Teaching Joe How to Make a Ringtone (in Just a Few Minutes!)

This is Joe Morrisson's phone. It is a Verizon LG-something.



This is Joe and his phone at a local restaurant where, in just a few minutes, I taught him how to turn a sound (which he recorded on his LG-something phone) into a ringtone. The process is simple (at least on Joe's LG-something phone and my LG-NV). I figured it out when I was preparing my proposal for the Old and New Media Residency Program.



THE HOW-TO:

1. Record a sound on your phone, or
2. Pull up the sound file on your phone, and select the SEND option.
3. Your phone will open a new pix message for you. Type your phone number into the TO line.
4. Select or enter "OK."
5. Select or enter "SEND."

The sound file will be sent to your phone. When you receive the pix message with the audio attached, select "SET AS RINGTONE."

Joe is Operations Director and an instructor at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. This morning he helped me to look carefully at some specs on the technical equipment I'm considering purchasing for the project. The restaurant was one of Filmmakers' staff faves--Orient Kitchen on Baum Boulevard. We both had Sushi Lunchbox A--a wonderfully fresh, yummy and filling lunch special for $8.95.

I saved today's fortune (with good reason).



In keeping with my media literacy approach for sharing strategies and techniques for using digital media consumer tools as a means for creative expression, here are some nerdy details on today's photos. Pics of Joe and his phone were taken with the camera on my Verizon LG-NV. The fortune cookie photo was captured with the built-in camera on my Macintosh with the Photo Booth application.

Arts Activism: Submitted Artist Application to Sprout Public Art Program

My last boss, Marge Myers* (pictured to the right of me in this photo), gave me some great techniques which I now use as an artist (and as an arts advocate). One day, when I was working on the Pittsburgh Creativity Project in the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, she told me about how artists, as advocates, helped to send a message to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts that new funding streams needed to be developed. She said that sometimes the council would get applications from artists that really didn't fit into their established (more traditional) categories. "One way artists can really put themselves on the radar is by submitting applications to funding streams--it's a way to let the funders know you exist and that your type of practice exists, too. It gets you on the radar."

Today I dropped of my artist application to the Sprout Fund's 2009 Public Art program. Before I even filled out the paperwork, out of courtesy and for purposes of art-advocacy, I made sure to call the program manager, Curt Gettman, to ask if I might submit a proposal that didn't quite fit with Sprout's present vision for or approach to funding public art. Curt welcomed my application and stated that during a previous round of proposals a sculptor actually got his non-mural project funded within a local community. During our conversation, he mentioned that artists can help to stimulate conversation regarding a non-profit's approach to programming or an organizations responsiveness to serving artists and communities by participating in the formal conversation through the submission of a proposal. The day after I submitted the proposal electronically, Curt sent me an email thanking me for sharing my work with Sprout.

It took me a full and focused day to prepare the appliation (do the writing, ready the submission materials). I consider the effort arts activism which I'd describe as an "artist action." Even if the act doesn't directly benefit the project I'm working on, it's a formal submission to the public art program, a written record (with supplemental audio and visual work samples) which advocates for the expansion of artists' access to funding for non-traditional public art projects.

Here's how I expressed my approach to the ringtone project for Sprout:

"My interest in public art is partly to conduct inquiry around the uses of public space and property through the creation and distribution of a series of locally-produced ringtones made in concert with individuals residing within the Pittsburgh region. 'Sweetest Sounds: Locally Toned' will employ an aspect of our commons largely underutilized as a 'canvas' by artists—the airspace (which is public property for sonic transmissions). Due the aural nature of the project, this art work requires no fixed place for its installation. It will 'perform' itself throughout Pittsburgh and beyond city limits, when its participants (makers and end-users) receive cellular phone calls.

Another outcome of the project is the formation of an online 'participatory culture' that serves Pittsburgh communities that exist across neighborhoods and above, beyond and through walls. My intentions exceed providing Pittsburgh with another public art project for visual intake, as I will engage Pittsburghers as collaborators in this project. While redirecting public and private attention away from acts of consumerism (the purchasing of music industry ringtones), I’ll involve the public in acts of creativity, giving this community a means, way and end to capturing, sharing and amplifying the authentic audio around them."

*This posting is dedicated to you, Marge--thanks for the tremendous expertise you have shared with me and other artists over the span of your amazing career!

Photo of me & Marge taken by Renee Rosensteel.

Oh, Mr. Watson!

I was reading a little bit about the history of the telephone tonight and I was inspired to make this historically referential ringtone.  Riffing off the first words successfully uttered over a telephone line by the (disputed) inventor himself--Alexander Graham Bell,  you can find my "Mr. Watson, Come Here" ringtone here.  Look under the category of test ringtones (for technical research).  I recorded the tone with iSpeak It and selected the Trinoids voice to read back my treatment of the famous quote.  

Great Idea from Erica

Was out to dinner with my friend Erica the other night and since I recently made her some ringtones, she said the gift got her thinking about how people could use them. Her basic idea was that it be lovely if she could easily give the ringtones to people she knew as audio identifiers for her.

I loved the idea--then ringtones are like electronic calling cards of sorts! Why not? What if people were more engaged in making and sharing original ringtones and they would be easily sharable when you give out your phone number. A ringtone could be an individual's audio "signature" of sorts. They already are, but we generally pick or program many of them for others. Erica's idea is interesting because it asserts an individual's personal flair/agency rather than representing somebody else's identification for another.

Project Challenges: Distribution
How could the tones be efficiently/easily embedded somewhere for people to share and use? Could Skype have them? Could Facebook or MySpace accomodate them? Would people use flash drives to quickly put them on phones? Some people, when they put me into their phone contacts, they just call me up right away, to store my number and then they type in my name/deets. Moving a ringtone over to someone during that sort of momentary exchange could be key.

I will have to ask the gentlemen at Deep Local about this one. People who contribute thier ideas to the project (especially ringtone idea submissions) will need easy ways to get them on their phones and to other people. Streamlining distribution for different phones, service providers, etc. will be a big and interesting challenge.

Proposal Accepted by Deep Local and Encyclopedia Destrucitca

Here's the press release regarding the Old & New Media Residency Program from Deep Local:

Two Pittsburgh Artists Selected for Innovative Corporate Artist Residency Program
March 11, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pittsburgh, PA – Teresa Foley and Allen Hahn, were both selected to participate in the pilot installment of a unique 3-month artist residency opportunity in Pittsburgh, PA beginning in April 2009. The Old and New Media Residency was created to assist artists in producing, showing, and supporting new projects by working simultaneously with other artists and a local corporation. Encyclopedia Destructica, a Pittsburgh based group of working artists, and deeplocal, a Pittsburgh technology and design studio founded by artists, designers, and technologists, are the creators and sponsors of the residency. It represents a unique collaboration between a corporation and a working artist group. Both artists’ proposals make creative use of mobile technology and focus on creating compelling user experiences rather than technology invention.

“In a time when funding is thinning for the arts, we are proud to be digging into our own resources to show how having interesting artists living and working here is important to corporations as well,” said deeplocal CEO Nathan Martin. The call for applications for the program went out in February 2009 and many exciting proposals were received and reviewed. While it was only planned on announcing a single winner, the quality of several of the proposals was so high that two artists were selected. “It is our hope that the work produced through this program with very minimal resources but outstanding people will serve as a model for other corporate artist residency programs that could be created in our City,” said Encyclopedia Destructica co-director Jasdeep Khaira.

T. Foley is a video artist and media literacy consultant who shares strategies and techniques for using digital media consumer tools as a means for creative expression and community reflection. Presently captivated by "user generated content" within web publishing and new media production circles, Foley's latest work underscores and promotes the expression of personalized creativity through accessible communication technologies such as cell phones and online participatory communities. She received her BA in English Literature from Duquesne University, and studied filmmaking, video production, and Balinese painting and woodcarving techniques as an independent student. Her motion pictures have screened internationally, and she has received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Allen Hahn has been a lighting designer for theater, opera and dance since 1991. His design approach is fundamentally architectural, and considers light and space in the designed stage environment to be primary influences on the character’s actions in the drama. His latest work will explore the possibilities of narrative in an alternate reality game to be played in and around neglected and ignored places in the city. By imagining the Pittsburgh of the past through game play, the project will shed light on the hidden value of the city that survives all around us and spark creative thought and dialogue about its future. He received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon where he studied architecture and drama. His lighting design career has taken him around the world where his work has been seen in numerous international festivals and opera houses in several European countries.
At the end of the residency in July, several exhibits are being planned to showcase the work of the artists during the Old and New Media Residency.

Deeplocal office space: http://www.deeplocal.com/press/deeplocal_office_a.jpg
Old and New Media Residency logo: http://www.deeplocal.com/press/reslogo_a.jpg
Encyclopedia Destructica space: http://www.deeplocal.com/press/ed_space_a.jpg

Contact Information
Nathan Martin, CEO, deeplocal | nathan@deeplocal.com 
Chris Kardambikis | zine@encyclopediadestructica.com 
Allen Hahn | alnhahn@gmail.com 
Teresa Foley | tfoleyhere@gmail.com 

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Ringtone Project Idea

WHAT’S THE PROJECT?

Through a project entitled, “Sweetest Sounds: Locally Toned,” artist T. Foley will produce and distribute, via text messaging and a website, an electronic archive of original ringtones captured from residents in the Pittsburgh Region. As an artist who partly interprets the exhibition of recorded media as a cultural "mirror," Foley wishes to amplify, playback and distribute some of the "sweetest sounds" of this region. The project is a gift to the community, and a collective expression of resourcefulness and creativity. The purpose of the project is to collectively create a media and reality hacking campaign to further personalize cell phones through the creation of original ringtones.