Kasper Bosmans in conversation with Lazy Susan: "In a certain way the switchboards are a portrait of a certain day. They are the reception desk that nobody gets to see. They are intimate objects that are operated by the operator. You quite often see that they have personalized them - like the dried flowers and photographs that embellish a switchboard in the Telefoniemuseum in Rotterdam. At the same time the switchboards are a reflection of the organisation. This contrast between the operator and the commissioner is interesting to me. You could compare it to medieval manuscripts in which the benefactor would be mentioned as an author while the painter would be called pictor. I quite enjoy this. You could link it to the idea of craftsmanship. I’m trying to undermine the idea of the unique artistic endeavour. A good example is Philippe Thomas: a mesmerizing conceptual artist from France who would unsubscribe himself from his own practice by removing his name as an author and replace it by the name of a collector, a gallerist, or other stakeholders. One of the Switchboards is called Feux Pâles, based on an exhibition Thomas did at CAPC/Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in 1990. He invited other people and showed naturalia and books. The exhibition was divided into eleven chapters and a prelude. The Switchboard visualizes how Thomas brought together a network of authors within these chapters. It’s an elaborate scheme to disappear."

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