Mobile Phones and Interactive Music Systems: History and

ForecastNathan Bowen, PhD

Moorpark College / CUNY Graduate Centernbowen@gmail.com

January 28, 2014@ UC Irvine

history of mobile phone music

three histories:

telephone art

mobile music

networked music

telephone art

telephone art

interest in how this communication medium is different than other available technologies

conversations as opposed to one-way ‘speeches’ (printing press, radio, TV, traditional concerts)

participative media: audience is given a voice

Art by Telephone – Robert Huot (1969)

artist creates context for visitor to take part in creative process

telephone used to make art-making a social experience

Max Neuhaus – Public Supply I (1966)

radio switchboard plus callers making sounds

mixed by Neuhaus at WBAI, New York

performance space over large geographic area

...It seems that what these works are really about is proposing to reinstate a kind of music which we have forgotten about and which is perhaps the original impulse for music in man: not making a musical product to be listened to, but forming a dialogue, a dialogue without language, a sound dialogue.

Max Neuhaus (1939-2009)Public Supply I (1966) Public Supply IV (1973)Radio Net (1977)

mobile music

mobile music

music on the go

old history – processionals, parades, marching bands, etc.

instrument is frequently adapted for convenience

with mobile apps, the ‘pocket’ instrument carries on this aesthetic

Lalya Gaye et al. – Sonic City (2002-04)

Mark Shepard – Tactical Sound Garden(2007)

networked music

networked music

ability for ‘instrument’ to be played by multiple people, intercommunication

ability to jam over great distances (JackTrip, The Sound Wire Project, MUSE)

performer/composer/audience paradigm disrupted(or not)

emphasis on new instruments, new configurations

League of Automatic Music Composers – later… The Hub

laptop orchestras and other ensembles

Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk)

Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead – Telephony (2001)

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/teleph.html

Ligna – Wählt die Signale (2003)

http://ligna.blogspot.com/2009/07/dial-signals-radio-concert-for-144.html

Levin et al. – Dialtones: A Telesymphony (2001)

Ryan and Hays Holladay – Location Aware Music (2011)

mobile phone orchestras

Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble

audience participation

Luke Dahl, Jorge Herrera, Carr Wilkerson TweetDreams (2010)

distributed systems

Jesse Allison, Divergence (2012)