Astrid Mobile Phone

Astrid Mobile Phone, 2011

Mobile Phone Installation, Commission for the gateways exhibition

You Must Relax (architect Eve Arpo and media artist Riin Rõõs) presents a new kind of mobile phone—Astrid. The phone, which is two and a half meters in height, is located in the foyer of the Kumu Art Museum and available to visitors for making phone calls. It is also possible to make a call to the phone. Because of its size, however, the phone has lost the essential characteristics of a mobile phone—mobility and intimacy. When visitors use the device, they have to engage their entire bodies to push the buttons and talk into the microphone. An active interaction thus takes place between the installation and visitors. People who want to make a call first have to ask themselves if they want to phone for free but have everyone witness their personal conversation. Normally, when we have a conversation over the phone, we are not present in physical space and the conversation is intimate and private. In this case, the installation is about the interaction within the space itself, between people who do not know one another. Through the use of networked technologies, Astrid Mobile Phone makes us aware of the shifting borders between public and private spaces.