Nice to meet you

Artists:
Novo-See: Shidi Luo (China) / Tong Jia (China) / Renjie Teoh (Singapore)

Collaborators:
Hongliu Lim (Singapore) / Phillip Huyun (Australia) / Yujin Lee (Australia)

Nice to meet you answers the natural human desire for connection with others through the creation of four simple, stylised ‘telephone booths’.

The interactive booths are paired – two for adults, one for children and one for wheelchair access. Inside each booth there is an oversized ‘cup’ in place of a telephone that connects to the booth directly opposite with a ‘string’ made of LED strip-lights contained in a series of pipes.

The strings turn, twist and convolute into a maze of light in the centre of the installation. When one person speaks into a cup, their voice sends a light signal through the string and is received by the person in the opposite booth.

People have always used a variety of means and tools to communicate with one another, and the telephone is the most familiar. Ironically, while telecommunication technology has leapfrogged significantly since the invention of the telephone in 1876, people have become more isolated from one another, trapping themselves within the cage of their own digital devices.

The intention of Nice to meet you is to free modern people from their ‘digital cages’ to better reconnect with other people.

Country represented by installation: Australia