Serial Number: T0PS60083A
Serial Number: T0PS60083A refers to a ritual examination of one (until recently) traditionally functional New York City payphone.
In 2005, a payphone numbered T0PS60083A was removed from its sidewalk location in Brooklyn and taken to Berlin to be used as a performance prop. Back in New York, it was elaborately engraved with directions (referencing local landmarks, existing architecture and meridians) to a particular grassy spot. Additionally, a 200-page book was compiled, including detailed instructions on how to form a payphone franchise, as well as biographical information on the previous proprietors of T0PS60083A. This rash of activity symptomized a feverish thought-process which took into account surgery, internal referencing, privatized public property, publicly-staged private dramas and guilt. In September, 2006, a dozen volunteers took rubbings from the surface of the phone. It was then either hidden or laid to rest, the rubbings becoming either maps or epitaphs.
Serial Number: T0PS60083A was made in parallel with The Commons, 2nd Rotation. Both events revisit a previous collaboration, and together, they constitute an exploration of the contemporary the payphone experience. Shown in conjunction with Conflux06.