ccPhone
Tobias Wong
Customised inside and out, with knowledge that in todays digitally enhanced world the object and the informaton it holds or accesses are in constannt rivalry for our attentions and value.
Date of Design
2007
Size
115 mm L, 11.6 mm W, 61 mm H
Material
iPhone (aluminium, glass, silicon, carbon)
Edition
50
CITIZEN:Citizen is constantly questioning the value of and our relationship to objects. In the vein of commenting on mass culture and mass consumerism, Tobias Wong’s latest creation, exclusively for CITIZEN:Citizen.
The matte black phone, titled ccPhone, is limited to an edition of 50. The ccPhone is constructed from an iPhone. This phone is jet black and its matte surface gives a sense of awe. Tobias has, in the past, used appropriation to highlight the original beauty of a design classic and by adding his own observation or take, he creates an exercise in pure persuasion.
Wong rests in that liminal space of artist, designer and social commentator. Wong uses design as a medium and in the case, the medium is the iPhone. As a designer, he offers new ways of looking at an object that hundreds of designers have already worked on, usurping their ideas and improving on what has been deemed a classic.
As a social commentator, he is highlighting our constant need to consume and our obsession with differentiating ourselves with the objects in our life.
Wong plays to both our brain and our gut, the logical and the visceral. On the one hand, he makes us aware of our obsession as consumers, on the other hand he lures us back in by creating such beautiful observations, ones that we invariably want to consume.
The ccPhone comes with a curated series of information, artwork for the screen, video, a selection of music and, possibly most intriguing of all, CITIZEN:Citizen’s personal address book in v-cards, which will be updated twice a year.
In essence, the ccPhone asks us how much further can our desires be pushed, how much more can we have, how exclusive can we be and how differently can we perceive and through what lens.
Recent Press
May 2008, Depatures
January 2008, Azure
November 2007, Interior Design