TITLE: Felicific Calculus: Technology as a Social Marker of Race, Class, & Economics in Rochester, NY

Rochester, NY, has 1,455 payphones, which serve as a felicific calculus by Frontier Communications regarding the decision to leave the payphones. Frontier is losing money from these payphones but continues maintaining them for one of the poorest cities by the number of people under the United States poverty level.

To many individuals, these payphones serve as a social marker or social indicator, and to others, they serve as a marker of crime. Such social markers often conclude the perception that one area is worse than another, leading to biased decisions by policymakers.

That perception drove me to educate myself on what led to their perceived notions of a place they had never visited. What became apparent was the direct correlation between the poverty level and the payphone locations through looking at census maps and the payphone locations. The average income for these areas is under $20,000 per family.

To illustrate the socioeconomics of the area, interactive maps with payphone locations on transparent film overlaid on top of maps with census information, economics, race, housing income, and more. Each census map is standalone, creating a dialog for the information presented; the viewer must interact with the maps by lifting the top layer revealing the census key.

I also learned that many individuals still rely on payphones as their lifeline in Rochester. To tell their story, audio recordings from interviews with those individuals about their reliance on payphones. Within galleries, three payphones are installed, allowing people to dial a phone number and listen to stories of those individuals so easily labeled and forgotten about.

AUTHOR: Eric Kunsman (United States)

Eric T. Kunsman (b. 1975) was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. While in high school, he was heavily influenced by the death of the steel industry and its place in American history. The exposure to the work of Walker Evans during this time hooked Eric onto photography. Eric had the privilege to study under Lou Draper, who became Eric’s most formative mentor. He credits Lou with influencing his approach as an educator, photographer, and contributing human being.

Currently, he is a photographer and book artist based out of Rochester, New York. Eric works at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as an Assistant Professor for the Visual Communications Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and the School of Photographic Arts & Sciences.

In addition to lectures, he provides workshops on topics including his artistic practice, digital printing, and digital workflow processes. He also provides industry seminars for the highly regarded Printing Applications Lab at RIT. His photographs and books are exhibited internationally and are in several collections. He currently owns Booksmart Studio, which is a fine art digital printing studio, specializing in numerous techniques and services for photographers and book artists on a collaborative basis.

Eric holds his MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and holds an MS in Electronic Publishing/Graphic Arts Media, BS in Biomedical Photography, BFA in Fine Art photography all from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

There's no “given,” formula for what demands Eric’s focus as a photographer. Eric is as drawn to the landscapes and neglected towns of the American southwest as he is to the tensions of struggling rustbelt cities in the U.S. northeast. Always Eric is attracted to objects left behind, especially those that hint at a unique human narrative, a story waiting to be told. Eric’s current work explores one of those relics: working payphones hidden in plain sight throughout the neighborhood near his studio in Rochester, NY. Associates suggested they signified a high crime area. This project's shown Eric something very different.