composer plans to strike up the cell phones

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/te...searchpv=day01

AUG 16, 2001

Composer Plans to Strike Up the Cell Phones

By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL

ASK not for whom the cell tolls. Golan Levin already knows. In fact, he will be making the calls.

Mr. Levin is the creator of "Dialtones: A Telesymphony," a musical composition for 200 cell phones. To play the "instruments," which are held by audience members, Mr. Levin will dial their numbers from an onstage computer to produce carefully orchestrated patterns of sound.

"Dialtones" will receive its premiere on Sept. 2 during an electronic arts festival in Linz, Austria. In — you guessed it — a telephone interview from the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, where he is an artist in residence, Mr. Levin said the 30- minute work was inspired by society's love-hate relationship with the increasingly ubiquitous cell phone.

"Everyone has one, yet we don't like it when they ring," said Mr. Levin, a 29-year-old composer and software engineer who recently completed a master's degree at the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Part of the motivation is to make a sacred space for the enjoyment of these phones."

At a time when hand-held cell phones have been banned from cars in some areas and cultural events are often preceded by a caution against them, Mr. Levin, a Staten Island native, says he hopes to alter the phones' image by showing that they can make art as well as noise.

In Linz, concertgoers who want to double as performers will have to register their cell-phone numbers before the event, and some will be asked to install special ringer tones on their phones. Inside the hall, they will be assigned positions in a 20-by- 10 array of seats that corresponds with a grid on Mr. Levin's computer screen. By clicking on the grid, Mr. Levin will issue dialing commands to phones at those locations in the audience, making them ring in a range of tones, from a few seconds to four minutes — provided audience members heed instructions and don't answer their phones.

Some phones will warble melodies, while others may burble rhythmically. Certain passages will sound like birds, Mr. Levin said, "as much as you can get a bunch of cell phones to sound like a twittering jungle."

Commands sent to a sequence of adjacent rows will generate waves of sound. To augment the phones' limited three-octave range with bass tones, Mr. Levin will amplify the vibrations of several units. His ring cycle will conclude with a crescendo of 60 phones singing simultaneously.

Mr. Levin will have to contend with the delay between the time he triggers a signal and when its sound is heard. Even though he will have direct access to the switching network of Mobilkom Austria, a cell- phone service provider, he expects delays to vary from three to six seconds. ""It means we cannot do anything that is extremely rhythmic in a rock music kind of way," he said.

Audio samples from "Dialtones" rehearsals can be found at www.flong.com/telesymphony. Mr. Levin said he would add video clips from the premiere.

In staging the work, Mr. Levin is using a theatrical touch that will hearten anyone who has had a concert interrupted by the shrill chirp of a cell phone. As each phone rings, an overhead spotlight will shine on the head of the call's recipient. An onstage mirror will let audience members watch the light show, which is in effect the work's musical score rendered large as life.

The idea of turning cell phones into musical instruments is very much in the air these days. In June, an Israeli orchestra played a classical medley in which a cell phone introduced themes by Bach, Mozart and Rossini. On Aug. 25, a minutelong piece for seven phones is to be performed at a Berlin trade show.

For Mr. Levin, such developments ring true. "I'm just responding to the sounds in my own environment," he said. "That's what any composer does."