taking an object that is maybe no longer seen or no longer something that people experience a lot and sort of placing it someplace unexpected, someplace surprising,” Jensenius said. “The phone came to me because I saw a, a different video game called Kentucky Route Zero had this number you could call with a whole weird phone tree of things you could do. And I was like, I like the idea of misusing technology.” If they dial 1 at the phonebooth, they can answer a question or say whatever they want into the phone. Dialing 2 brings up a random recording of someone before. “There’s been some really heartfelt messages. There was a message about a gentleman. He left it quite early one morning. It was his birthday, and he was saying that he was having kind of a rough day already. And maybe about a week later, someone actually directly responded to that message saying, you know, to the person who was having a rough day on your birthday, I hope you’re having a better day. And it’s that sort of, really direct dialog and not knowing if that dialog is going to be heard, but still speaking it, that it’s really beautiful. And yeah, a little bit unexpected and surprising,” Jensenius said. Putting together the pieces Jensenius purchased the booth and phone on Kijiji about a decade ago from a collector. The booth has been on display in Kitchener and Toronto before, but Jensenius said it’s had a different impact this time. “It’s a lot different. You’re getting a lot more people that don’t understand the idea of a rotary telephone. So, ten years ago, it was more the little kids that didn’t really know what it is. But it’s been a decade since then. And so now those little kids are a lot older, and they don’t understand what a rotary telephone is or the idea that you have to hang up between things. And then, also the reception of a lot of the questions has been different. There are site specific questions. So, when it was in Kitchener, when it was in Toronto, it had questions very specific to that area. Likewise, here it has questions that are very specific to the sculpture garden. So, naturally there’s going to be some differences. But there is like a lot of fun when you hear someone that’s dialed and leaves a message and doesn’t know they have to hang up before they dial the next thing, and so you hear them sort of dial the phone and they’re like, ‘What? What’s going on?’ It’s kind of fun,” Jensenius said. Each recording comes to Jensenius’ phone so he can approve it. “There’s moderation that happens for every message. And before it gets cycled into the randomized answers that people get when they dial 2, they have to be approved by me,” Jensenius said. The booth will stay up through the winter and the phone has been picked up nearly 2,800 times since September 30.
