Tag Archives: art

Earlier this month (Aug 2024)

Phone box humour from the Far Side

Art

I’ve been out and about and went to a couple of arts events. One in my home town of Gravesend and the other in London – ‘Accidently Wes Anderson’ in South Kensington

The phone box continues to inspire

From Dezeen: workplace furniture company Room has created a single-person acoustic pod that provides solo workspaces in open-plan offices. The first product designed in Room’s catalogue, The Phone Booth is characterised by its trio of sound-dampening material layers that work together to reduce noise by 30 decibels, according to the brand.

The booth is clad in sound-blocking MDF and lined with sound-absorbing PET felt made from recycled plastic bottles. 100 per cent natural wool finishes also help to control noise levels. There is an LED light mounted in the ceiling along with two ultra-quiet fans that keep the air inside clean. Both the light and fans are controlled by a smart sensor.

The booth is delivered flat-packed and can be assembled in an hour by two people using only one tool, and it can also be moved between locations easily once assembled given its flexible design. The Phone Booth comes in two colourways, light and dark, and punctuated with oak accents.

The box in the arts

Source: Guardian

Vivian Maier

Yesterday I watched a facinating documentary on the photographer Vivian Mair. I love what I saw of her work. As an archivist the whole story is also intriguing. Here is one of her pieces. Look closely at the gentleman on the phone. From what the documentary shows, Maier wasn’t afraid of showing aspects of the human condition that others turn away from.

Finding Vivian Maier

Another makeover

Not sure how we missed this Christmas episode…

Adopt a Box

Not a new idea but nice to hear about how communities are keeping an icon relevant…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2021/mar/15/yours-for-one-pound-what-would-you-do-with-a-traditional-red-phone-box

BT is putting 4,000 phone boxes up for adoption. Many have already been turned into libraries, defibrillator stations, even tiny art galleries.

Name: Red telephone boxes.

Age: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s original K2 design dates from 1924, but his smaller K6, from 1936, is the the more widespread.

Appearance: Iconic.

Purpose: Depends.

You mean it depends on the nature of the telephone call you wish to place? Of course not – nobody uses phone boxes to make calls any more.

Why not? Because everybody has a mobile now. Only about 7,000 traditional red phone boxes across the UK even work, but more than half lose money and calls continue to decline by 20% a year.

What other purpose can an obsolete phone box serve? A lot of them get turned into libraries.

Aren’t they a bit small for that? They’re very small libraries – basically community hubs where books can be donated and exchanged.

I suppose it’s better than no library at all. Precisely. When mobile library funding was cut for Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset, the parish council bought the local phone box and slung up some shelves.

Bought it from where? From BT. Since 2008, its Adopt a Kiosk scheme has allowed communities to purchase its redundant phone boxes for £1.

Is the scheme popular? Yes. So far 6,600 phone boxes have been adopted, and BT just announced another 4,000 are to be made available.

That’s a lot of tiny libraries. They’re not all full of books. Some of the kiosks were turned into information centres or mini-museums. In Cheltenham, nine disused boxes have been transformed into single-occupancy art galleries.

What a lovely idea. If there’s a downside to cutting vital community services to the point where they can fit inside phone boxes, I can’t see it. Well, some of the library boxes have had to be temporarily shut because of Covid.

I suppose there may be a risk there. And someone has been leaving erotic fiction in the phone box in Hurstbourne Tarrant, Hampshire.

The Japanese – always something new

This I did not expect…

(I had to grab screen shots before getting an intrusive pop up screen, so apologies for the presentation.)

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/14/national/crime-legal/goldfish-phone-booth/
Source: Private Eye, Feb 2021

Google honours the icon

Gile Gilbert Scott, the English architect who designed the red telephone box, was born on the 9th November 1880. Google celebrated this with a fancy remake of its own icon.