THE CALLS I NEVER MADE
This is a one-person sound installation that seeks to
to emerge a discourse based on memory and words. It consists of a public telephone
that stores all the calls that were never made. Through a playful
playful structure, the work is articulated according to the interaction of each participant.
It is an intimate experience, but at the same time a shared one, where everything that can be
can be said on the phone, another person will be able to listen to it later. In this way, it is the
In this way, it is the audience who makes the work possible when they decide to use their voice.
The general aim of the work is to evoke the memory of the use of public telephones, which are now almost obsolete.
phones – now almost obsolete – but also about communication and memory.
Do you remember using a public telephone? Where? Who did you call?
Is there something you never said, but should have communicated? Faced with these
questions, a space opens up that encourages us to remember, to say and to tell. This action
has in itself a very important charge: the word constitutes us as subjects.
The accumulation of these stories and voices that the audience registers on the telephone gives life to the work.
gives life to the work. The more stories that are recorded, the greater the possibilities of listening.
The fact of seeing, listening and interacting with a public telephone from the 1990s transports us to other times, in which
transports us to other times, when telephone communication had a different urgency and weight than today.
urgency and weight than today.
The experience begins the moment you pick up the telephone receiver: you hear the classic dial tone.
the classic dial tone. On the telephone there are instructions that
instructions to call a number. When you do so, a voice answers and speaks directly to the viewer.
is a recording that is self-evident as such, and that agrees with the listener that they will have a conversation.
the listener that they will have a conversation. The voice will ask questions that must be answered with the keys of the telephone.
answered with the keys of the telephone. It then asks questions that can only have
have 2 answers. It also allows two options of questions that the voice can answer: Who are you?
answer: Who are you, Where are you, What is this phone, Is anyone listening now?
listening now? After answering them, the voice will finally ask the viewer if he/she wants to
viewer if he wants to make a call he never made, say something to someone he never said before.
never said before. If the answer is yes, the viewer can start the call by pressing the asterisk button.
by pressing the asterisk button, and the device will start recording. When finished, the recording stops, and the voice
recording stops, and the voice invites you to listen to one of those calls recorded by previous viewers.
previous viewers.
The work invites the viewer to make a phone call. To record and listen to
voices, stories and narratives that make particular the relationship with a public object that has fallen into disuse.
that has fallen into disuse. This material relationship leads us to delve into the notions of memory, identity and biography.
notions of memory, identity and biography.
