ring ring

Since 2016, telephone booths have no longer been part of Switzerland’s basic public infrastructure. When one breaks, it is not repaired. Yet few people know that calls made from the remaining functional booths are still free of charge – a final public service before these small-scale architectures turn into monuments.

On 4 July 2021, at 11:58 p.m., the artist Johanna Bossart purchased a telephone booth on the online platform Ricardo. Out of this object, ring ring emerged in 2023 on the publicly accessible grounds of Basislager Zürich – a platform for contemporary art that realises the idea of presenting art in public space and invites artists to engage with the site in a specific and responsive way.

Each year, six artists are invited to present a work at ring ring. The telephone booth, as a place of communication, may itself become a thematic point of departure. Each project opens with a vernissage and discussion. The photographer Christian Beutler documents the booth and its transformations, while art historian Sibylle Meier contributes a text on the participating artists and their work.

The visual concept draws on the Swisscom logo of the late 1990s: stylised bars inspired by the sound pattern – or rather, the rhythm – of the ringtone: short – medium – long.