9 October

This 1940 video designed to teach the public about new dialling telephones (as opposed to having to always use an operator) highlights just how difficult it is to get humans to change anything. The task itself is childishly simple, the resistance is all social, humans don’t like to change, it threatens their status and therefore identity. The film talks to the viewer and people in it like they’re a kindergarten class. Separately to that, we become so accustomed and jaded to miraculous things. Imagine the first time a telephone came to a house, the idea that you could just pick it up and talk to anybody you know, anywhere, as if they were right there in your home. We forget how miraculous that must have seemed.