Open Call

‘Open Call’ is an interactive installation of unexpected connections. The installation's goal is simply to create an intersection of conversation between two people who may not have encountered each other otherwise. The installation highlights the temporary, random, and fleeting nature of interactions. Also the sense of urgency and significance around the moment of connection. To get to know and not get to know the self and the other is a choice of the two individuals in the conditions I set them up to. What happens in the conversations, held in the boxes, is up to the viewer and it is not my intention to interfere with this unforeseen and un-surveilled experience.

The work ‘Open Call’ consists of 60 cassette cases, 1000 questions, 2 communication tools, and 2 participants. Each participant has 30 cassettes including 500 questions to pick from. Both participants cannot see each other because they are located in two separate spaces. The participants cannot know who they will be interacting with. Both participants are faced to the window and faced with their back to the other visitors. The cassette cases are put in front of the window in the boxes that you see in the pictures. Each room has one box filled with cassettes, instructions, and a communication tool.

The steps of this work are fairly simple but need to happen at the right time in order to be activated.

In both of the spaces, someone has to be present. One could decide to wait until a person arrives in the other space.
When both participants have found the work, they can decide to communicate based on the instructions of the ‘Open Call’.
They both pick a number and communicate the number to each other. The number they have heard on the communication tool is the number they have to search for from the 30 cassettes that are present in the space with them.
Both participants will read out the question to the other.
Both decide whether to decline the question and leave the call or accept the question and in turn give an answer to the question they were asked.

Both participants are free to keep talking to each other on the communication tool after finishing the steps, but can also leave the call whenever.

The main focus of the ‘Open Call’ is to activate communication between two strangers who otherwise not have met and to form a reason to converse with each other in a space where they would have been accompanied by someone they already know in a space where it might be difficult to suddenly ask questions to a stranger. It breaks with the standard behavior asked from a space like an art expo.

I have often heard that people can feel comfortable being honest and open about their inner selves with strangers. The interaction can be quick or long depending on the couple and have no long-lasting consequences. This can make it easier to talk to strangers. If we know we’re never going to see a person again, it can make opening up easier.

Although I want to keep the interpretation of the call open for the two participants, it can also encourage them to feel more empathy for others who may have experienced hardship and suffering.

Also, the chances are that a stranger, unlike one's family and friends, has had very different experiences, a different education, a different upbringing, and a different worldview.

Talking to strangers can open up our minds to alternative ways of thinking. It can change our perspective. It provides an opportunity to learn new things.

‘Open call’ can form an exchange of a diverse array of ideas, experiences, and stories.

Ranging from important, mundane, and almost useless subjects, the 500 questions have been gathered from different personal and open sources. I handpicked 500 questions from newspapers, tabloids, chatrooms, schoolbooks, social media, astrology, research papers, personality tests, and Dutch tea bags.

When the participants decide to leave the call. They are left with the anonymous content of the call that only the two of them know about. It is an unpredictable and coincidental exchange created by two, only between two.