What is left of us

What is left of us is a 20-minute interactive narrative piece, designed for one person at a time, set within the intimate confines of a phone booth. Upon entering, you are greeted by a ringing telephone. Answering the call initiates a journey, where the unfolding narrative is shaped by your choices. It borrows notions of collapsology as a dramaturgical structure to discuss our societal and infrastructural legacy: what are the traces we leave behind for future generations? In 1948, a telephone booth was set up in the Mojave Desert in southern California for the use of local miners. Decades later, the mining industry withdrew from the area, leaving behind this single phone booth as the only trace of civilization in the desert landscape. While the history of the phone booth may initially seem anecdotal, it gains significance when juxtaposed with a discussion about collapse and infrastructure; the telephone booth is a forgotten artifact of our community. It remains everywhere. However, it is no longer visible. It must be in the middle of the desert to be perceptible once again. Nonetheless, its synthetic manufactured nature, its frame, could be one of our last traces. What will remain of the conversations we have had in these, the graffiti we have written on them, or the shelter they gave? The phone booth, erected in the middle of apparent nothingness, a neglected artifact of a defunct collectivity, thus becomes a symbol of collapse and it’s potential. This experience is offered both in English and in French.