As a tool for dramatic development, the cell phone is clearly on the in. In an earlier post we mentioned the Japanese teen supersleuth who fights crime with her cell phone every Sunday night on Japan?s BS-I channel.

Also in an earlier post, we described Sheron Wray’s Textterritory, a performance in which the audience has control over physical bodies (dancers and musicians) along with lighting, music and midi system at specific times in the performance by means of their cell phones.

Here?s another, a theater work, “Two Tracks and Text Me” by Sol B. River presented at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds England in October 10 to November 1, 2003, where an SMS message plays a central role in the plot.

A young girl held captive and abused sends a desperate text-message to a stranger she hopes can help her. A hip mixed-race gang of friends receive the call, and eventually do something about it.

Nowhere near as imaginative in its use of the mobile phone as the earlier mentioned works, “Two Tracks and Text Me” none-the-less sends the message that the mobile phone is a great way to move ahead a plot that might otherwise fall on its face.

Walter Benjamin >< Marcel Duchamp

From Franck Ancel: “During a trip to Barcelona in 1997, a railway workers? strike blocked off the French-Spanish border to me. This chance situation enabled me to explore two border villages at the feet of the Eastern Pyrenees. Two significant structures caught my attention: the Walter Benjamin memorial in Port Bou on the Spanish side called Passage by Dani Karavan, and, on the French side, the H?tel Belv?d?re du Rayon Vert built by L?on Baille, the Perpignan architect.

On one side there is this memorial to Walter Benjamin who committed suicide on 26 September 1940, and on the other a building in the boat style of the 1930s containing a former cinema and theatre, listed as a 20th-century heritage building, whose name, for me, is immediately synonymous with Marcel Duchamp.
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same text marriage

from UPOC Networks:

On eve of the Republican Convention, Upoc Networks announces upcoming marriage of couples who met via text messaging on its mobile community service, Upoc.com. Read the press release.

strutting and projecting his stuff

AUDIO PEACOCK is the most recent performance by Benoit Maubrey (2003). These wearable electronic instruments are constructed from polycarbonat plexigalss material shaped into a peacock’s fan-like plumage. The plexiglass surface is equipped with 16 loudspeakers (150 watts power), amplifiers, and rechargeable 12 volt batteries. The “audio-plumage” is highly directional and functions like an electroacoustic radar dish–esthetically it has much in common with the way a peacock parades itself in front of the pea-hen (the audience). An Audio Peacock can either amplify its own electronic instrument and voice or receive sounds from outside sources via transmitter/receiver and disseminate them in a space by orienting his high-tech “plumage.” Four Audio Peacock units can be acoustically choreographed as a mobile quadrophonic loudspeaker system.

VIDEO PEACOCK: An Audio Peacock costume (constructed from white polycarbonat-plexiglass) is used as a mobile projection screen. This is a solo audio-visual concert where the electro-acoustic quality of an Audio Peacock is visually enhanced via a video beamer: moving images (both live and recorded) can be projected directly onto the performer’s costume. A story is told “live” by a figurant who simultaneously samples his own amplified voice, manipulating the sound (loop and pitch): the performer dubs his own hallucogenic dream. View video (33.4 MB, Quicktime)

See a brief history with images of Maubrey’s work.

FashMobs and WiFi-SM

I came across this post on boing boing today: it suggests the possible fascist undertones of flash mobs, “depending of course on who organizes the particular gathering, their motivation…” It then refers to Christophe Bruno who has created a net art work called Global Artists. Bruno asks “Imagine that the history of the world was turned upside-down and that the historical characters who left their mark in our schoolbooks, were reincarnated as… artists. What works of art would they produce?” One example he gives is FashMobs by A.Hitler:

“I created a website where people can leave their mobile phone number. The idea is that when the number of people is large enough, a SMS instruction is sent to all of them simultaneously by the server. When they receive it, people have to perform the instructions. The instructions are simple ones, like raising an arm, but the effect is amplified by the fact that many people do it in the same place, at the same time, as in a symphonic orchestra.”

Similarly disturbing is WiFi-SM: Feel the Spectacle of Pain. "You have the impression that the disasters of the world do not touch you anymore? You feel vaguely sorry for other people's misfortunes but you don't feel the inner urge which used to make you help your neighbour? WiFi-SM is the solution!”

Bruno reminds us that, as always, technologies can be abused and/or produce the opposite effects for which they were orginally intended. Or, is this what they were orginally intended to do?

What is ____?

Among the questions raised by the organizers of this blog are the recurring: What is Performance? performance? performative? And within that discussion, what is authorship, interaction, participation?

As I try to get a grip on the extent to which ubiquitous/pervasive computing is already with us, I keep wondering if these questions are still relevant? Can we ask a question about today in language that resonates with earlier meanings?; with, for instance, an earlier understanding of human autonomy, separateness, centrality?

The blender responds to your yelling at it ; your ‘weather coat’ tells you it’s going to rain; your skirt changes visual properties upon contact (see UrbanChameleon) or reacts to urban noise, or visualizes pollution and urban exhaust as it travels through the fabric. Two large handsome bowls in the park ring with sound as you move your hands around their insides, introducing a peaceful drone into a noisy environment–and then–they (the bowls) reach out and incorporate that noisy environment itself into the sound you’re making?and suddenly it’s all very easy to live with.
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www.free103point9.org

Sunday 08.29.04- Thursday 09.02.04

LIVE AROUND THE CLOCK COVERAGE OF THE PROTESTS
SURROUNDING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

free103point9 Online Radio is partnering with
the August Sound Coalition to provide coverage of
events during the convention.

Tune in at www.free103point9.org

Jeff Knowlton and Naomi Spellman are doing a residency at The Media Centre in Huddersfield. Here’s their description of what they are up to:

http://www.druh.co.uk/residencies.html

The work we are developing is an urban exploration shaped from the immediate environment and from online databases. It unfolds in realtime, through space, as the visitor makes her way through the city. The Interpretive Engine creates an audio and visual narrative, relying on the visitors’ location and direction ? as well as on access to wireless internet connections along the way. The Interpretive engine is a computer-based work, which can be experienced singly or in small groups, either from a visitor’s own laptop, or from equipment checked out to visitors. It requires no input from the visitor, other than her natural progression through a loosely delineated space. The project takes into account local surroundings, events, and available telecommunications infrastructure.

Server side data will be parsed in real time from a variety of predetermined online resources, including a news source, a national or metropolitan historic database, a weather source, a local directory, most-wanted international criminal directory, etc. The project will parse and interpret this data, and integrate it into a site specific narrative. Key to this project is a shift in consciousness of the listener, through an exposure of something that is already always present: the [invisible] wireless network. We will encourage visitors to question how informational databases are accessed and controlled in an era of increasingly pervasive corporate and governmental control.

Breaking News! Josh Kinberg Arrested!

Josh Kinberg (see our Bikes Against Bush post) was arrested [watch video] while being interviewed about his Road Writer bicycle. This news comes after I personally road in Critical Mass last night and a person in our riding group was arrested. HERE IS THE EMAIL about Josh word for word:

“…about 40 minutes ago Josh was doing an interview with Ron Reagan and in the middle of it the police pulled up. 20 minutes later a captain came down to the scene (all still while on camera with Ron reagan) and after some time arrested Josh. they took the bike too. Josh is OK. We were all shocked that it would happened like that. a crowd had formed and many journalist wondered into it. Josh was little shocked but, it was all peaceful and calm just very very frustrating and absurd. - YURY GITMAN”

From | alison | juliaset, 08.28.2004: 13.19.35

Read an article.

“Joshua was released from police custody at 11:00 AM on Sunday. Lawyers from the National Lawyer Guild believe that the case is a clear violation of the first amendment and should be thrown out. Joshua’s bicycle, laptop, and cell phone have all been confiscated, however, and are being held until his court hearing. The court date has been set for Friday, 9/3, after the end of the RNC. An alternative link to the video can be found at http://dv.open4all.info/?postid=70″

posted by: yatta on juliaset

Read Josh’s account of what happened.

Call for WiFi.ArtCache Participants

This is a call for contributions to art-technologists interested in contributing to the WiFi.ArtCache during its exhibition at Spectropolis October 1-4, 2004. Deadline for submissions is September 26th.

By simply coding to a provided ActionScript 2.0 API, Flash artists are able to create an interactive experience that changes based on how many people have downloaded their art object, how many people are currently interacting with their art object, or whether their art object is currently in range of the WiFi.ArtCache. Here are earlier posts about WiFi.ArtCache and Spectropolis.
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