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The Telephone Book

1st prize Prix de Rome
(artist's book, 1 copy, 3000+ pages, 19x27cm standing)
The nomination for the final of the Prix de Rome visual art competition triggered a 3-months long telephone book project. The starting point was my fascination with overhearing other people's phone talks. Prompted by the English language I chose London's Leicester Square as my base for installing a listening-device in a phone booth. My plans were upset due to the interference of undercover police who swiftly discovered my eavesdropping intentions. As taping into strangers’ phone conversations became undoable the I went onto a mission of film library re-search of thousands of film- and theatre scripts and scenario’s, which included phone dialogues. These scripted conversations were later to form a ‘telephone book’ directory of phone dialogues - instead of phone numbers.

Using just one side of the conversations, cataloguing them in a way the original Yellow Pages are divided; then photo-illustrating them with images and
archived works, I produced a 3000+ page yellow artist's book. It resembles the classic British Yellow Pages, photocopied - mostly in black & white - on yellow paper reserved worldwide uniquely for the Yellow Pages.

The book won me the 1st prize Prix de Rome and was then exhibited at Arti et Amicitiae where it was stolen during the show’s private view. After being found & returned it would also be shown at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and at W139 in Amsterdam, a/o.

LISTEN® THE VISITOR'S GUIDE
The Best of…Listen®" was a 64-page miniature version of "Listen® The Telephone Book". It was intended as a supplement to the Dutch ‘Yellow Pages’ and was to be a commercial give-away publication for the Dutch National Telecommunication Company.

 

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