Transparent Borders

“Where are the borders between public and private? Between art and life? Between urbanity and individual? - The project Tele-tap by the Amsterdam women artist group CUT-n-PASTE connected its listeners with a number of personalities active in Amsterdam’s nightlife: a member of the Salvation Army, a harbour worker, a musician, a woman strolling through the pubs. Each of these personalities went into his urban environment, in his auditory-communicative hunting ground, lived there his life, played his role, provoked encounters. This was transmitted live by the permanent open mike of their mobile phones. Each of them could be wiretapped by the audience via radio, Internet or at the performance venue. Tele-tap showed how undefinable the borders can become between intimate and public space in a mobile communicating society. The technical »heart« of the project is the Internet, where the mobile phone sound inputs were converted into live audio streams and were audible all over the world. These streams also went on air as radio signals, and were accessible by headphones and loudspeakers at the performance venue itsself. The last time Tele-tap was live aired and live performed was on August 31 and September 1, 2001 on the Dutch radio channel VPRO and at »De Balie«, an Amsterdam cultural center. New technologically and dramaturgically extended versions of the project are in preparation. [via AudioHyperspace]