Andrea goh

Andrea Goh

Phone: 07490169816 E-Mail: andreagohsh@gmail.com

The Red Telephone Box

The image of the red telephone box is very much part of the urban landscape of London. It has become an easily recognizable icon of the city, attracting many tourists to even pose with (or inside) a siren-red telephone box for photographs. The history of the red telephone box started in 1921 when the General Post Office rolled out a scheme to locate telephone boxes around Britain, and more so in London. British Telecom has privatized the telephone boxes since the 1960s, with about 92,000 of these bright red cubicles around Britain at its peak1. The telephone boxes were designed to be highly visible and provide an enclosed private space for a telephone conversation but now, with almost the entire population of urban dwellers with a smart phone in their pockets, the era of the telephone box is drawing to a close. To anyone who has recently stepped into a telephone box in London, would probably have a very different experience from its glory days of the past. These phone booths are now typically associated with being damp, foul smelling with urine and being plastered with pictures and phone numbers of prostitutes (ironically the kiosk would be too grotesque to make use of these numbers) – signs of social breakdown that indicate a failed public space.

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http://www.the-telephone-box.co.uk/story/

Tourists taking pictures in front of a London icon.

Interior of a typical phone booth in London with advertisements of prostitutes or local strip clubs.

Somehow, the red telephone box still has an exciting imaginary life; at least in fiction – in the film and book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the public amenity was elevated to become a portal to an alternative world of the Ministry of Magic. The telephone box has also been part of a plot of a murder mystery in the popular drama Midsomer Murders2. The telephone box has become an icon that may no longer be relevant as its original intended function but its image has continued to remain as a landmark in the memories of anyone who remembers the times before the mobile. The newer telephone boxes have tried to remain relevant by including a WIFI feature to allow for users to connect to the Internet through the WIFI hub in the telephone boxes, with their own mobile devices. This feature has changed how these bright hued cubicles are used since it is not necessary to remain inside the enclosure to continue utilizing 2

In episode 3 of the drama, televised on 11 February 2015, the character Toby winning was found dead and his telephone records show that he had received a mysterious call from a remotely located telephone box just minutes before his death. A more elaborate synopsis of the episode and drama series can be found here http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep3week7/midsomer-murders 2

the WIFI feature3. This has only emphasized that the image of the red telephone boxes have remained relevant as an icon while its original purpose has become obsolete. The red telephone box has become a symbol, an icon and even a monument of Britain – viewed from the exterior.

Characters from the film Harry Potter using the telephone box to transport themselves into an alternative magical world.

Before the smart phone and Internet, people would escape the public by stepping into the enclosure of the telephone box for privacy. Nowadays, the new urban spectacle consists of people having conversations with themselves in midst of a crowd of strangers because each stranger is by themselves, occupied and engaged in their own conversation, constructing an intangible “material” to shield privacy in the crowded public space. The big shift is that the idea of privacy is no longer about physical barriers of distance between you and the other stranger next to you, the expression of privacy is social and cultural – the new “telephone box” now fits snuggly in our hands or in our pockets. The history of the red telephone box, which is also the history of the city since electrification and the invention of the telephone, is also the history of the construction of the new privacy in public.

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http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/feel-free-to-use-londons-phone-boxes-for-wi-fi-if-you-can-be-bothered/ 3