(Im)material Telephone

This project takes the moment in which the smartphone breaks as an opportunity to redefine the value of the expired object within the local.

Long description

The smartphone is more than a communication device; it blurs the restrictions of place and time, making us independent from our physical surroundings and creating an immaterial playground from our most private information – a data stream of personal values. This stream of data goes beyond the device you hold in your pocket. Within a couple of years over 30 billion unique devices exist, creating a web of connections in which we surround ourselves. Living in a city, you are part of a chain of connections: our houses, cars, wearables, and many other consumer-goods are implemented with digital-technology. And we have access to it through our most personal device: our smartphone.

However, the role of the smartphone cannot be separated from its concrete form. In the moment that a smartphone breaks, it transforms from a personalized device into an object with no function. From the perspective of the user, the broken smartphone seems to have lost all value. But from the perspective of the global-production-system, this artifact still contains 42 precious materials as well as the user’s personal data.

This project takes the moment in which the smartphone breaks as an opportunity to redefine the value of the expired object. The machine dramatizes and guarantees the destruction of the data storage, making information inaccessible, while capturing the moment in which the smartphone’s materials are revealed. The machine activates new possibilities for the circulation and reuse of materials locally within the city, while preventing the user’s private-history from disseminating into the public-sphere.