The documentary audio installation “Stille Post” (Silent Post) creates a dialogue between two municipal housing estates and their residents.

Starting in September, artistically designed telephone booths will be installed in the Per-Albin-Hansson-Siedlung and Kopenhagen-Hof for three months. Anyone who picks up the receiver will hear short stories about human encounters, relationships, and personal experiences. They tell of the everyday lives of the residents with whom artist Laura Andreß has conducted conversations and interviews. The telephone booth – once a “radically democratic medium” (Laura Andreß), now a relic and resonance chamber – serves as an acoustic archive at the interface between the public and the private.

The two telephone booths are also connected to each other via a direct line, so that calls can be made from one municipal housing complex to the other. Once a month, residents and interested parties are invited to regular get-togethers at the installation.

“Stille Post” links the historical heritage of Red Vienna in the 1920s with current questions about community, public sphere, and privacy. Today, art in public spaces addresses the essential needs of society through all possible art forms. Laura Andreß does this quite explicitly by letting the people themselves form the artwork with their stories.