The title comes from the Greek roots of “tele” meaning “distant, far off” and “phone” meaning “sound, voice”. While modern smartphones far exceed the original purpose of the telephone, the devices used here, German FeTAp611-2 and FeTAp612-2 models from the 1960s to 1980s, served solely to transmit voices between distant locations. Since its practical adoption in the late 19th century, the telephone has been indispensable in military, commercial, and personal communication, removing the time and space barriers inherent in mail. Beyond its utility, it has also acquired symbolic weight in fiction and film, bridging real and virtual worlds in The Matrix (1999), linking life and death in Dial M for Murder (1954), or connecting hero and citizen in Batman (1966). The telephone’s power to link two entirely separate realms in real time has long lent it a metaphoric role as a channel to the transcendent.

In this work, the greeting “Hello?” which is normally a way to confirm the presence of someone on the other end becomes absurd. The telephones are linked without human participants, creating an exchange where a voice that does not physically exist confirms the existence of something equally absent. This futility evokes the silent God of religious longing and the believer’s unanswered calls, echoing Psalm 83:1: “O God, do not remain silent; do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God.” In the last century, communication technology has advanced so rapidly that we forget the physical distances it was invented to bridge. Devices are now mass-produced and increasingly automated. But if automation continues to the point where humans themselves are excluded from the loop of communication, what kind of interaction or absence will remain?