Author: MK

Delivering a message with a human voice, particularly over the phone, is enjoying a renaissance as a powerful mode of delivery that both cultural and commercial projects alike are exploiting.

Customized email isn’t special, receiving a fax isn’t special, not even getting a letter in the mail is special (unless it’s a passionate love letter, I suppose). But a human voice at the other end of a phone line is special, intimate, and immediate.

I’ve noted this renewed faith in telephony in the commercial world, as the “I Love Bees” craze is peaking. “I Love Bees” is a marketing vehicle for the soon-to-be released Halo 2 game. But it is also a game in and of itself, involving many players who participate by following episodes of the drama released online, and receiving GPS coordinates that lead players to pay phones across America. If a player makes it to a designated pay phone at the appointed time, they might be lucky enough to receive a phone call from one of the game’s characters, giving them more insight into the “I Love Bees” mystery.

Receiving a phone call makes this game a part of your real life. Add a convincing voice on the other end of the call and you have gamers remarking that “…it was quite different to speak with a voice actor. She was pretty good. I got really into it, probably too into it. I felt like the characters were real.” (quote from Wired News)

What about receiving a phone message from a celebrity? Signing up to receive updates on eminem.com includes the following option: “Would you like to receive a voice message from Eminem?” It’s a clever option to offer from a marketing perspective. Clearly Eminem’s handlers understand that hearing Em’s unmistakable rapid-fire banter coming out of your own handset could be pretty exciting for a fan, more so than another sterile e-mail update.

Of course, my favourite examples are cultural projects. Though I missed the opportunity to hear Amos Latteier’s “Call of the Wild” project, I admire its vision. The project consisted of audio tours of downtown Portland, Oregon that were accessible by dialing a toll-free number. Latteier’s website explains that the tours focus on the plant and animal life in the downtown core, and that by “using natural history, philosophy, and humor the tours reveal urban biological systems that we see everyday but seldom notice.” A wonderful concept, and an effective example of the possibilities for creative content delivered by the tried and true combination of the human voice and a phone.

Also, it almost goes without saying (since I’ve said it here so often) that the psychogeography-by-phone service that [murmur] offers is a clear success as well. In one of the many media articles about [murmur], it was noted that the project is like a friend whispering in your ear.

Perhaps that’s part of the answer, if the question is why this simple method of delivery is so effective. Listening to a voice on the line is personal, even if the voice you hear is unfamiliar.

Yesterday I was in the “Show and Talk” session, where a project is analyzed in some detail by invited respondents, followed by feedback from the audience. The project that was dissected yesterday was [murmur], a project I’ve written about here several times. (What’s [murmur]?)

[murmur] was viewed through the lens of “relational culture”, a term used at the McLuhan Festival to describe a mode of cultural production that inspires, modifies, and casts new light on human relationships.

From the point of view of the reception of [murmur] stories, Darren Wershler-Henry, one of the invited respondents, makes a nice point that the act of calling a [murmur] story is in itself a performance, and how does standing around with your cellphone to your ear, saying nothing, only listening, make you obvious on the street and change your relationship to the location itself as well as passersby?

From the point of view of the collection of [murmur] stories, John Sobol notes that there seems to be a particular tenor to the stories that, despite the diversity of storytellers, lends an emotional homogeneity. He called for stories that might make people cry or get angry, to expand the emotional range of the [murmur] experience. Shawn and Gabe of [murmur] responded by saying that the essential criterion for including a [murmur] story is simply that the story be well told – and as of yet they haven’t had a well-told story that may strike out at the extremes of that emotional range. They also noted how difficult it is to collect stories – that there is a bit of performance anxiety that emerges when they attempt to collect stories that might be surprising, given the success of “open mic” type platforms like Speaker’s Corner.

I raise the point that at this moment in [murmur]’s development, it might be time to critically review the curatorial process, (that is, the process of collecting and selecting stories), in order to broaden the spectrum of emotions expressed and diversity of voices included. How can the process of collecting stories be refined, does a question need to be asked? When handed an open mic, it may be harder to find something to say. When handed a mic with a question or critical direction, whatever that question or proposed direction may be, it might be easier to open the floodgates that hold back the stories we all have. As well, establishing some clear axes of intention behind the story collection may provide an interesting new direction for [murmur], which would be well-timed since they currently enjoy a solid base (three murmur-ified cities) from which to move forward.

It’s a delicate moment…. how to make a great project even better?

Last weekend I was at “Progression”, a seminar run by an arts organization named Vivid in Birmingham, UK.

I arrived at Heathrow, and felt happy to be in the UK, excited as I always am. I was rather sick with a cold, took the train to Birmingham, and checked into the Old Farm Hotel (which was super cute).

Unfortunately I sniffled and coughed and wheezed through most of the seminar day, which was at the University of Central England, but managed to deliver a talk about interdisciplinarity and systems. I showed some examples of how small changes to a system can result in radical new practices. This kind of “system tinkering” is, in my view, one of the most exciting types of creative practice.

I’ll share with you two of my favourite case studies that I spoke about. Some cowboys left some guitars behind in Hawaii in about 1792, and the result was Hawaiian Slack Key guitar playing. The cowboys didn’t leave behind any instructions on how to tune the guitars, so each person who picked up a guitar and taught themselves to play also learned their own individual way of tuning the guitar. These methods of tuning became highly prized, and musicians would loosen their strings when they put their guitars down, so no one could steal their tuning. Tuning styles were only shared within families, and this created a wonderful kind of family history, with some musicians able to re-tune their guitars and play in the style of their father, and re-tune again and play in the style of their aunt, et cetera. I thought this was a great example of re-examining a system, even though it occurred mostly by accident. Who says that this is the way to tune a guitar? I like the way that something that might be considered fundamental in music, the tuning of an instrument, also becomes part of an individual’s style of playing.

I also talked about Bumplist, which is a brilliant art project by Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Mike Bennett. It is simply a mailing list, but one where the subscriber list is limited to six people. When a new person is subscribed, someone currently subscribed to the list is bumped off the list. By adding this simple rule to a familiar concept, all sorts of revelations about human behaviour are revealed. Territoriality, passive-aggressiveness, and cheating are just some of the behaviours that result when you apply the laws of supply and demand to something as common as a mailing list. I am not doing this project justice with my description here. Think about the implications for a while, and go subscribe to see for yourself. Like the Slack Key guitar example, thinking about the fundamentals of a system, and changing them, develops the familiar into something quite new.

The rest of the day at the seminar was wonderful, expertly chaired by Sadie Plant. Simon Yuill was also presenting during the morning session, and gave an excellent talk on the subject of programming as practice. He related programming to markmaking, described its obvious lineage as connected to weaving, and basically related programming to any kind of systematic practice that occurs in creative fields. He spoke of a continuum, with notation at one end and drawing at the other. Programming as markmaking is more like notation than drawing, because notation is systematic and repeatable, while drawing is only realized in the process of its own making.

He was a really terrific speaker and I thought our talks complimented each other quite a bit. We had a great time in the chaired discussion.

There is so much more to say about the day, an interesting presentation about “mental interactivity” by Axel Roch, a presentation on a developing dance notation system by Matthew Gough, and ideas about how artists can use supercomputing applications presented by Gregory Sporton and Robert Sharl. I know these are just teasers, but have no fear – a book will be published in 2005 with full papers by everyone, and I’ll post here to let everyone know when the book is available.

After a summer attending some of the world’s premier art festivals and conferences, one of my first few encounters with Canadian culture was the Demolition Derby at the Madoc County Fair.

Here’s how they work: some local boys find a car or truck that they wouldn’t mind smashing up a bit. They give the vehicle a fancy paint job, find sponsors to cover vehicle upgrades and the $75 registration fee for the Derby. Then they show up and smash their car into the other people’s cars until their car won’t run any more and has to be towed out of the field by a tractor.

The car that hit other cars the most, and that {{popup derby3.jpg ouch! 350×262}}still kind of runs, wins.

There are a few rules: you can’t hit another car on the driver’s door, you have to stop for a red flag (usually indicating someone is on fire), and you mustn’t behave in an unsportsmanlike fashion (this can basically be avoided by refraining from making rude gestures at the flagmen).

There was high spirit on display. Some of my favourite slogans painted on the cars include: “If you ate today, thank a farmer”, “Is that all you got”, “Lick’n”, “Thanks to Mom, Dad, God, …”. And though it was an extremely cold night, people fortified themselves with hot chocolate and stayed late into the night to cheer their favourite drivers and watch some pretty {{popup derby1.jpg smash 350×262}}spectacular smash-ups. {{popup derby2.jpg crash 350×262}}Ouch!

At some point during the event it occurred to me that the Demolition Derby is not all that different than some of the other, more art-oriented events I frequent, like the Sumo Robot Challenge and some of Istvan Kantor’s work. Fire, wheels spinning, the crunch of crumpling metal… good solid entertainment in Linz, Austria or in Madoc, Canada; in the white cube or at the county fair.