A bar built from communicating tubes.

People standing at a bar usually are busy communicating, or at least try to. But sometimes the person that you would like to start a conversation with is at the very other end of the bar. Or you never can think of a good sentence to start with. Or the barman never looks into your direction. Or maybe you just want to have some fun.

Then simply approach a tube ending that is close to you, and start talking, shouting or singing into it. At some other part of the bar, people will hear your message coming out of the tube's other end loud and clear. And, since the tubes are standard polyethylen drain pipes, they won't mind that the people over there react to your message by emptying their beers into their end of the tube.

While I was working at INTERPOL+- Interdisciplinary Studios, I was tasked to create a bar for an arts and music festival that brought together artists from Kopenhagen and Hamburg. Since both cities are seaports and the festivals lead idea was to create a dialogue between the two cities' residents, the reference to the 'speaking tube' or 'voicepipe' formerly used for communication on ships was close at hand.

After the festival, the bar was brought to Berlin, where it now serves as INTERPOL+- Interdisciplinary Studios' reception desk and still helps to improve communication.