ubiq: sound and subversion

8/12/2019 UBIQ: Sound and Subversion

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SOUND&

SUBVER

SION


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SOUND AND SUBVERSION

E i te y S o e E a na H o a

Dynamic Me ia Institute Pr

Massachusetts College of

Boston, MA

SOUND&

SUBVERSION

UBIQ


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Tis catalogue was published on the occasion of the

exhibition Sound & Subversion, organized and curated

by Sofie Elana Hodara, Gallery, New York, Oct

Jan , .

Generous support was provided by benefactor and

patron Wendy Richmond, writer, artist, designer,

educator, and critical thinker, of Brooklyn, .

Copyright by Te Dynamic Media Press.

All rights reserved. Tis book may be reproduced, in

whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form

(beyond that permitted by Sections and of

the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers forpublic press), without written permission from the

publishers.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: -

---

Tis catalogue was produced on the occasion of the

exhibition Sound & Subversion held at Lite Gallery, New

York, Oct Jan , .

Includes bibliographical references.

---

. Sound art . Design research . New Media .

. Hodara, Sofie Elana, editor of catalog.

.W

.. dc

LITE GALLERY

Beard Street

Brooklyn,

THE DYNAMIC MEDIA PRESS

Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Huntington Avenue

Boston,

www.dynamicmediainstitute.org

Tis catalogue was produced by the publications

department at Te Dynamic Media Press, Boston,

: Jan Kubasiewicz, editor with assistance by Susan

Hodara; Sofie Elana Hodara, designer with assistance

by John Howrey and Robin McDowell; Zachary Kaiser,

rights and reproductions.

PROJECT MANAGER

Sofie Hodara, Jan Kubasiewicz

DESIGNERS

Sofie Elana Hodara, John Howrey, Robin McDowell

EDITORS

Jan Kubasiewicz, Susan Hodara

PRODUCTION

Zachary Kaiser

PROOFREADERS

Nathan Tomas Wilson, Ingrid Pimsner

PREPRESS

Sofie Hodara

PRINTING AND BINDING

Te Dynamic Media Press, Boston, .

Tis book is typeset in Avenir, Chaparral Pro, , and

Roboto and is printed on ProLine Uncoated

# paper. pages.

Printed in the United States.

there are rules to follow.


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Foreword xi

Surveillance, Subversion and Sound 001

Content Blackout 031

UBIQ 047

Public Soundings 055

The Apple Bomber 059

Black Friday 067

Cross Walk 075

An Intermission 081

Private Soundings 097

iTones 103

iHear 119

in Conclusion 131

Works Cited 137


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NOISES ARETOO SIGNIFICANTO BE NOISES.

DOUGLAS KAHN, NOISE WATER MEAT


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FOREWORD

On a monitor on my desk at the Dynamic Media Institute

graduate research center, a Chrome browser sports a little

box in which a flickering and grainy image of Michael Jackson

struts across the screen holding a plastic Pepsi cup. Te words

Pepsi Generation slowly fade as Bonin Bough, V.P. of Global

Media, Mondelez Intl., appears. He gestures while he speaks

in an authoritative voice:

the icons of this generation are the like button, the tweet

button, the reblog button I mean, this is the biggest transforma-

tion that weve had in terms of communicating with consumers inour lifetime

Its true. We worship these buttons not only as icons, but

as idols, as well.

Te clip was from Douglas Rushkoffs Frontline documentary

Generation Like, which explores the culture of likes. owards the

end of the film, danah boyd, a principal researcher at Microsoft

Research, makes the point that selling out doesnt even exist

as a term I dont hear young people talking about selling out,

Im not sure if they even know what it means.

Which shouldnt come as a surprise. oday, individuals use

the same modes of expression as celebrities and corporations.

If Coca-Cola has a Facebook, witter, and Instagram account

just like th e rest of us do, why shouldnt our relat ionship to

such cultural abstractions of authority transform?

Te Millennials, or Generation , are the first generation to

grow up with the Internet literally at their fingertips. Te reper-

cussions of this have led to a restructuring of societys commu-

nication and information infrastructures. Te Dynamic Media

Institute, founded in , promotes and enables research

and design to examine exactly how these new technologiesand media are changing the texture of our lives. More relevantPhotos from UBIQs studio in Brooklyn.

1 RushkofGenerat

Frontlin

Feb 201


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than ever, the work produced at the institute results from an

understanding not only of how to design for better communica-

tions, but also of what questions designers should be asking of

communication media in general.

By curating an exhibition of s work and producing this

catalog, I echo the sentiments of Rushkoff and boyd. As Rush-

koff writes in his blog:

Young social media users today draw no distinction between art

and commerce, culture and advertising. While kids engaged with

social media have the ability to express themselves and their values

to pretty much the rest of the developed world, they seem unaware

of the extent to which these platforms shape the values they choose

to express.

Tis comment implies a poignant and very new cultural

phenomenon: the eroding of the distinction between main-

stream and counterculture. By examining the work of ,

the Dynamic Media Institute is asking: where is the outlet

for contemporary subversive and disruptive thought,

traditionally carried in the legacy of the avant-garde and

counterculture movements?

Research at the institute is rooted in the history of design.

Accordingly, we ca n trace s lineage to the photomonta ges

of the Dadaists of s, where the images of political and

commercial infrastructures were repurposed for antitheti-

cal readings. Where is this tradition of media today? What, if

anything, can be considered subversive or disruptive besides

an expansive power failure? We can cite Internet-outlaws like

the Bitcoin hackers, but how can we know if the mathematical

geniuses who made off with the digital capital of others are any

different from those who run Bitcoin itself (Satoshi Nakamoto?

or the ?)?

Te work presented in this publication is a rare example of

st-century subversive media. s anonymity as a indi-vidual, as well as his technological know-how a skill set that

seems more magical than anything else exemplify his agenda

2 Rush koff, Douglas,

Social Media

and the Perils of

Looking for Likes,Rushkoff.com,19

Feb 2014.

as the Robin Hood of Sound. However, isnt robbing the

rich and giving to the poor; he is holding a mirror up to society.

His Soundings are opportunities for us to reconsider our alle-

giance to our technologies. He borrows a ringtone and returns

its iconic melody to us as a metaphor of power. Emerging

from unexpected, often forgotten, and larger-than-life sound

infrastructures, the tunes, heard anew, loud, and clear, take on

godlike proportions. Tey dont demand action. Instead, they

encourage pause and consideration for how to listen to the

dynamic voices of authority today. is reminding us that

just because we c hoose to click t he like button does not mean

we are expressing ourselves freely.

, though no stranger to press, has been put in the spotlight

with this catalogue. I appreciate his trust in me and his exten-

sive input with the manuscript. Im especially grateful to Brian

Lucid, Gunta Kaza, Jan Kubasiewicz, and Joe Quackenbush

for their continued support as senior advising faculty at the

Massachusetts College of Art and Design. For their tremendous

generosity, Id like to thank Zachary Kaiser and John Howrey

for encouraging me to compile these ideas into a publication,

and for offering support at all hours of the day or night. Finally,

Id like to thank the public institutions and private individuals,

who have asked to remain anonymous, for graciously support-

ing this project with either time or funding. May this book

grace the shelves of the institute and bring future researchers

information, insight, and delight for years to come.

Sofie Elana Hodara


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SURVEILLANCE SUBVERSION & SOUNDSOUND AND SUBVERSION

SURVEILLANC

SUBVERSION

& SOUND


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ERIC SATIE

Nevertheless, we must bring about a music

which is like furniture a music which will bepart of the noises of the environmentI think

of it as melodious, softening the noises of the

knives and forks, not dominating them, not

imposing itself

JOHN C AGE

A time thats just time will let sounds be just

sounds and if they are folk tunes, unresolved

ninth chords, or knives and forks, just folk tunes,

unresolved ninth chords, or knives and fork.

Reprint from John Cage, Erik Satie, in Silence: Lectures and Writings by JohnCage(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1939), p. 76, 81.

JOHN CAGE &

ERIK SATIE

The text below first appeared in the 1958 Art News Annual. It is animaginary conversation between Satie and myself [John Cage]. Because

he died over thirty years before, neither of us hears what the other says.

His remarks are ones he is reported to have made and excerpts from his

writings.


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SURVEILLANCE, SUBVERSION

AND SO UND

Its Sunday, December , . Te three floors of Bostons

Boylston Street Apple store are filled with Christmas shop-

pers tis the season of the iPhone , sans Siri, and everyone

wants one. Sometime between two and three in the after-

noon, during the post-lunch rush, the not-too-loud overhead

soundtrack stops. For half a minute, no one notices. Unbe-

knownst to the shoppers and salespersons, they are about to

become victims of one of s Soundings. A clear single note,

similar to a trumpet, pierces the store. Everyone workers,

customers, technicians alike pauses, in confusion and

surprise. No one knows what the hell is going on.

Te sound, the Apple ringtone alert known as Sherwood Forest

(similar to the call of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah) played

three times before the sound systems volume dropped and

Coldplay resumed. Tis was one of the initial documented

Apple Bombings, a sound inter vention by anonymous a rtist

: Te Robin Hood of Sound. s interventions, known

as Public Soundings, are notable for their use of trademarked

Apple ringtones, i nterrupting audiences , mostly busy consum-

ers with the surprise of an unusual but harmless interference.

Tough little is known about , his Public Soundings

give those who experience them a chance for reflection to

consider their relationships with the ubiquity of new personal


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technologies, and just how these devices affect our relation-

ships with one another, ourselves, and our environments.

uses the Apple ringtones in both his Public and Private

Soundings to investigate how we interpret these all-too-famil-

iar tones. In the Public Soundings, he removes the ringtones

from the tiny devices they normally inhabit, and changes their

scale so that they become intrusive and menacing. Instead

of answer the phone, check e-mail, work-meeting now, the

melodies, when booming overhead, become mysterious and

transcendent. Out of context, their function changes; in s

Soundings, instead of interrupting the moment to pull us into

our screens, the same sounds create a new kind of moment, oneof renewed awareness of our surroundings.

Tis is best seen in the rare video footage of the Black

Friday Sounding at a Wal-Mart in Philadelphia. An anonymous

bystander (perhaps himself) captured the moment of

confusion followed by awe that was sparked by the disjointed

yet recogniz able sound of the Apple ringtone Anticipate. Te

scale-shift from the smartphone text or email alert to t he

blasting loudspeakers in the store stunned the chaos of Black

Friday shopping into an eerie silence. However, the work wasnt

merely a sensational stunt; it follows a long line of art-based

musical interventions that resist and subvert the underlying

and often invisible order of life.

Subversion, according to its etymology, refers to an act of

defiance in an attempt to overthrow the established social

order and its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy.

Tere is an extensive history of subversive media within the

arts. Canonically, the trend begins with Marcel Duchamps

Readymades his placement of everyday objects, like his

infamous Urinal, in the pristine gallery setting. In doing

so, Duchamp subverted the role of the artist and the gallery,

forcing his audience to reconsider the value and meaningof an object when it is labeled as art within four white walls.

Subversive techniques within the art world are extensive: we

could discuss the ins and outs beginning with Warhol

or Sherrie Levine; we could frame a conversation about con-

temporaries street artist Banksy or the masked girls from

Pussy Riot. For the purposes of this essay, I place s Public

Soundings within a lineage of subversive Net Artists whose

work explores the impact of art rooted in new media platforms.

Te mechanics of programming and dynamic visual interfaces

present opportunities for artists to examine what constitutes

art if it is no longer tied to its traditional physical and spa-

tial formats. Of particular relevance are works that examine

identity in relation to data the countless bits of quantified

information tied to our online accounts, profiles, and devices.

Tis essay aligns s interventions, as well as his earlier

project thePerfect Human Application, with the work of contem-

porary artists investigating the relationship between digital

technologies and our evolving sense of self. Alongside the

Public Soundings are, for example, the Preemptive Media col-

lectives piece (-) and Osman KhansNet Worth

(), and more recent works by Jacob Bakkila and Tomas

Bender. All use subversive methods of countersurveillance and

anonymity to dislodge assumptions about the power dynamics

between human and technology. As Christiane Paul, curator of

new media arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, put

it, these are works that play with identity, and the fusion of

human and machine.

Te Preemptive Media collective is a group of artists, activ-

ists, and technologists who aim to create new opportunities

for public discussion and alternative outcomes in the usually

remote and closed world of technology-based research and

development. took a form similar to a performance or

happening. Te group installed and tended functioning bars

in exhibition spaces across the United States. Along with the

purchase of a drink, participants were required to swipe their

s through scanners the same scanners found at hospitals,

airports, liquor stores, etc. With their beverage, customers

1 Subvers

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the Duc

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Apexart17 April

3 Quoted

Orlean,

Machinegames o

Internet

Yorker,

Screen grab fromBlack Friday news

broadcast.


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received a receipt detailing data culled from the D barcode

and an online search: tangible evidence of all the information

attached to the drinkers drivers license.

Tat receipt highlighted the pervasiveness of existing systems

of consumer surveillance, with the aim of encouraging dialogue

about the ensuing power of database infrastructures. As the

project description states, with public knowledge

there is a chance for public voices, and ultimately resistance.

In applying the technologies of data surveillance,

penetrates the inter-workings of data surveillance systems

in order to make them public knowledge, as well as the

centerpiece of critique.

In a current consideration of , we have to reference the

communication breaches by the National Security Agency of

Verizon, and Sprint cu stomers.Te application of algo-

rithmic surveillance shouldnt come as a surprise, but we are

left asking questions posed by . In what ways exactly are

these surveillance activities liberty limiting (an issue trans-

parency could solve)? And, especially pertinent, what are the

implied rights to privacy of a consumer acting within these

communication and information infrastructures?

On its website discloses how its database information

is used for marketing campaigns similar to consumer loyalty

cards, as well as demographic information. However, they note

that it is currently illegal for them to share or sell the informa-

tion they collect (the one exception is to law enforcement).

Te threat the Preemptive collective articulates is that maybe

someday this data becomes totally free! oday, this state-

ment appears ironic. Tese data sets have incredible economic

potential they are recognized as valuable commodities. We

are forced to consider which is scarier: free circulation of this

data or assigning to it monetary worth?

touched on the ability of data to determine value on apersonal level. Te installation offered participants computer

stations to view the market value of their data, putting a literal

price on a given participants name. Tis meant that data was

not only embodied on the receipt and computer screen, but

alternatively visualized by the socially lubricated (thank you

alcohol), shiny, receipt-holding crowd.

Te realization of the social group in forced users to

reflect on the relationship between the monetary worth of

their data and their own perceptions of self-worth relative to

those around them. Every participant was reduced to a set of

measurable and comparable data. Te piece demonstrated how

surveillance technologies act as authority in shaping not only

a system of global fiscal control, but an individual participants

sense of self. turned humans-at-play, the crowd in the

bar, into a walking data set. Te data surveillance regime

may be in question here, but so are the ways that participants

choose to incorporate (or not) the revealed data into their own

perceptions of self.

Similarly, Osman KhansNet Worth () installation

explored online identity initiated by participants swipes.

Entering into a more traditional gallery environment, thevisitor was presented with a kiosk and card reader in front

of monolithic projected image of various names. As in ,

4 In refere

ongoing

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U.S. citiactivitie

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Images of SWIPE, above, taken from www.preemptivemedia.net/swipe/.


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the participants swipe of a purchase card triggers a Google

search of the name contained on the magnetic stripe. Te name

then floats onto a glowing wall and positions itself vertically

based on a ranking determined by the number of hits returned

by the search. Te name sits alongside the names of past ran-

ked visitors, as well as higher net-worth individuals pre-fed

into the system by the artist.

Te luminescent wall of names is a silent and revealing

presence in the gallery. A users swipe made at a kiosk across

the room becomes a symbolic (and pathetic) attempt to slice

down the center of this glowing wall. Tere is a slight delay

between the gesture and the appearance of the new name,

which floats into legibility, growing larger and more opaque

before settling in its position. Tese few seconds create a stir-

ring moment of suspense: participants appear frozen, eyes held

on the screen. As soon as the moving text grows legible, there

is a metaphorical sigh of relief: one man points and smiles to

himself; another, happy with his high ranking, looks at the

camera and behind him as if for additional validation. Tisslight delay of computation at work, offers users a chance to

consider the mysterious prowess of code.

Images of Net Worthdemonstrating a user glancing back to the crowd forvalidation (above) and the action of swiping (opposite). Both images are

from www.osmankhan.com/.


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As Rita Ra ley, information sc holar and Assoc iate Professor

of English and Culture at , notes in her recent Data-

veillance and Countervailance, the piece draws on the

familiar practice of ego-surfing, the tracing of ones own

virtual-physical presence and presumed importance online.

Validation is encoded i n the database: you dont exist

unless you appear on Google (). Google is transformed

into a ranking system embodied by a larger-than-life wall.

Te swipe, as the point of encounter, reduces its participants,

if just for a moment, to anonymous consumers.

Te Perfect Human Application,s early project with

Content Blackout, follows the tradition of these works. It isa smartphone application, now being developed by Klout, that

tracks and scores a users various connected interactions to

create an aggregate score, easily sharable and comparable with

the scores of other users. Te user is not reduced to a consumer

per se, but rather to the sum of her interactions: her value is

informed by quantity not quality. Te exploration of how

identity and sense-of-self is increasingly shaped by the expan-

sive amount of data derived from technologies echoes Pauls

statement above: all are works that play with the fusion of hu-

man and machine through perception of self. Does the super-

ficial validation of existence tied to data as evidenced in the

pleased participants ofNet Worthand the users of the Perfect

Human Applicationwho compete for higher scores daily indi-

cate the fusion of man and machine? Or more provocatively, is

it even appropriate to consider a clear distinction between the

two in the first place?

What makesNet Worth and media of subversion are

their alternative uses of the database to reveal a lack of privacy.

Te resulting sentiment is an eerie feeling of being watched (by

whom and for what? asks) and the repressed comfort and

validation we take in knowing others are watching (as wit-

nessed by watching the reactions of users of Net Worth).

By embodying the tactics of database surveillance, both pieces

unveil a technological infrastructure of information control.

Tey allow for a role reversal of sorts participants surveil

the system of surveillance.

Instead of subverting technological systems to reveal them as

regimes as control, Jacob Bakkila and Tomas Bender intervene

in a different manner with their witter project Horse_ebooks

(-). Like s Public Soundings, Horse_ebooks sub-

verts social assumptions about the power dynamics between

technological infrastructures and society.

Bakkila and Bender, respectively Creative Director at Buzzfeed

and a freelance consultant, grew up in suburban Pittsburgh.From an early age, both were responsible for interventionist-

style pranks. In middle school, they modified a radio to

transmit to passing cars, without anyone realizing where it

was coming from (Bender quoted in Man and Machine). In

, they released Hoopsteon a short video describing and

advertising a fictitious town in Milwaukee. Using footage of

New York City paired with touristic jargon, the video was a

success and within three days had more than , views.

Horse_ebooks (along with its companion piece Pronunciation

Books, not featured in this essay) was born of a similar desire

to expose the absurdity of advertising lingo and corporate pro-

motional babble. Te latter two works, both lasting for a series

of years, broke the mold for thoughtprovoking Net Art.

Fears about intelligent technologies overstepping an invis-

ible dividing line between man and machine are rampant in

contemporary culture. ake Spike Jonzes recent film Her, in

which Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with his

(enacted by the voice of Scarlett Johansson can you really

blame him?), or a host of classic sci-fi flicks includingA.I.,Blade

Runner, and Te Matrix.Or consider Eliza, a script written by

Joseph Weizenbaum, professor of computer science at M.I..,

in the s. Elizawas a text-based program with which userscould converse. She was programmed to respond in the nature

6 For mo

Blackou

Perfect Applica

content

Rita Raley


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of a Rogerian therapist to repeat users phrases back to them

in the form of questions. Horse_ebooks approaches the issue

from the opposite direction: a human impersonating a machine

trying to impersonate a human.

For over two years ( days), Bakkila posted tweets from

the Horse_ebooks witter handle every few hours. Originally

the handle was run by an automated bot created to promote

e-library.net; in an effort to evade detection it was programmed

to scrape the Internet for fragmented text to tweet. Bakkilas

takeover was an active attempt of a man to impersonate a

program built to appear as a sentient human. His tweets,

like those of the bots, were created from found text, scrapedfrom the Internet.

Te prank worked and the account g rew popular no one knew

it wasnt a bot. It featured tweets like Events developed(Feb ,

), in, your phone is ringing, your email is (August , )

and and embellishments creates a completely (May , ).

Followers created elaborate fan fiction based on the tweets, and

a browser-plug-in, featured in the Observer in , trans-

formed the text of any website into a Horse_ebooks-inspired

truism.In a gallery performance in September , Bakkila

revelead that it was himself, not a bot, behind the account,

the response was excitement as well as anger: the public felt

betrayed, confused, and maybe a little foolish.

Te work, which Bakkila refers to as performance mischief,

is notable for two reasons. First, it raises questions about the

changing nature of media falling into the genre of art. How do

digital platforms change the form art takes? How will curators,

along with the greater institution of art, accommodate newer

digital forms of media?

Te Museum of the Moving Image offered an initial response

to this line of questioning. In , it presented the first#VeryShortFilmFest, featuring twenty-two Vine videos

looping on a large plasma , under which hung twenty-two

corresponding drives each awaiting transfer to poten-

tial col lectors. Tey sold one, for $ its on its on Ikeaby

Angela Washko to curator and collec tor Myriam Vannesc hi.

When asked what she intended to do with the piece, she said

she thought she might let the artist upload it to her own Vine

account. What does this imply about the value of the content of

social media profiles and accounts, or the role of such accounts

within the art world and beyond? Are they commodities with

which we can adorn our identities in the same way we hang

art and select furniture to decorate our homes?

An inherent factor of di fferentiation bet ween art-before-di gital

interface and art-after is temporality. Te institution of art

is built on deliverables (paintings, film, sculptures), ready tobe commodified as a form of beauty and entertainment. In

contrast, digital platforms offer deliverables not in space, but

rather in time. ake Washkos use of Vine as a platform, or

Horse_ebooks on witter: these feeds continuously grow, and

posts disappear into endless digital records. For Bakkila, the

answer was to post continually for over two years; the piece

was greater than the sum of the individual tweets. Grando was

quoted in Man and Machine as saying, I think what they did

was art to the most modern degree. It was such a long con.

As in any perfor mance, what happen s to the art when it end s?

What are the artifacts left behind, by which we remember and

value the work? Can we liken Bakkilas witter timestamps to

the chairs Marina Abramovic and audience sat upon in Te Art-

ist is Present(, March -May , )? What happens

when witter as a medium becomes obsolete? How will critics

and fans alike reference this act of performance mischief?

Second, Horse_ebooks is notable for highlighting the intimate

and complex relationships users develop with these platforms.

Tese platforms are more than just modes of expression for

user entertainment and communication. Tey carry assump-

tions and expectations about the different roles and functionsplayed by man and machine. Bakkilas prank asks, if a program

can impersonate a man, can a man perform the job of an

7 Fan fiction here:

horseebooks.

tumblr.com;Browser-plug-in:

observer.com/

2012/02/horse_ebooks-takes-over-

the-internet/.

8 Gallery reveal

featured by SusanOrlean, Horse_

ebooks Is Human

After All, The NewYorker, 24 Sept

2013.

9 To read about the

#VeryShortFilmFest, visit

theguardian.com/

technology/2013/mar/12/vine-

twitter-moving-

image-art-fair

(or work some ofyour own Google

magic).

Jaco

Hors


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SURVEILLANCE SUBVERSION & SOUND

automated bot? What are social implication if man out-bots the

bot? Further, is there a clear division of labor between the bot

and the man, or does that question, in and of itself, imply

a social construct on the verge of dissipation?

s Public Soundings address similar questions. At their

heart, these pieces address issues of control, showcasing the

power struggle between the device metaphorically, through

the use of their iconic sounds and the user. Of course, his

work negotiates the question of how these works can inhabit

the art world. His answer is one of practicality. First, he uses

his website to collect public-generated documentation of the

works. Second, he uses the gallery as a platform to explore hisideas a bit differently, in works he calls Private Sounding s(not

featured in this essay).

Key to these works (and, most likely, the reason for his

anonymity) is s ability to gain control of the semi-public

audio-infrastructures of commerce. He has infiltrated a Wal-

Mart in Philadelphia, a rader Joes in San Francisco, and Apple

retail stores across the world. In one of his initial ventures, in

, he replaced the beeping that indicates the walk signal of

the pedestrian crosswalk with the sound of a dial-up modem.

He later admitted in a video apology published on Vimeo that

the use of a crosswalk was disruptive to those who relied

solely on the beeping in order to cross the street, and therefore

was, much worse than an indulgent expression of art, but a

shameful and naive piece that endangered a demographic for

whom society does so little Nevertheless, his crosswalk

piece foreshadows s interest in subversion. It calls atten-

tion to societys passive acceptance of the sounds assigned to

the our social functioning in this case, crossing t he street.

Te beeping gives a corporeality to this particular action; it

serves as a universal embodiment of a social cue that works

in tandem with our footsteps. Te focus isnt the sound itself,

but rather our unquestioning allegiance to it, as himself

suggests: We walk like sheep when the white man beeps

Cant we waltz instead?

WE WALK LIKE

SHEEP WHEN THE

WHITE MAN BEEPS

CANT WE WALTZ INSTEAD?

UBIQ


17/78


Te move from the specific beep of the crosswalk to the

soundscapes of commerce, targeting with special attention

Apple stores and products, reflects a more pointed disapproval

of our religious fervency towards popular corporations. When

usurps the audio systems of Apple stores, he urges us to

question the authority and power we give to the brands. His

Soundings are less the gloried genius of a snickering prankster

than anonymous and seemingly effortless gestures: an invisible

wave of the hand that transforms the barely noticed Bieber-

playing speakers into a brief yet unsettling and omnipotent

force of sound. When he breaks through the monotony of pop

music, he breaks through the status quo. As inNet Worth,

calls on our role as consumers though not through the pur-

chasing card, but rather unnoticed icons of consumption: the

ringtone. He forefronts our blindness as willing consumers in

the free-market global capitalism, as well as, our unawareness

of the very sound infrastructures that are pumping the affirm-

ing monotony of ideology into the air.

However, the primary similarity between the Public Sound-

ingsand Horse_ebooks is how they both subvert the assumed

roles and functions of technologies. Just as Horse-ebooks

inverts the role of human and machine, inverts the call

and response of the device. In his Apple Bombings, instead of the

ringtone Sherwood Forest calling to users from their pockets,

the musical melodies (as refers to them) call from above.

And instead of drawi ng us into our private person al worlds of

email and texting, we are lured into a shared moment of won-

der and awe. shifts the role of our mobile technologies.

Tese sharedinterruptions highlight the power we have given

to our personal mobile devices. Te Sounding is an attempt to

reclaim such power.

s anonymity transforms him from a belittled hacker to a

technical savant. He acts within our existing sound structure,

but also from above it. In this way, he subverts the use of these

infrastructures, as did and Net Worth, to embody an al-

ternate perspective: one that forces us to confront exactly what

kind of relationship and power dynamic we want to have with

these, at times awe-i nspiring technologies.

Further, acknowledges that our selection of cell phone

ringtones, like the imagery which we choose to wallpaper our

screens or the cases we handpick to protect our phones, allows

us to personalize our otherwise mass-produced devices. Yet it

is this very ability that encourages our absurd attachment to

these devices. Whether we choose the more familiar of these

sounds, an echo of our public soundscape, or create our own vi-

bration, the resulting sounds have a specific meaning to us and

power over us. By de-contextualizing these noises, ripsthem from their meaning, forcing us, his audience, whether

passive bystanders or active users, to listen to the tones as mu-

sic. When we do, we are reminded of the physical presence of

the devices in our hands. Teir cries are made of the same stuff

as ours according to Jonathan Sterne, in Te Audible Past, all

sound is a little piece of the vibrating world.

InA ack in the Shoe: Neutralizing and Resisting the New Surveil-

lance, an essay by Gary . Marx, the professor emeri-

tus surveys eleven prominent types of responses to newer

technologies of surveillance and dataveillance. Tough this

essay is not the place to go into detail about his ideas regarding

resistance opportunities, Marxs well-crafted introduction pres-

ents two timeless points about the suppositions we make about

technologies and infrastructures of control.

First, he writes, just because there is potential of a technol-

ogy for harmdoes not mean that it must happen. Te threat

of harmful control, the fear that technology and data will sub-

sume and flatten certain abstract aspects of humanity needs

to be kept distinct from its realization.

Second, he suggests that the mysterious workings of techno-logical power cause fears about an authoritative data-regime

and vulnerable populace. We only see the tip of the iceberg in

10 Jonatha

The Aud

(DurhamPress, 2

11 Gary T.

Tack in

NeutralResistin

Surveilla

Journal Issues , v

May 200


18/78


terms of how these technological infrastructures are applied,

yet it is import ant to not blame the tec hnologies, but t he

infrastructure created by the people who apply them; it is how

we implement them: they become enmeshed in complex

pre-existing systems. Tey are as likely to be altered as to alter,

Marx writes. s Public Soundings embody a microcosm

of these dynamics of control between the smartphone and

user, as opposed to technological infrastructures and justice in

society. Tese concepts are at the core of s work.

As Marx puts it , Te Sky Isnt Fall ing At Least Not Yet.

s Public Soundings echo that sentiment. If he can make

Marimba stream from a metaphorical sky, there is hope. Tecontrol systems may not be predictable, but they are not im-

penetrable either. Let us decide the role they play in our lives,

in shaping our sense of self, and in determining our, as well

as their, value in society.

DE


19/78

IGN So its no surprise that one of the majorselling points of Apples i operat-ing system was its new ringtones andalerts. Tey are as familiar as the latestBeyonce hit a new ki nd of pop. Whodoesnt recognize and respond intui-tively to the start-up beep of a laptop?But the difference between Beyonceand our iPhone ringtone is that while

Beyonces songs bring us pleasure, our

ringtone carries weight beyond its

form. It is always tied to a use a new

email, Dad calling, etc.

In the summer of , I took my

Buick Le Sabre to the local repair shop.

I knew something was wrong because

my brakes were squeaking. When I took

the mechanic for a drive and he heard

the specific squeak I was referringto, he laughed and told me to get ne w

brake pads.

My moms new car beeps when some-

one doesnt buckle her seatbelt. What

if, instead, it made the sound of a dog

barking? Where we wouldnt hesitate to

understand the beep as an indicator of

pay attention, do something,we might be

confused by the bark. Te squeaking of

brakes is part of a language a mechanic

knows intimately. But what happens

when sound is no longer a direct result

of its function? How do we design

sounds to successfully communicate

a specific function? What enables a

sound to retain a common meaning?

Aesthetics? aste? Humor? History?

Te ringtone is a relatively new genre

of designed sound, one that has its own

history of development tied to technol-

ogy, pop culture, and musical influenc-

es. By de-contextualizing the iPhone

ringtones, calls attention to howarbitrary these sounds are as indicators

of functioning. With his Soundings, he

asks us to forget the sounds intentions,

and to experience them in the moment.

JIM MCK EE

I was working with this guy at

the advanced product group at

Apple, and he had a ca se for a

Walkman, and he opened it up

and he closed it, and you heard

it clickand he said, Somebody

worked really hard to make that

click sound that way That wasan acoustical element on

a mechanical device

ROMAN MARS

Well, there arent a lot of moving

parts and moving bits in todays

devices but Jim McKee still has

to make them sound right.

THE SOUND OF THE ARTIFICIAL WORLDEPISODE 15, 99% INVISIBLE: A TINY RADIO SHOW ABOUT DESIGN WITH ROMAN MARS, 11 FEB, 2011

Tough responsive visuals are integral

in our interactive interfaces, sonic

feedback is just as important. With the

advent of new technologies, the sound

designer, like the visual designer, plays

an evermore important role in develop-

ing and shaping the digital platforms

of the computer, the browser, and the

smartphone.

From alerts to start-up tones, these

sounds act as way-finding points, allow-

ing users to navigate complex systems

with efficiency and ease. In Te Sound

of the Artificial World, % Invisibles

Roman Mars interviews Jim McKee, of

Earwax Productions, who sums it up

nicely: ry using your telephone with-out the beeps and its really confusing

In the physical world, the sounds of our

objects all the different components

and little pieces are a direct result of

the materials and mechanics behind

them. Tink about the distinct sounds

of different motorcycles: a Harley

Davidson, say, compared to a riumph.

Each bike makes a unique noise, and

to a trained mechanic, these sounds

hold a wealth of information about t he

mechanics of the engine hidden behind

the casing.

Tough many of our digital experiences

lack the audio quality of the mechani-

cal world, we rely on sonic feedback to

successfully integrate these systems into

our world. McKee explains:

.without all the beeps and chimes,

without sonic feedback, all of your

modern conveniences would be very

hard to use. If a device and its soundsare designed correctly, it creates a

special theater of the mind that users

completely buy into. Electronic things

are made to feel mechanical. Its the

feeling of movement, texture, and

articulation where none exists.


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AVIARI UM

TERRY ADKINS, B. 1953 WASHINGTON, DC D. 2014 BKLYN, NY

ForAviarium, Adkins devised a sound-based installation that is entirely silent. Using

aluminum rods and multiple sizes of stacked cymbals, he rendered wave rectors of

birdsong in three dimensions, making visible the diverse sonic patterns inherent

to the songs of each (unidentified) species. Cantilevered delicately overhead, these

sculpted songs hover in place and answer the artists call to find a way to make music

as physical as sculpture might be, and sculpture as ethereal as music is .

Terry Adkins, Aviarium, 2014. Steel, brass, aluminum, and silver; dimensions variable (installation

view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York). Estate of Terry Adkins; courtesy of Salon 94,New York. Photograph by Bill Orcutt. Text adapted from show catalogue.

FIND A WAY TO MAKE MUSIC

AS PHYSICAL AS SCULPTURE

MIGHT BE, AND SCULPTURE AS

ETHEREAL AS MUSIC IS.

TERRY ADKINS


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SOUND IS A LITTLE PIECE

OF THE VIBRATING WORLD.

JONATHAN STERNE


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JONATH AN S TERN ETHE AUDIBLE PAST: CULTURAL ORIGINS OF SOUND REPRODUCTION

Generally, when writers invoke a binary coupling between culture and

nature, it is with the idea that culture changes over time and nature is

permanent, timeless, and unchanging. Te nature-culture binary offers

a thin view of nature

In the case of sound, the appeal to something static is also a trick of the

language. We treat sound as a natura l phenomenon exterior to people,

but its very definition is a nthropocentric. Te physiologist Johannes

Mller wrote over years ago, that, wit hout the organ of hearing

with its vital endowments, there would be no such thing as sound in

the world, but merely vibrations.

As Mller pointed out, our other sense can also perceive vibration.

Sound is a very particular perception of vibrations. You can take the

sound out of the human, but can take the human out of the sound only

through an exercise in imagination. Sounds are defined as that class of

vibrations perceived and, in a more exact sense, sympathetically pro-

duced by the functioning ear when they travel through a medium that

can convey changes in pressure (such as air). Te numbers for the range

of human hearing (which absolutely do not matter for the purposes of

this study) are twenty to twenty thousand cycles per second, although

in practice most adults in industrial society cannot hear either end that

range. We are thus presented with a choice in our definition: we can say

either that sound is a class of vibration that might be heard or that it is

a class of vibration that is heard, but, in either case, the hearing of the

sound is what makes it.

My point is that human beings reside at t he center of any meaningful

definition of sound. When the hearing of other animals comes up, it is

usually contrasted with human hearing (as in sounds that only a dog

can hear). As par t of a larger physica l phenomenon of vibration, sound

is a product of the human senses and not a thi ng in the world apart f rom

humans. Sound is a little piece of the vibrating world.

Adapted from John Sterne, The Audible Past(London: Duke University Press, 2003), 11.

YOU CAN TAKE THE SOUND OUT

OF THE HUMAN, BUT CAN TAKE

THE HUMAN OUT OF THE SOUND

ONLY THROUGH AN E XERCISE IN

IMAGINATION.


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CONTENT BLACKOUT

CONTENT

BLACKOUT


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View from the original of fice of Content Blackou t, Bklyn, NY.

Photo from personal records of Isaac Weinstein, taken on the occasion of signing the lease, 2009.

Content Blackout began as a small tech startup based

in Brooklyn, , from to . Tough most prominent

for their social media application the Perfect Human Application,

the company moonlighted as audio engineers and consultants

for the performing arts venue Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Tey were acquired by Klout in , and are currently con-

tinuing their research and development on the Perfect Human

Application as a subsidiary of the corporation.


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CONTENT BLACKOUT

The original Content Blackout team: Jeremy Berger, Sam Heartfield, and Isaac Weinstein ( Lto R).

THE STORY

In , Isaac Weinstein, Sam Heartfield, and Jeremy Berger

decided to turn their drunken laments into a profitable ven-

ture. Te group had met during their freshman year at ,

where all three studied sound engineering. After graduation,

they founded Content Blackout, a small company devoted to

creating new media tools that aimed to inject critical discourse

into function. In , Klout saw the endeavors of Content

Blackout as a potential threat to their social media application

and in an attempt to thwart competition acquired the company.

Isaac now works as senior engineer at Klouts Content Blackout

group, but the other two men are nowhere to be found. It is as

if they have fallen off the face of the traceable universe.


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CONTENT BLACKOUT

The Perfect Human Application.

THE PERFECT HUMAN APPLICATION

Te Perfect Human Applicationis a social networking

application that tracks and aggregates the quantity of user

interactions made on smart devices and social media accounts

in order to generate real-time statistical information on a users

functioning, or perfection. Te application puts an emphasis

on the quantification of information, behaviors, and interac-

tions, thereby identifying a prevalent theme in contemporary

media of emphasizing quantity over quality.

Trough an algorithmically calculated Perfect Human Score,

the application stresses the ease and importance of sharingand comparing these numbers with a greater community of

users. Te numerical scoring allows a user to track his or her

progress toward perfection, i.e., a greater (or lesser) quantity

than yesterday, as well as metaphorically turning each user

into a dynamic set of data. By assessing ideals of success

and perfection as numbers, the application boasts that

users dont just see how perfect they are, and how perfect

they can become.

What is believed to have driven the interest of Klout is the

way the application divvied up user interactions into six

distinct categories known as the Anatomy of Perfection.

Each category represented a different grouping of online

actions made by the user throughout a -hour period. Te

Content Blackout team jokingly named these categories

after the offl ine goals of their colleg iate friends. For example,

Communication Skills: exting is the New Hugging was an

aggregate of all the minutes users spent talking on their phone,

as well as any text or voice mail they sent using their phone.

Looks: Its Whats on the Outside that Counts measured the

number of photos a user was posted in online, referencing the

misleading belief that a flattering angle and good lighting can

produce beauty. Te overall process reflec ted the offl ine impor-tance of the networking and interviewing skills the creators

and their peers needed to hone as recent college alums.


27/78


Inspired by Jorgen Leths short film Te Perfect Human,

the App is a facetious comment on the ritual of coping with

societal ideals in constructing images of self-worth in a land-

scape evermore drastically shaped by digital media. It reveals

an ideal user whose focus is on quantity not quality, on scoring

rather than experiencing, thereby conflating companionship

and solitude. Te Perfect Human Applicationuser in an at-

tempt to understand herself relative to others, in an attempt

to define her identity in society focuses only on the numbers,

in particular, her score. Te application mocks our pleasure as

we receive more and more comfort from the number of friends

we collect and curate on Facebook and other social media sites.

Photo of Perfect Human Applicationbrochures, Septa Car, Philadelphia, PA.

Te

PERFEC

HUMANAN APP FOR YOUR

Publicity materials for the Perfect Human A


28/78

CONTENT BLACKOUT

Video still from Loser Synd rome, Weeping iPhone.

THE WEEPING IPHONE

When Content Blackout was acquired by Klout in , they

had just begun to prototype the Weeping iPhone, a series of vid-

eo alerts that would update users of their poor scoring. After

much user testing of the Perfect Human Application, it became

clear that users were put off by the complex matrix of scoring

(presented through a series of pie charts and graphs). Had it

been released, theWeeping iPhonewould have been a notifica-

tion system consisting of -second animations triggered by

extreme scores from the Perfect Human Application.

According to Weinst ein in a interview in Wi red magazine,In an era when we expect our smartphones to take responsibil-

ity for so much of our responsibilities, why should users have to

check the application to retrieve their results? So the Content

Blackout crew decided to let the smartphone be responsible for

monitoring and updating users of their ever-changing scores.

Tough this update never reached the public, it both embraced

and mocked our fear of expressing emotional vulnerability. We

expect too much from our iPhones, it suggests. Can we really

expect them to take on the role of identifying and expressing

emotion? Especially when we ourselves have such a hard time

with that task?

Characterized by their disruptive nature, the Weeping iPhone

notification videos were intended to interrupt the users

ability to use his or her phone. For example, if a users Perfect

Human Score dropped below the th percentile, the phone

would assume its user was feeling imperfect, unloved, and

worthless: like a loser. It would automatically play a -second

video in which a womans voice tauntingly chanted: Loser,

loooooser, who do you think you are? You are nothing but one

big fat loser. Meanwhile a collection of Apple x-in-a-bubble

icons would accumulate in mounting piles at the bottom of

the screen. If low scores persisted over several days, the phonewould take on the burden of expressing the depression caused


29/78

CONTENT BLACKOUT

IN AN ERA WHEN WE

HOLD OUR SMARTPHONES

ACCOUNTABLE FOR SO MANY

OF OUR RESPONSIBILITIES, WHY

SHOULD USERS HAVE TO CHECK

THE APPLICATION TO RETRIEVE

THEIR RESULTS?ISAAC WEINSTEIN

by the isolation of imperfection. No longer able to function

normally, the phone would play the sound of a human wail in

tandem with adjusting its brightness, as if sending out an

to its (hopefully nearby) owner.

If triggered, these videos would have to play through to

completion, thereby imposing on the surrounding environ-

ment the emotional distress coming out of the machine, most

likely to the dismay and embarrassment of its owner. On the

surface, the Weeping iPhoneturned the phone into an object

with needs, prompting the owner to attend to it and to his or

her perfection. On a deeper level, the Weeping iPhonesshort

videos ridiculed the fervency with which we attend to our cellphones, and the reliance that ensues.


30/78

CONTENT BLACKOUT

Omar Cuniga, Shruti Ganguly, James Franco, UBIQ, and Alexis Gambis, at Tar after-party in NYC, August 5, 2013.

THE AFTERMATH

In retrospect, it is clear that the ventures of Content Blackout

into new media technologies were meant to mock our social

entanglement with the digital. Ideally, the Perfect Human

Application, with its complex matrix of scoring, would encour-

age users to critically consider the importance they gave their

iPhone and the interactions and relationships it enabled. Te

Weeping iPhonealerts would have literally interrupted and pre-

vented phone use by poor-scoring users, driving the recipients

of the alerts to turn away from their devices, whether by rolling

their eyes or shamefully laughing, as they were forced to wait

for their wailing devices to quiet themselves. Smartphoneshave unexpectedly finagled their way into the most personal

and intimate moments of our lives. Tese videos, in conjunc-

tion with the , rather ridiculously suggest that if we have

given away so many of our parameters of self-worth to social

media and our connected actions, we may as well give over our

ability to express our most vulnerable emotional states as well.

oday, Isaac manages the Content Blackout eam at Klout, but

Jeremy and Sam have disappeared; they seem to have fallen

off the face of the traceable both connected and disconnect-

ed universe. Tough many believe they moved to Vietnam to

live well off their profits from the buyout by Klout, the popular

mythology is that they have collectively become an anonymous

sound artist called : Te Robin Hood of Sound. In popu-

lar vernacular, , short for ubiquitous, is referred to as a

singular male. He has been known to appear as a masked at

late night raves alongside the likes of James Franco. He posts

documentations of his public sound interventions, known as

Soundings, on his website. Because his identity remains un-

known and his performances always occur unannounced, he is

often likened to street artist Banksy.


31/78

UBIQ

UBIQ


32/78

CRITERIA FORA SUCCESSFULSOUNDINGACCORDING TO UBIQ


33/78

DISPLACEtheFUNCTION

Te sounds of our new media technologies are heard

not as music but as alerts for the functions they imply.

Each Sounding must shake free or loosen the featured

ringtone or familiar sound-symbol from its preexisting

autonomous reading carried by its recognizable melody.

By transforming the context through which we

encounter these sounds, their original meaning and

their implied function are displaced.

HARMONIZEwithFORM

When a ringtone is distanced from its existing

meaning, the experience of the Sounding offers an

antithetical reading of the sounds original function.

Te sound is no longer a service of technology; instead

it exists as a corporal embodiment of media as form.

Te co-existence of these readings, sound-as-function

and sound-as-form, gives the audience the ability to

harmonize these two meanings as they see fit.


34/78

EMPOWERtheUSER

As bystanders a nd audience members assume t he role of

critical listeners, they become empowered. Tey are not passive

onlookers, but reflective and active individuals. By hearing

these sounds in the new light offered to them by the Sound-

ing (whether as music or as a metaphor of our relationships

with our new media devices) they become engaged in a critical

dialogue. Tey are reminded of their own agency in how they

choose to interpret the world.


35/78

PUBLIC SOUNDINGS

PUBLIC

SOUNDING


36/78

Is there such a thing as silence?

Even if I get away from people, do

I still have to listen to something?

Say Im off in the woods, do I have

to listen to a stream babbling?

Is there always something to hear,

never any peace and quiet?

If my head is full of harmony, melody,

and rhythm, what happens to me whenthe telephone rings, to my piece [sic]

and quiet, I mean?

Are we getting anywhere asking questions?

Where are we going?

JOHN CAGE SILENCE

WHEREVER WE ARE, WHAT WE HEAR IS MOSTLY

NOISE. WHEN WE IGNORE IT, IT DISTURBS US. WHEN

WE LISTEN TO IT, WE FIND IT FASCINATING.

JOHN C AGE

s Public Soundings, documented in the following

pages, can be seen in two distinct lights. First, the Soundings

comment on the absurdity of our intimacy with our personal

technologies, especially the Apple iPhone. By using Apple retail

stores as his performance venues, subverts and undercuts

Apple as a corporation, as well as our almo st religious fer vency

for their products.

Second, optimists and humanists, who receive his work with

joy and wonder, experience t hese Soundings as e xamples of

the beauty that new technology can bring into our lives. Spon-

taneous and loud, they offer viewers a rare chance to hear the

sounds of their devices in a different context one that inter-

rupts the group at large and entices individuals to be silent,

to listen together.

is asking us to recognize and accept these sounds as

symbols of our growing e`ntwinement with technology. He is

urging us to pause together, as group alongside machine, to

listen, and celebrate, and consider how we can better harmo-

nize with our devices.

Further, he wants us to assess our agent role in the modern

soundscape. Our cell phones, whether they vibrate or ring,

create a chaotic, unregulated, and novel chorus from our pock-

ets and purses and the palms of our hands. Tis is a brand new

sound infrastructure, created solely by us and for us. In keeping

with John Cage, let us hear it as fascinating.


37/78

THE APPLE BOMBER


38/78

PUBLIC SOUNDINGS

SHERWOODFOREST

Sherwood Forest, a royal forest in Nottinghamshire, England, is the legendary

home of heroic outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men. It is also the name

of a ringtone in Apples iPhone operating system one UBIQ uses often in his

Public Soundings.

, though known as the Robin Hood of Sound, is also

referred to as the Apple Bomber, because of his works

involving the Apple retail stores.

His first attack happened in December , during the

Christmas rush at Bostons Boylston Street Apple retail store.

Trough unknown measures, he was able to gain control of the

stores speaker system for seconds and played the Apple

ringtone Sherwood Forest three times in a row.

At the time, t he event was met with security concerns, but

over the years s Soundings his short concerts using

Apple store speakers and the pre-made sou nds from the

iPhone have increased in frequency. He has proven himself

to be a globetrotter, with impromptu Soundings in major cities

including New York, Berlin, and Paris, as well as in suburban

malls in the middle of Iowa and Kansas. It is generally consid-

ered good luck to be present during one of his Soundings.


39/78


40/78

UNITED STATES

BOYLSTON STREET

Boylston St,

Boston,

BRIDGE STREET

Te Bridge St,Huntsville,

BILTMORE

E. Camelback Rd,

Phoenix,

COUNTRY CLUB PLAZA

4712 Broadway St,

Kansas City, MO 64112

FIFTH AVENUE

Fifth Ave,New York,

GRAND CENTRAL

Grand Central rmnl,

New York,

JORDAN CREEK

Jordan Creek Pkwy,

W. Des Moines,

SAN FRANCISCO

One Stockton St,San Francisco,

THE FORUM SHOPS

Las Vegas Blvd S,

Caesars PalaceLas Vegas,

INTERNATIONAL

KURFRSTENDAMM

Kurfrstendamm ,

Berlin

CARROUSEL DU LOUVRE

rue de Rivoli,

Paris

SITES OF REPORTED APPLE BOMBINGS


41/78

BLACK FRIDAY


42/78

PUBLIC SOUNDINGS

Fight between two shoppers Franklin Mills Mall, Philadelphia PA, 2013.

Black Friday refers to the Friday following Tanksgiving,

which falls on the fourth Tursday of November. Tough not

a national holiday, Black Friday is known as one of the busiest

shopping days of year and considered the commencement

of the Christmas shopping season. Te day is a testament to

American c onsumer societ y, notorious for major discounts

and price-slashing, drawing shoppers to line up in front of

stores and malls hours before they open. Te infamously

raucous and vicious nature of Black Friday shoppers was

mocked in Season of South Park. Devoting three consecu-

tive episodesto the topic in the fall of , rey Parker

likened consumers fervor and brand loyalty to the factions

in the series Game of Trones.

s choice of the South Philadelphia Wal-Mart is no coinci-

dence. Coined in an article about worker absenteeism in ,

the term Black Friday came to refer specifically to the shopping

rush and heavy pedestrian and vehicul ar traffi c in Philadelphia.

In an email to the American Dialect Society, Bonnie aylor-

Blake cited a article that stated:

For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest

shopping days normally are the two following Tanksgiving Day.

Resulting traffi c jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in

Philadelphia, it became customar y for offi cers to refer to the post-

Tanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday.

Philadelphia cops, who were required to work -hour

Black Friday shifts, picked up the term and popularized it.

Ben Zimmer, language columnist for the Wall Street Jour-

nal, reported that Philadelphia merchants disliked the title

and tried to enforce the more positive term, Big Friday, in

an attempt to encourage consumerism. But the darker term

persisted and spread. Zimmer noted that shops and advertis-

ers, somewhat successfully, rebranded the title by introducing

campaigns using black to refer to retail profits, and referenced

the Back to Black campaign of the s.

1 Black FrSong of A

Fire, and

and DragPark,Seas

2013.

2 Friday a

ThanksgivM.J. Mu

to Good

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ExecutiveManagem

Maintena

Nov 1951cited by B

Taylor-Bla

to AmericSociety,4

3Ben Zimm

Origins of B

25 Nov 20


43/78

Footage aired onFox Philly, Oct 29, 2013

ACK FRIDAY SOUNDING

ber 29, 2013, Wal-Mart Supercenter

S. Christopher Columbus Blvd

delphia, PA 19148


44/78

Te term Black Friday came

out of the old Philadelphia Police

Departments traffi c squad. Te

cops used it to describe the worst

traffi c jams which annually occur red

in Center City on the Friday after

Tanksgiving.

It was the day that Santa Claus took

his chair in the department stores

and every kid in the city wanted to

see him. It was the first day of the

Christmas shopping season.

Schools were closed. Late in the day,

out-of-town visitors began arriving

for the Army-Navy football game.

Every Black Friday, no traffi c

policeman was permitted to take the

day off. Te division was placed on

tours of duty, and even the police

band was ordered to Center Cit y.

It was not unusual to see a trombone

player directing t raffi c.

wo offi cers were as signe d to

intersections along Market Street

to control the throngs of pedestrians.

Te department also placed police

offi cers outside parking garages

because the lot filled signs failed

to deter motorists from lining up on

the curb lane outside the garage. Tis

reduced street size from two lanes

to one. Tis caused traffi c to back up

and block traffi c at the next i ntersec-

tion. Tis caused massive gridlock.

In , the old Evening Bulletin

assigned me to police administration,

working out of City Hall. Nathan

Kleger was the police reporter who

covered Center City for the Bulletin.

THIS FRIDAY WAS BLACK WITH TRAFFIC

Joseph P. BarrettPhiladelphia Inquirer,Nov 25, 1994

e from Shopping Madness: 5 iOS Apps to Help You Survive Black Friday, mactrast.com, 2012.

In the early s, Kleger and I

put together a front-page story for

Tanksgiving and we appropriated

the police term Black Friday to de-

scribe the terrible traffi c conditions.

Center City merchants complained

loudly to Police Commissioner

Albert N. Brown that drawing at-

tention to traffi c deterred custom-

ers from coming downtown. I was

worried that maybe Kleger and I had

made a mistake in using such a term,

so I went to Chief Inspector Albert

rimmer to get him to verify it.

rimmer, tongue in cheek, would

say only that Black Friday was used

to describe the Valentines Day

massacre of mobsters in Chicago.

Te following year, Brown put out

a press release describing the day

as Big Friday. But Kleger and I held

our ground, and once more said it

was Black Friday. And of course

we used it year after year. Ten

television picked it up.

oday the term seems lost in

antiquity, but it was a traffi c cop

who started it, the guy who directed

traffi c with a semaphore while stand-

ing on a small wooden platform, in

the days before traffi c lights. But

that was a long time ago.

Reprinted from philly.com.


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CROSS WALK


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ORIGINAL INTERVENTION

Monday, April , , - am

Footage uploaded to youtube.com by geographyuberalles.

Te pedestrian footage documents s intervention at

the crossing from Seventh to Eighth Avenue on West rd

Street in Manhattan. For five hours during the Monday rush,

he gained control of the existing sound structure that beeps

to indicate pedestrian crossing, and played the sound of adial-up modem instead.

echnicians and authorities arrived at the scene around

: am, and despite their best efforts, could not disable the

sound. Te following day, formally apologized via his

Vimeo channel for any disservice he had caused to the

hearing-impaired.


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All images taken from footage uploaded to UBIQs vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/85220672.

UBIQ REPLACED THE

CROSSWALK BEEP

WITH SOUND FROM

A DIAL-UP MODEM.

THE NEW YORKERS

SEEM UNAMUSED.


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AN INTERMISSIONSOUND AND SUBVERSION

AN

INTERMISSIO


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PRIVATE SOUNDINGSSOUND AND SUBVERSION

PRIVATE

SOUNDING


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User testing with UBIQ, 2013.

Once I was visiting my Aunt Marge.

She was doing her laundry.

She turned to me and said,

You know? I love this machine

much more than I do your Uncle Walter.

JOHN CAGE SILENCE

1Stei

The

Pol

Car

Mag

201

oday, we live in a world where our online interactions are

reproduced for purposes we never intended. Modern computa-

tional advancements that allow increasingly large sets of data

to be quickly processed and analyzed have transformed our

most mundane decisions and everyday clicks into priceless

(or very valuable, depending on where you stand) data.

ake, for example, the media-streaming epicenter Netflix. In

his recentNew York imes Magazinearticle, Te Post-Hope Poli-

tics of House of Cards,Adam Steinbergh wrote,

Netflix knows a lot about what you watch. Not just generally, but in

a granular, data-driven, clicks-and-duration-of-viewing time way.

It knows what everyone on Netflix watches, and how much theywatch it, and how all of this might translate into what people want

to watch next.

Te key here is that Netflix not only collects all this data,

but through its specialized algorithms knows how to turn

our information (number after number) into something truly

valuable (in this case, the series House of Cards).

As users, our usa ge is used in the ser vice of the success of

the corporation. Tough many frame this as a problem of free

labor, a symptom of the digital economy, wants us to per-

ceive our role not solely as used user, but as agent user. Trough

awareness, users have the ability to question and influence this

power dynamic. Within the privacy of our own homes, when

we commune with our personal mobile devices, we must be

aware and willing participants in this economic relationship.

If not, he asks, how else can we move forward with the hope

of harmonizing?

In his Private Soundings, the gallery pieces iHearand iones,

aims to redefine our relationships with the sounds of

our ringtones and alerts. Both pieces utilize participant-based

gestural interactive systems which transform the familiar

sounds of the iPhone by manipulating their pitch and frequen-

cy. Giving these iconic noises yet another context, asks a

user to hear them differently, not with their cultural meaning,


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iTONES


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PRIVATE SOUNDINGS

iones is an interactive gallery piece that transforms a user,

and her smartphone, into a musical instrument. A user is con-

fronted with a minimal set up: a simple black set of earphones

hanging on the wall next to a repurposed iPhone armband. A

drawing, done directly on the gallery wall and labeled iones,

demonstrates how the piece is worn.

Te user is required to use her own personal smartphone,

which she inserts in the wristband and plugs into the ear-

phones. At the moment of plugging in, the user initiates code

on a hidden chip in the headphones, which discovers the pre-

assigned sound she has set on her smartphone. Te earphones,

however, are not wired to the audio-jack of the smartphone;instead they connect wirelessly via bluetooth to a Macbook

Pro (mid-) hidden in the gallery. Te gestures of connect-

ing the phone into the earphones, the act of plugging in, and

putting on the earphones are together an important initiation

into the experience. Te act of plugging in imitates the inser-

tion of an or a lifeline, yet simultaneously suggests the

injection of intravenous drugs, a gesture of escape, denial, and

self-destruction. Tough the act of hooking up references users

reliance on their smartphones, it also enables them to give the

sounds of their personal data a new, audible life.

iTones, Tower Gallery, 2014.


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PRIVATE SOUNDINGS



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PRIVATE SOUNDINGS

THE ORIGINALTe Personal Instrument,

As the shows curat or, I approached with a proposa l to

update TePersonal Instrument(), an early piece by Polish-

born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko. Tis interactive, wearable

artwork addresses the faade of freedom of speech in the state

socialism of Poland during the s. In his piece, the sound

of public space becomes the contested ground where citizens

and government metaphorically negotiate freedom.

His Personal Instrumentwas the first in a series of public inter-

ventions that aimed to metaphorically define the situation

of a human being as citizen in a totally controlled environ-

ment a public space dominated by a repressive Polish

state. As a young industrial designer, Wodiczko found himself

making mass-media products to broadcast propaganda for

the government. In response, he wanted to create a critical

and ironic dialogue with a real and monstrous designer the

communist state itself who was in total control of the entire

society and treated it as a single work of art or design.For

Wodiczko, TePersonal Instrumentwas an articulation of the

boundaries of freedom and of the ways of practicing it, as well

as of the individual Polish citizens reserves of power in relation

to the use of space. His goal was to articulate the voicelessness

of the citizen who was forced to listen to repressive state direc-

tives, but unable to make himself heard:

Under the conditions of life in existing public space, democracy is

the practice of making oneself heard (instead of passively listening

to someone elses voice) How is one to treat such a c rowded space

as an instrument of democracy when this instrument is not in our

hands and when public space is barricaded and sealed off by the

colossal bodies of the great speakers (demagogues), ringing with

the choirs of advertisements, and occupied by armies of heroic

memorials?

Wodiczkos Personal Instrument was an otherworldly costume.

Te headpiece consisted of an oversized pair of metallic head-

phones and a microphone, perched on the forehead in lieu of

1 Wo

A

M

C(C

M

p.

2 W

Kr

Th

InC

p.

3 WKr

A

M

Cp.

The Personal Instrument, Krysztof Wodiczko, 1969


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PRIVATE SOUNDINGSSOUND AND SUBVERSION

a third eye. Tis bizarre contraption was wired to a simple pair

of black gloves, with discrete photocells sewn into them. Te

microphone captured the ambient noises of public space an

outdoor plaza, park, or busy street. Tose sounds were filtered

through the photocells in the gloves the left hand control-

ling a high-pitch filter, the right hand a low-pitch filter, so by

waving both hands the wearer could create a glissando sound

effect. Te transformed noises returned to the helmet, playing

in the private space of the wearers enormous headphones.

A description from states th at the instr ument is for

the exclusive use of the artist who created it.Te images of

Wodiczko wearing the costume in public, altering the ambientsounds of public space or making artwork out of the art of

listening depict a man embodying the haunting silence of

the citizen. According to Wodiczko, Te Personal Instrument

relies on a socially active environment it needs a passerby

to observe its silence. Yet that same bystander is also witness

to a public-private exaltation of the citizens freedom. It is

an art of private countercensorship. By performing in public,

Wodiczko fought censorship through his ability to orchestrate

the contested sounds of public space privately. As he explained:

I am an artist in the listening, not in the speaking, and though

I do not have the right to say what I really want to say let me at

least be allowed to listen to what I want to hear

On one hand, the citizen, represented by Wodiczko as wearer

or performer, is emancipated as free to listen. However, the

silence of the performance exposes the inability of this same

citizen to be heard. So in an elegant double-entendre, Wodicz-

ko empowers the citizen by revealing his situation as controlled

by the state.

Te piece is an expression of the need to challenge a repressive

sociopolitical situation. Te metaphor of turning the noise and

chatter of everyday life into a private chorus for the wearersenjoyment is inspirational. However, at its heart, Te Personal

Instrumentis a piece of critical reflection necessary in only the

most dire of circumstances. oday, in the new digital spaces of

our dynamic media society, we can find ourselves in a situation

of similar duress.

and I agreed that TePersonal Instrument needed to

be updated to reflect this new power struggle, not between

government and citizen, but between algorithm and user as

reproducer. In our version, the sounds of public space, which

represent freedom, are replaced with the pre-programmed cell

phone ringtone of a user, to represent the users personal data

repurposed by the algorithmic systems of dataveillance for

ulterior means. Just as Wodiczko revealed the dominated citi-zen by empowering him as a conductor of the sounds of public

space, our update, iones, reveals the user as a used user, by al-

lowing her to transform her ringtone through gesture. Te goal

is to offer users of ionesa means to metaphorically negotiate

agency in the face of algorithmic control.

4 Wodiczko,

Krzysztof,

The PersonalInstrument,

Critical Vehicles,

p 102.

5 Wodiczko,Krzysztof, A

Response to Maria

Morzuch, CriticalVehicles, p 142.

iTones, user testing in Tower Gallery, 2014.


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AMBIENT NOISES FROM PUBLIC SPACE = METAPHOR FOR FREEDOM

THE INSTRUMENT EMPOWERS DOMINATED CITIZEN

GOVERNMENT

CITIZEN

PERSONAL RINGTONE FROM MOBILE DEVICE = METAPHOR FOR FREEDOM

TRANSFORMED TONES EMPOWER USED USER

ALGORITHM

USER

SOUND AND LIGHT FROM OUTSPACE

PHOTORECEIVER PHOTORECEIVERMICROPHONE

FILTERS

EARPHONES

ARTIST

Original description published as Instrument Osobisty/Personal Instrument, in Autoportret/Self-Portrait, exhibitioncatalogue (Warsaw: Galeria Foksal, 1973).

The instrument transforms the sounds of the environment.

The instrument functions in response to hand movements.

The instrument reacts to sunlight.

The instrument is portable.The instrument can be used in any place and in any time.

The instrument is for the exclusive use of the artist who created it.

The instrument permits him to attain virtuosity.

PERSONAL DATA FROM INFRASTRUCTURE

OF ALGORITHMIC CONTROL

RINGTONE GESTUREGESTURE

FILTERS

EARPHONES

USER

The instrument transforms the sounds of the users personaliz

The instrument functions in response to hand movements.

The instrument can be used in the gallery.

The instrument is for smartphone users, exclusively.The instrument permits users to attain virtuosity.

Compatible with iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s, and Samsung Galaxy S4, S

THEPERSONALINSTRUMENTKrzysztof Wodiczko,

iTONES and Sofie Elana Hodara,


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I AM AN ARTIST IN THE LISTENING,

NOT IN THE SPEAKING, AND THOUGH

I DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO SAY

LET ME AT LEAST BE ALLOWED TO

LISTEN TO WHAT I WANT TO HEAR.

KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO


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iHEAR

iHear, Nave Gallery, 2014.


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AS TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS ARE

INTEGRATED INTO SOCIETY IN EVER MORE

FRUITFUL WAYS, OUR RELATIONSHIPS

WITH OUR MOBILE DEVICES HAVE

BECOME EVER MORE INTIMATE.

OUR PHONES HAVE BECOME LIKE SHINY

NEW APPENDAGES, BUT LIKE THE ITCH

OF A PHANTOM LIMB, THE RECOGNIZABLE

SOUNDS AND VIBRATIONS OF OUR MOBILE

PHONES EXERT A POWER OVER US FROM

OUR POCKETS AND PURSES.

UBIQ


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PRIVATE SOUNDINGS

A small elect ronic instru ment resembling a therem in, iHear

plays cell phone ringtones in order to highlight the pervasive-

ness of our mobile technologies and the familiar sounds they

produce. By interacting with iHear, in the gallery setting, the

user manipulates the frequency of ubiquitous and iconic cell

phone ringtones. By playing the little black box, the audience

can transforming these nagging musical melodies into some-

thing different something, perhaps, resembling music.

iHear, Cyber Arts Gallery, 2014.


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LEARNING TO RE-HEARa note from the curator

What makesiHearsuch a profound experience, is that the piece,

in its innocence, asks its users: isnt it you who is supposed to be

in charge?

Despite being a printmaker and painter, I came to Boston to

respond to questions about how our new technologies and our

subsequent constant connectivity to both others and informa-

tion are shaping the texture of our lives. When I met UBIQ, on an

overnight in Brooklyn, I was stirred by iHear by the simplicity of

putting our ringtones, which are literally at our fingertips, on public

display. I couldnt stop thinking about the piece, then called the

Mobile Music Box, and I featured it in my spring keynote at the

Dynamic Media Institute.

I returned to UBIQs studio to discuss the potency of mobile

melodies, as UBIQ calls them. Though we spoke about these

melodies as annoying and often unwanted interruptions, UBIQ

always seemed more interested in them as catalysts for intimacy.

He spoke about the personal connection we develop with these

sounds when we set them to specific contacts

ubiq: sound and subversion

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