Welcome to the home of the cellphone opera

Mission
Cellphonia explores the social, technological, and creative possibilities of cell phones with bias to encourage new applications for cultural growth.

Projects
Cellphonia: LEO50 (2018) University of Texas at Dallas School of Art Technology and Emerging Communication ATEC celebrates Leonardo's 50th or LEO50 by presenting an ongoing installation version of Cellphonia: LEO50. This sonification of the Leonardo Journal asks callers to telephone +1 (972) 200-9122 and leave a 6 second non-speech audio huzzah! The resulting audio that the caller hears celebrates the ideas and innovation in the boundary where Art and Science meet.

Cellphonia: Our Town Selfie (2016) NYC Creative Tech Week + Governors Island TEAM
The National Endowment for the Arts and Harvestworks present the installation version of Cellphonia: Our Town Selfie. Each visitor to a selfie booth adds to the latest video performance of this new media homage to Our Town.

Cellphonia: Viewshed (2014) September 13th, 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.
The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM are pleased to co-present a new iteration of their award-winning exhibition event Groundswell. As Frederic Church terraformed the Olana landscape, Cellphonia Viewshed transforms visitor's responses into a sonic landscape. Visitors on the Groundswell carriage trail telephone 518-512-0518 to be prompted with three questions: What do you see? How does it make you feel? Turn around and say where you've come from. Cellphonia Viewshed weaves these responses into an ephemeral song that constantly evolves as the event progresses.

Cellphonia: Wave Farm (2014)
WGXC Saturday Afternoon Show: June 14, 2014: 4-6pm EDT
Cellphonia: Wave Farm is a live concert and telephone call-in computer assisted karaoke concert about technological innovation in agriculture and mother nature's revenge.

Wave Farm Artist-in-Residence, Steve Bull, concludes his residency with a live broadcast of Cellphonia: Wave Farm, performed by Banned Ingredients: Steve Bull, John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Hans Tammen, and Brooks Williams.

Cellphonia: Wave Farm, is both a physical installation and an ephemeral Internet performance. The project explores the intersection of site-specific environmental sounds with the intervention of computer code algorithm processing using public participation through a call-in phone number with live manipulation by the artists in the outdoor acoustic space. Listeners can participate by calling the Cellphonia: Wave Farm, phone number: (518) 512-0518.

Cellphonia: Toronto SONicGeo (2013)
Cellphonia: Toronto SONicGeo was formulated around the concept of moving through time and the landscape of Toronto. The participants asked to "press" their cellphone keypad number to answer one of the three questions:

  1. Where have you been?
  2. Where are you now?
  3. Where are you going?
The automated server then puts their various responses into three sound storage locations: Then, Now or Future. The score reflects the decision of the participant with the caveat that each new call is placed at the very beginning of the piece in a prelude as all the older calls ripple down into the score to be played in a new time in the context of the re-rendered score. In this way the piece is completely recreated with each new phone call.

Cellphonia: Our Voice (2013)
Cellphonia: Our Voice for the Contemplative Practices for a Technological Society Conference was designed to give an open community the opportunity to sing together in an asynchronous and distributed way. The desire for community is fractured in so many ways. This piece makes an effort to help find a way to express our prayers and desires for peace in an anonymous sharing of sounds.

"At the tone, please speak or sing a one word prayer and let the word be as long as your breath."
-- beep


Cellphonia for the HUB: 4'33" II" (2013)
Installation at the 2nd annual Network Music Festival in Birmingham, UK where participants try to record non-speech sounds, but no other rules. The “cellphonia” system takes each new call and add it to a slot in the dynamically shifting score. You can listen to this ever changing score, that will include yours and every other participants recordings

Cellphonia in D & G for David Gamper (2011)
An open invitation for individuals that knew and loved esteemed musician David Gamper . Giving them an opportunity to leave a short sounding in his memory. Together all participants create a community memory of an outstanding composer and musician.

Cellphonia 9/11 (2011)
Voices from around the country are heard as they give their heartfelt comments on this American tragedy. The opening musical piece in the marathon concert at Joyse SoHo on 9.11.11, proposed by Music After, co-produced by Eleonor Sandresky and Daniel Felsenfeld.

Cellphonia: Blues (2010)
This dynamic installation version of the Cellphonia concept received favorable reporting in the column Nocturnalist | Taking the Canvas Digital for the New York Times.
For two weekends in June for Analogous Projects at Devotion Gallery, 54 Maujer Street, Brooklyn, NY Award: International Computer Music Conference ICMC2010 AI Selection

Cellphonia 4'33" (2009)
Re-imagining Cage's classic piece using cellphones contributing to an infinite loop 4 min 33 secs long Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) Conference, June 3-6

Cellphonia: Tempo Variabile (2008) Tempo variabile is Italian for "changeable weather" and a memorial concert for John Cage and David Tudor. This cellphone interactive sound/video performance installation at Stevens Institute of Technology on April 5th was performed by the Banned Ingredients: Steve Bull, John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Hans Tammen, and Brooks Williams.

Cellphonia: WET (2007) is a cellphone interactive sound/video installation at NIME 2007. Visitors will experience a 6-minute looping vocals of naiads lamenting the loss of the world's fresh water with projected video accompaniment.

Cellphonia: In The News (2006) is a locative-based karaoke opera cued and performed by the cell phone with lyrics daily RSS newsfeeds which generate both the score and moving images, available anytime anywhere small groups gather, and also allowing outside users to contribute as a remote chorus. - details -

Conferences
April 4-5, 2008 - E.A.T. 2008 - Cellphonia: Tempo Variabile at Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) Revisited
June 6-10, 2007 - NIME 2007 - Cellphonia: WET
The Seventh International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, New York, NY
August 7-13, 2006 - ISEA 2006 - Cellphonia: http://2006.01sj.org/content/view/62/49/
ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge & the Thirteenth International Symposium of Electronic Art, San Jose, CA
March 2-3, 2006 - Mobile Music Technology - Cellphonia: Work-in-Progress at 3rd International Mobile Music Workshop, Brighton UK

Support
Cellphonia was awarded grants from
NYSCA (2005)
Experimental Teleivsion Center (2006)
Harvestworks (2008)

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