Payphone Profundity

There could be many ways to interpret this splash of payphone-related graffiti. This is my interpretation.

Without needlessly mining for too much gratuitous profundity I interpret this vigorous scrawl of vandalism as an expression of the cacophonous noise of silence and an inability to communicate in today’s world of public telephones.

The payphone once advertised by this sign is gone. Somebody appears to have attempted to “improve” this sign to better communicate the fact that it lies. The graffitist first attempted this by crossing out the telephone logo with a slanted slash. S/he then violated the word “Phone” with a burst of the vandal’s scratchy sword. A laser-beam-like line shoots from the speaker. That vacuous string of communication is craved and hungered for but does not even reach beyond the pitiful confines of the frame.

The spray of noisy scribble could express the silent noise of frustration of someone in need of a telephone. The phone icon itself is crossed out. A saliva-dripping tongue-like protrusion forms from the scratching
out of the word “Phone”. The symbol of the public telephone is anthropomorphized by this tongue-like protrusion which confidently reaches beyond the frame. The lingual protrusion is then negated by harsh vertical scratches, representing existential emptiness of attempting to communicate through a non-working or (in this case) non-existent payphone.

The vertical scribbles, coincidentally, resemble WAV forms seen in audio software. It would appear there could be no WAV form here, at least not from conversation, for no phone exists. Thus the WAV form sarcastically strikes out the tongue which struck out the word “Phone”.

The old payphone still haunts its former space, its ghost attracting rare payphone-seeking visitors through the power of this and another higher-perched payphone emblem.

This complementary bit of false advertising has been spared outright vandalism, showing mostly environmental blemishes of spattered paint. Only the street-level payphone sign merited the graffitist’s vandalous attention.

To further the symbolism of the failed payphone signage I turned it to black and white, echoing the monochrome sound of the land line telephone and, by the absence of this old payphone, a failure to communicate.

This work represents the sterile panic of silence that screams out, shocking a person in need of a phone call who picks up the handset of a non-working public telephone. If there is any interest I will offer to sell T-Shirts of this masterpiece.