The Red Line

INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION WITH EVOLVING VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

MATERIALS: SOUND, TELEPHONE, TYPEWRITER, PAPER, FLASHLIGHT, REFLECTED LIGHT, AND CLOCK

EXHIBITED AT TRASTEVERE ART STUDIOS AS PART OF THE JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY OPEN STUDIO

2026

This project, titled The Red Line, asked participants to wait for the most important phone call of their lives. Every ten minutes or so, through the speaker’s music, they would hear the phone ring. The goal wasn't to represent excess but to produce it: the participant is plunged into an excess of waiting, which gradually turns into subjective stillness at a personal level. They might wonder if this phone call will ever come; they pick up the receiver in hope, but the phone isn’t plugged into any line. The excess originates from the hope that something will happen (the call), resulting in a state of perpetual waiting. The project also aimed to investigate how participants would react to the request: Who would stay? For how long? Who would break the stillness by interacting with the typewriter, leaving a trace? Many participants stayed, waiting, and in that waiting they pondered the work's meaning. A video capturing them as they wait and discuss is part of the piece, while the only one to break the stillness was a little girl. Many wondered if the phone would ever ring; one gentleman asked me to call him when the phone called him; I didn’t, but he came back, missing the most important call of his life; others said it felt like a room with a mystery to solve. In this case, breaking the excess was as simple as pressing a key on the typewriter.

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