Telephony

_{An early diagram of Play It By Ear, our latest public artwork}

In early 2020, we began working on a public art project for Butler Memorial Park in Edmonton /Treaty 6 Territory in Alberta, Canada. This project would eventually become Play It By Ear, and we have an entire blog dedicated to documenting our approach, ideologies, and processes, but because this is our main website, we’re summarizing them here.

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_{Visiting Butler Memorial Park in early 2020. The park is sandwiched between a telecommunications building, a transit centre, and a busy road, soon to be the location of a light rail train line}

Play It By Ear is a sound based installation using telephones to connect people across short distances. The idea of making hard-wired telephones for Butler Memorial Park came from listening to the place. We were thinking about how the park is used like a living room and ways to enhance the feeling of home, of knowing the people around you. At the same time, we were visiting the park and learning about the neighbourhood. We couldn’t ignore the giant cellular tower beside Butler Memorial Park – a newer addition to a historic brick Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) building.

_{In the 1950s, Caitlind’s Grandmother, Ro Skulsky, worked for AGT as a Switchboard Operator in Edmonton. On quiet nights, she would sometimes chat with operators far away – all across the country and overseas. For a woman from a small mining town in Northern Alberta, this was her first contact with the wideness of the world. Her experience helped inspire Play it By Ear.}

We designed Play It By Ear at the beginning of the COVID Pandemic, in a time marked by social distancing and self-isolation when methods of bridging the distance between people suddenly felt more difficult (and important) than ever. Suddenly, many of us weren’t seeing our families in-person, especially living grandparents, for fear of spreading a mysterious illness. The telephone took on new meaning as an symbol of connection and a safe way of keeping in touch.

*_{3D designs for the Play It By Ear cradles by Hayden Pattullo. These images were used to make patterns to cast the telephone cradles in aluminum}*

_{Learning about payphones with one of Bell’s payphones maintenance experts. We met with various subject matter experts to research public and institutional telephones, telephony systems, and telephone maintenance while designing the project}

Telephones are an analogy for the maintenance of long-distance relationships, a way of connecting across vast geographic distance. Technology has extended our reach beyond our wildest dreams, but sometimes leaves us wanting for a more analog connection. On the other hand, public parks have always been a place for us to share space together – despite all our other differences.

_{Testing prototypes}

When we began working on this project, we were invited to develop a “playful” and “discoverable” artwork to engage families and children. But when we visited the park, we immediately noticed how many more seniors, adults, and teenagers use Butler Memorial Park than kids. We began to consider how to create play for all ages.

_{Fabricating the aluminum telephone cradles. Wayne was able to utilize his ticket as a Red Seal Machinist to do most of the metal cutting and fitting for Play It By Ear}

_{Play It By Ear telephones in the workshop}

Telephones are a nostalgic invitation for multiple generations to connect, and older seniors often use the telephone as a way to entertain themselves, pass the time, keep in touch with friends and family, and feel connected. We consider this use a type of play that seniors participate in regularly – a combination of entertainment, storytelling, and active/passive listening.

_{Telephone cradles before and after they were painted by ACR Paint & Autobody Specialists. The paint colours are matched to colours in the neighbourhood surrounding Butler Memorial Park, with an eye on the retro colours of “Princess Phones”}

_{Wiring the internal electronics and testing the telephones}

Part of our motivation for Play It By Ear was making opportunities for folks of all ages to participate directly and indirectly in the making of the artwork. There have been opportunities to impact imagery, share anecdotes, write notes, leave voicemails, have conversations, use the final work, or watch others use the piece (almost like found theatre). We believe interactive artworks are more interesting when not everyone has to engage in the same way – ideally, there should be layers to meet your unique level of interest and ability.

_{One of several public engagement strategies}

Early in our process we set up a hotline that members of the public could call to leave us a voicemail answering a few questions about how they connect. More recently, we invited community members to contribute imagery to the round “home phone” windows, located where the rotary dial would normally be.

Community members were invited to submit photos of “a place than feels like home.” We took these anonymous images, flattened them into layers of hand-cut vinyl, and created flat-pack dioramas in the circular windows of each phone.

_{Caitlind making the telephone dioramas in our home studio}

Any people in the photos were transformed into anonymous silhouettes, cut out of iridescent dichroic. The vinyl was colour-coded to match the 6 colours of the telephone pillars themselves.

_{The vinyl colours and layers process of the telephone dioramas}

For those who prefer not the use the telephones in Butler Memorial Park, those who cannot hear, or those who are simply curious enough to look more closely, these little windows offer a hint about the concept behind the artwork: these are HOME phones. Each window depicts a different way that someone in the community thinks about home.

_{Final assembly of the telephone windows in the hotel the night before installation}

This feeling of home is especially important in Butler Memorial Park, a place that many community members treat like an outdoor living room. These “home phones” are an attempt to share a feeling of connection and belonging, in some small way, with the community that uses the park – from one neighbour, to another.