The Portable Cell Phone Booth

Boston based performance sculptor Nick Rodrigues came up with a brilliant concept, The Portable Cell Phone Booth.

The Portable Cellular Phone Booth provides a visual image of social sacrifices and opportunities to interact with one another lost due to our own self-involvement. The sculpture is a retractable phone booth that is carried on your back and can slide up and over your head to completely isolate you from society, kind of like the way a cell phone does. The action is fast and slick just like the flip action of a cell phone. Historically the iconic phone booth represented a place where one could go to be alone for a private conversation, transform into superman or travel through time. Today, it’s obsolete in most cities. With the Portable Cellular Phone Booth, one can transform from a member of society to one that is closed off. By delivering my sculpture to an unsuspecting public, anyone who notices the piece receives a myriad of messages from self deprecating humor to the neglecting of friendship in real time for the hope of something better.

Along these same lines, in 2006 New York artist Jenny L Chowdhury created the The Cell Atlantic CellBooth that folds up and can be carried on your back.

Talking on the phone is no longer a private exchange. What if you could carry a phone booth with you and set it up when you needed to converse in private?

photos by Nick Rodrigues and Jenny L Chowdhury