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Recipe #1: The Phone Booth Confessional

Visual Codec is pleased to present the following excerpt from artist, writer, and curator Greg Lundgren's upcoming book, The Vital 5 Cookbook: Recipes For The Contemporary Artist, Curator and Troublemaker. We hope you enjoy performing it as much as we did.

"Phone Booth Confessional"
Illustration Copyright and Courtesy of Jed Dunkerley

Category: Performance
Location: Street
Budget: Low
Critical Ingredient: Phone Booth
Length of Performance: 10 Minutes

Get two dollars in quarters and go to the nearest pay phone. Randomly pick a phone number out of the white pages and call it. If someone answers, hang up and try a different number. When done in the daytime it is better to pick private residences, at night, select from the business section. You are looking for an answering machine. When you successfully dial a number with a recorded message on the other end, start talking.

The Phone Booth Confessional is an experiment in expressing yourself. Tell a story. Confess a frustration, a guilt, a secret. Never leave your name- never leave a return phone number. Just dial, leave a personal message and hang up. This project can be done once, or repeated as often as you like. It may only reach an audience of one, but it is a valuable exercise in expressing yourself, exposing your fears, articulating your vulnerabilities, sharing your dreams. Most forms of art require lengthy processes to convey your expressions. You do not have to be gifted or trained to share your thoughts with the world. You do not need a gallery or a studio to reach an audience. With a quarter and a short walk down the street, you can accelerate the process and dive head first into the realm of self-expression.