Cel Bell
Cel Bell (2023-ongoing)
As Ma Bell revolutionized the American telephone system, Cel Bell expands the Planet Celadon world as a speculative telecom that allows viewers to send voicemail messages to their ancestors or future generations. The telecom allows viewers to speak in their own voices or translate their messages into 13 East Asian and Southeast Asian languages.
Rooted in the phrases “mother land,” “mother tongue,” and “motherboard,” Cel Bell considers how Asian diasporas negotiate the complexities of speaking with our “homeland/s,” cultural connections, our linguistic/dialect diversities, and communication technologies.
Cel Bell draws upon references to current global telecommunication networks, Carl Sagan’s Golden Record, Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and the Chinese Telephone Exchange, a multi-lingual switchboard center established in 1887 in San Francisco’s Chinatown as contemporary and historic communication systems and experiments.
As an interactive installation, The Call Center builds an archive of Asian communities to speaking our personal and collective truths, hopes, and memories.
In addition to the software and installation, individual videos, sculptures, paintings, and performance complement this body of work.
Cel Bell network launch: estimated 2025–2027.