BellSouth Phone presented during SMART PAWN, FEB. 14 - 19, 2023 @ smart pawn shop, Los Angeles
Object-based work presented in the group exhibition Smart Pawn, curated by Romain Sarrot and Edouard NG, held from February 14–19, 2023, at the Smart Pawn shop, 2627 Crenshaw Blvd, Los Angeles. The exhibition featured works by Clémentine Bruno, Cécile di Giovanni, Agatha Ingarden, P. Koo Ito, Clynton Lowry, Edouard NG, Hamish Pearch, Romain Sarrot, and Aaron Young.
Cécile di Giovanni exhibited a vintage BellSouth cordless telephone, a model nearly identical to the one used by Casey Becker in the opening scene of Scream (Wes Craven, 1996). The original device has become almost impossible to find today, surviving mainly through fan forums, prop-collector websites, and cardboard recreations.
This piece was part of Smart Pawn, a group exhibition held inside an operational pawn shop in Los Angeles. Artworks were shown alongside secondhand goods for sale.
The work examines the life cycle of objects that migrate from everyday tools to cultural symbols and, eventually, to fan-driven relics. In the context of a pawn shop (a space where objects shift value and identity) the phone operates as a simulacrum: a copy whose power lies in its proximity to an icon.
Inspiration
The telephone is a recurring object in the Scream franchise, arguably even one of its main characters. Its shape and model evolve alongside the series itself, reflecting technological shifts and changing modes of communication. Beyond its design, the phone functions as a narrative threshold: it is the killer’s primary interface with his victims, a device through which fear materializes before any physical encounter. Each call becomes a passageway, a moment where the domestic and the horrific collapse into one another, making the telephone both a communication tool and a spatial gateway within the logic of the films.
However, the BellSouth phone model used by Casey in the opening scene of the very first Scream film is by far the most iconic, likely due to its rarity today and its status as an emblem of a bygone era.
Various posts on Reddit forums from users searching for the BellSouth phone model used in the first Scream film. Also shown: an image of a cardboard replica of the phone available for purchase on Etsy, as well as a 3D-printed version for sale on the Cult 3D website.
A remarkable number of people are now searching for this particular model. Some surviving pieces can be found on forums and film prop memorabilia websites, where they are displayed almost like museum artifacts.
Process
The phone Cécile di Giovanni presented was sourced from an eBay seller in Algeria. It is not the exact screen-used model, but resembles it closely enough to generate ambiguity. A small “Casey” label was affixed to the object, echoing the logic of prop tagging and identification.
By foregrounding a mass-produced appliance transformed into a quasi-sacred artefact through collective memory, di Giovanni reflects on how pop-cultural objects accumulate mythology, circulate globally, and acquire new meanings through desire, scarcity, and reenactment.
