Operator
Song Dong
宋冬
Production date
2009
Object Detail
Media
wood, telephone switchboard, electric light, upholstery, portable toilet
Measurements
210 x 180 x 126 cm
Notes
Operator (2009), made from what appears to be an obsolete telephone switchboard (actually a simulation constructed for Song Dong by a movie set builder), belongs to a series of reconfigured spaces and furnishings that Song Dong labelled ‘Wisdom of the Poor’ – his ‘para-pavilion’ series. Intended as both an installation and a performance event, the old switchboard where once an operator directed phone calls has been transformed. The back of the timber cabinet has become a space resembling a tiny shop, or a puppet theatre, with curtained panels that open out, a mirrored wardrobe door and cabinets, and a small space for a seated occupant. Song Dong says, ‘My first home after birth was just 5.8 square metres. My parents, my sister, my brother and I lived together in it, and that 5.8 square metre space held all the functions of our life.’ Inside the hybrid switchboard/home Song Dong installed book shelves, power outlets, lights, a bed, a table for playing chess, eating and drinking tea; there was even a portable toilet concealed underneath the bed. Musing on the ease of human connectedness in the age of the internet, Song Dong thinks that this tiny space, where two people can (just) squeeze in together, provides everything they could possibly need, except perhaps a Smartphone. The antiquated switchboard remains, however, redolent with memory.
Accession number
2016.133