phone booth in the woods
Has anyone else heard about this? There's a phone booth in the middle of the woods.
I stole this post from a gun forum that my boyfriend reads and he told me to check it out. Here's the thread if you'd like to see what the gun community thinks about it. I'm interested to hear what this hiking community thinks about...
http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...2310031722/p/1
Some hikers on a local hiking forum have recently discovered a phone booth located in the middle of the wilderness. There is a message located in the "phone book" from the people who placed the phone booth there. I find it intriguing and I'm wondering what you think about it. After the pictures is the full text of the message found in the phone book.
We chose a semi-remote and beautiful Cascade peak, previously unnamed, on top of which we installed a ¾ length, pedestal profile, US West blue telephone booth. The summit is precipitous, above a tarn and alpine cirque, affording views of Rainier and the mountain village below. Yet it is lower than it's grander neighbors, giving it a certain humility. The climb is non-technical, making it accessible to anyone, but far from a trail and thus obscured from all but the intentional shrine-seeker. It can even be visited in winter with back-country skis.
The immediate response will be to the comic and absurd in the arrangement: how did this (very large!) object get here? Why? Can we place a call? Quickly deeper questions emerge: what is wilderness? How quickly are obsolete technologies forgotten? What is trash, what is sculpture? Can this be an object both of irreverence towards mountain convention and one of reverence to the mountain spirits themselves? What do solitude and isolation mean in this era of hyper-connectivity? (Most hikers encountering the phone booth will indeed have a cell phone in their pockets.) The view of the ski resort and I-90 below provides a provocative backdrop for the wilderness peak, the juxtaposition of civilization and alpine echoed in both sculpture and view.
Another response will be one of offense, especially from hikers for whom the American wilderness ideal has become orthodoxy. Starting with Thoreau and continuing with Muir, the wilderness became a place of divinity, for encountering the sublime. It is set apart from civilization, which is tainted by man, the two forming a duality: fallen society and pure nature. We either dominate and exploit the earth, or try to preserve it in its untouched form; in this system there is no in-between mode of interaction with nature. Emerging amid a society that was rampantly extracting resources from recently conquered nature, this movement did lead to the important conservation of wild lands. As a gesture of respect to this tradition, we made sure the peak was only in the National Forest (which is rife with logging, mining, ski resorts etc), and not in the protected Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area (see the detailed Green Trails "207S Snoqualmie Pass Gateway" map).
However, the absolutism of the "leave no trace" ethic has become blinding for some hikers and any alteration of the wilderness is now seen as an affront to its holiness, their zealotry targeting climbers rappel anchors, elegant rock wind-walls at campsites, and certainly phone booth installations. In fact, taken to a logical extreme, the mere presence of a human in the natural scene, on the conceptual level, destroys it, creating an inherent contradiction in the hiker’s wilderness trip. Meanwhile, the pockets of nature within cities and suburbs are often disregarded and not cherished for possessing the same essential beauty that the wilderness has. (These ideas of duality are explored in depth by William Cronon "The Trouble With Wilderness", 1996). The phone booth then serves to poke playfully at this strict interpretation of the leave-no-trace philosophy, encouraging a more nuanced vision of nature which these offended hikers can ponder as they drive home in Subarus on a six lane highway down a heavily logged valley.
A question emerges: What is this more nuanced and holistic concept of wilderness that the phone booth proposes? How, considering the material of urban refuse and the violation of wilderness convention, can it be seen as a shrine, a space for mountain worship? In fact the original inspiration for the project came from the nature concepts of East Asia which disassemble the duality between civilization and wilderness, seeing harmonious inter-penetration of the two as the only complete vision of the world. Nature without any presence of man is devoid of meaning, civilization without presence of nature is equally out of balance. On Chinese holy mountains, a tasteful bridge, a winding trail, or an elegant temple shows a respectful relationship between man and nature. It’s an interaction which neither tries to conquer nor preserve untouched, but rather seeks to revere and subtly beautify the natural world, altering it but not exploiting it. Meanwhile Chinese city parks and gardens celebrate the spirit of nature, building replica mountains, lakes and winding paths. This allows for humans to participate in the creation of wilderness and for nature to participate in civilization – the mutual interaction provides both a sense of truly belonging in the midst of the other.
For our personal relationship with nature, in this East Asian mode, we wanted to choose a spiritual installation which artistically and humbly adds to the mountain scene, yet rings true as a motif of our own times. Christian icons of the past have lost their meaning for much of our society and many of our peers turn to foreign religious traditions which still retain a sense of their profundity, like yoga or Buddhism. We could have used similar borrowing for our mountain art, making a Himalayan-style cairn or stringing up Tibetan prayer flags. Yet something pulled us towards a re-casting of an object direct from the heart of the current culture of progress, materialism and hyper-connectivity. This way, the assertion of spirituality is not an act of escapism, fleeing to a wholly different system, but rather a response to the system in which we find ourselves, using its own materials to propose a new attitude. A phone booth evokes connectivity and communication not only with other people and eras but, in the alpine context, with the voices of the mountains; an oracle of both of changing society and changeless nature.
Ultimately, in an era of hybridized and re-imagined cultures, we can more and more create our own systems of meaning. Any space can be holy if we regard it as holy, nature can be found both in urban alleys or on remote peaks. So for those who seek such an experience, the phone booth shrine can sincerely be a space for communing with mountain spirits or for meditation on harmonious interaction with the forces of nature. For others it can be seen just as a playful sculpture and a celebration of paradox. For some, it will be political commentary, relevant to our urgent dialogue on nature and environmentalism. The only curatorial directive is that it not be seen as a mere thoughtless prank. Indeed all art should be thought-provoking and perspective-shifting at its core; this project has been that for its creators and, it is hoped, will be that for all visitors.
Seattle, August 9th, 2010
some photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m...t-72157624896208341/
(Feel free to copy or reprint any portion of this statement).
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Originally Posted by bus
