TITLE: Life-Lines Throughout the United States

This body of work is a companion series to my project “Felicific Calculus: Technology as a Social Marker of Race, Class, & Economics in Rochester, NY,” to demonstrate how many communities throughout the United States are facing the same situation as Rochester. Throughout the United States, many individuals are being left behind by technology, whether that is for communication or Internet access. Our society has become one in which you must have access to these tools to be provided support services and a job, or you are left behind, widening the gap between the lower and middle classes.

Often this outdated technology is also used to label individuals or areas of a community where they can be found as social markers without further knowledge. The individuals I have met who still rely on payphones have all stated the same thing “I hate how people look at me like I am doing something wrong when I am using the payphone.” Those individuals have explained they are typically calling their families to check in or for support.

How do we ensure access to basic needs for a sustainable community, such as communication, shelter, and food, without labeling those relying on support?


Unlike my series in Rochester, I have decided to include individuals in the frame for this series because now I am including the story of the individuals in association with the payphones or simply the location. Including a person in the frame or not raises the question of the economic level of each payphone area for this body of work.

My work aims to raise the following questions, how do we ensure access to basic needs for a sustainable community, such as communication, shelter, and food, without labeling those relying on support?

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.