after the tone

context

a participatory telephone installation built around a working line. visitors called and left a message for an unanswered recipient. those messages entered a growing archive and returned through the room as fragments of playback.

constraint

a real phone line had to capture live messages on site at a historic coastal lodge, then fold them back into the installation for the length of the residency. the system had to stay open while much of it remained an unattended system.

intervention

we split the system between a campus phone and a studio playback rig. new calls were captured, indexed, and returned through playback zones: beds of audio inside the room, fragments of past messages outside it, and modular synthesis recomposing the material as the archive grew. textile work softened the room without hiding the machinery.

outcome

the line stayed open for the length of the residency. 126 messages were left, each one added back into the playback.

they said

hear them in the constellation →

co-created by joey frostad and sara silva · photography jessica keaveny & sora blu · built in residency at the sou’wester lodge

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