MUSIC FOR CELL PHONES

PERFORMED BY: 
Michael Watkins (voice), David Acevedo (cell phone), and Andrew Burke (cell phone).

​CREDITS:
Text by Michael Watkins (Ricky Salmonhunter is the former nom de plume of Michael Watkins.) 

Cinematography by Gavin Fields, Garrett Henderson-Black, and Andrew Burke. 

Scrim sewing alterations by Hannah McIntosh-Burke.

Music, text animation, and editing by Andrew Burke. 

NOTES ON THE PIECE:
Taking inspiration from Walter Benjamin's notion of the flâneur, this piece goes on an aimless journey around several cities in the US, contemplating how digital communication technologies mediate our interactions with each other and our surroundings. How does this mediation create and delimit noise in all its various senses? What are we cancelling out and what are we tuning into? 

Throughout this piece, the poem is delivered to the audience via the cell phones of two performers on stage, while the performer speaking remains in a different room. With the speaker phone activated on both phones simultaneously, unpredictable feedback and noise begin to occur.

The concept of noise is slippery and ultimately has something to do with what does and doesn't belong. What complicates this is that, as Paul Hegarty points out, noise is “constantly failing—failing to stay noise, as it becomes familiar, or acceptable practice.” The sound of a distorted electric guitar surely doesn't shock our ears like it did for people 70 years ago. What will people think of our "noises" another 70 years from now? As I was working on this piece, I found that when I tried singing into the phone, it would often cut sustained tones off short, presumably mistaking them for background noise. It made me wonder, what role will technology play moving forward in deciding what is and what isn't noise? 

SPECIAL THANKS: 
Tyshawn Sorey and Natacha Diels, with whom I studied while writing this piece; Shannon Mattern, whose media studies class inspired several aspects of this project; Idun Klakegg, who lent me her cell phone and helped me test out using the phone as amplification; and David Acevedo, who lent equipment and helped coordinate technical aspects of today's performance.