Phone Wars comes to the Science Museum

The internationally recognised artists group Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji, have created a phone network exploring the current issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with students from Joan Roan School and London's Congolese community. This exciting project enables people to discuss the ‘Coltan Wars’ with every call triggering a bank of 300 switches of the Science Museum’s giant Strowger Telephone Exchange.

At the beginning of November, the artists ran workshops with the students and members of London’s Congolese community to discuss the war in the Congo, asylum in the UK, the history of telephony and it's connection to our mobile phones. After carrying out research, the students wrote and recorded a series of messages to be played to subscribers of Phone Wars.

The project culminates in an installation at the Science Museum. Each time people receive a phone call from the Phone Wars network the Science Museum’s Strowger Telephone Exchange is triggered, linking together over a hundred years of telephone history and highlighting the consequences of globalisation, technological progress and our addiction to constant communication.

Coltan is an ore mined in the Congo Region to obtain the metal tantalum which is an essential component of mobile phones and other communication devices. 80% of the world’s coltan comes from the Congo, where the metal is coveted by dozens of international mining companies and local warring militias.

“The students’ messages give a platform for people to discuss the current troubles in the Congo region,” says Ruth Fenton, Arts Project Coordinator at the Science Museum. “Phone Wars adds a social perspective to a technological phenomenon and will be a fascinating project for visitors to the Science Museum.”

John Liffen, Curator of Communications, said “Phone Wars has given the Science Museum the chance to reanimate the Strowger Switch, an object loved for its cranky mechanism and whirring noise. We’re grateful to members of the Telecommunications Heritage Group for helping us achieve this. What’s more, Phone Wars is helping school pupils gain a historical and social perspective on modern telecommunications, a phenomenon many of us take for granted but fail to realise its past and present implications.”

The Strowger switch is the world’s first fully automated telephone exchange that uses an electro-mechanical stepping system to route calls. Almon Strowger invented and developed the automatic switching system whilst working as an undertaker in the late 19th century after discovering he was losing clients to a competitor. The wife of Strowger’s rival was a telephone operator, and she was intercepting and redirecting the calls of everyone who tried to phone Strowger.

Phone Wars will be on show in the Science Museum’s Telecommunications gallery on the first floor from Monday 8 December to Sunday 21 December and is free to view. The Science Museum is open daily from 10am to 6pm.

Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

For further information please contact Andrew Marcus in the Science Museum Press Office: andrew.marcus@sciencemuseum.org.uk or 020 7942 4357.