The Apology Line
Allan Bridge ran The Apology Line from the mid-seventies until his death in 1995. The Apology Line is one of several inspirations for Futel.
The Apology Line was essentially built around a telephone number and an answering machine. After hearing an introduction, callers could leave a recorded apology for whatever they had done wrong, or also hear a curated digest of best apologies, released weekly. The digest would often become interactive as callers left comments on the apologies, with some discussions spanning months. Bridge lived in Manhattan and would put up flyers to publicize it.
I experienced it in the early nineties, after reading an article about it in a discarded magazine. This was during a period when I had access to free long-distance phone calls, and I called in to listen to every episode, and perhaps to apologize.
The Apology Line is inspiring because a simple implementation created a large community impact. It was built around a basic technology that was part of urban life - a phone line, an answering machine, and photocopied flyers with those little tear-off number tabs. The constraints of that interface made it accessible to millions of people. The reason behind making and using it was basic as well, a human connection that all people need but isn’t available to everybody. Paradoxically, it was the very distance and anonymity of the medium that allowed the contributors to make an intimate connection.
The goal of Futel is to fill a similar role in creative communication. The foundation of the project is a simple one: to provide free telephone service to anyone, at any time. Fulfilling that requirement gives us the form factor of the payphone, an armored, weatherproof machine anchored to a solid object which can be left out on the street all night. Because the interface is the telephone, it is accessible to anybody with an ear, a mouth, and a finger. The natural habitat of our phones is the public, urban environment, not galleries or festivals. A Futel user does not need an account or even an identity, and doesn’t need to be polite, washed, or in control of their emotions. If a user doesn’t have a person to talk to, Futel can provide one.
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