Art in the Boxes

10 Oct, 2013

READ IN ENGLISH BELOW / LEIA EM PORTUGUÊS AQUI

By Patricia Klingl (editor)

Translation by Harriet Batey

With the creation of mobile phones in 1973, phone boxes gradually became forgotten. Nowadays, these symbols of pre-wireless communication have a status as relics and no longer compete with their technological successors – smartphones, laptops and tablets. However, just because phone boxes are now unnecessary does not mean they cannot be reused creatively. In London, the iconic red boxes have given way since 2006 to more modern models which include a new function. As well as being a telephone they started providing free internet.

The initiative first appeared in New York , when the Mayor’s Department of Information, Technology and Communication decided to revamp over 12,000 boxes so to provide internet access. Still looking to NYC, designer John Locke installed mini-libraries in telephone boxes. Written on the shelves inside is “leave a book” on one side and “take a book” on the other, requesting local residents to bring books, borrow others and return them to the shelf. In Osaka, Japan , the collaborative group Kingyobu created aquariums with hundreds of goldfish inside the old boxes. The telephones were still inside so to not forget the former function of the boxes.

In Austria, since 2010 telephone operator Telekom is adapting thousands of the country’s boxes to provide recharging stations for electric vehicles. In the first phase of the project 30 points were created. Returning to London, the red boxes are the inspiration for a group of artists and designers who, in 2012, created some fun installations for the BT Artbox Exhibition . But the most well known image to be found in the British capital was the work of popular artist Banksy who reworked one of them. Little did he know that the boxes would continue surviving.