The Poly-Phone

Fig.!. Benoit Maubrey,prototype for the Poly-Phune, 1987-1989. Sevenoversizefuncti ~ning telephone recei~er.s (polyes~er, 13 x 2 m) equipped with30-watt loudspeakers and nucrophones, plUS a built-manswermgsystem,willenable anyoneto call up bymeans of telephone lines and talk through the sculpture to visitorsat the site.Visitorswill themselvesbe able to talk back directlyat the receivers and respond to the callers. ORNITORRINCO: ExPLORING TELEPRESENCE AND REMOTE SENSING Eduardo Kac, 1525 W. Farwell 2B, Chicago, IL 60626, U.S.A. Received 26July 1990. Ornitorrinco ('platypus' in Portuguese) is a project that explores remote sensing , improvisation and tele-operation as elements of the work. Materially, the project is composed of two telephone lines, four telephone sets, a one-eyed robotic creature ("Omitorrinco ", which gives the project its name), a transcoder and two modems. The piece was developed throughout 1989 in collaboration with Edward Bennett, technical assistant at the Electronics Department ofThe School ofThe Art Institute of Chicago, and should be understood not as an event but as a project that generates new situations each time it is experienced. Here is the basic structure: In one location, the artist has a telephone with tone (rather than pulse) service. He or she will use the sounds produced by pushing the numbers on the dial keypad to control Omitorrinco's motion in a distant place. The artist also has a monitor and a modem (to receive slow-scan video stills every 8 sec). In another location, where Omitorrinco actually is, another artist (or group of artists) prepares a complex environment where Omitorrinco moves around. Ornitorrinco receives its commands via radio transmission from the transcoder, which is hooked up to the first telephone and sends video signals via radio to a receiver. The receiver is hooked up to a modem, which transmits the video stills over the second telephone line back to the artist in the first location. Without previous information about the environment, the artist sees only what Omitorrinco 'sees', and controls its movement by pushing the numbers on the dial keyboard of the telephone unit. Each number is a code: 1, "move forward to the left"; 2, "straight ahead"; 3, "forward to the ABSTRACTS right"; 7, "backwards to the left": 8, "straight backwards"; 9, "backwards to the right": and any other key, "stop", Ornitorrinco was experienced for the first time on 11January 1990 in a telecommunications link between Rio deJaneiro (Brazil) and Chicago (Illinois). I was in Rio and Edward Bennett was at The School ofThe Art Institute of Chicago, where he arranged an environment in the Electronics Department. In Omitortinco, the enigmatic idea of 'telekinesis' is embodied in electric and electronic parts, unveiling new paths for telecommunications as an art form beyond the exchange of images . This project is meant to express some of the possibilities of an outreaching vision in particular and an extended body in general, as a consequence of the cultural impact of telecommunications systems. THE POLY-PHONE Benoit Maubrey, Die Audio Gruppe, SchulstraBe 35, 1000 Berlin 65, Germany. Received 1 December 1989. The Poly-Phone (Fig. 1) is planned as an 'active' sculpture that permits the general public to express itself spontaneously via modem telecommunications. Situated in a central urban area, the Poly-Phonewill be physically accessible 24 hours a day but also-and this is its truly unique characteristic as an electro-acoustic sculpture-reachable by using an ordinary house, office or pay telephone. By dialing a special number, people will be able to 'call up' the sculpture. The callers' voices will be automatically amplified and the callers will then be free to express themselves in public as they choose (talking, singing, playing a musical instrument , reciting, etc.),©19911SAST Pergamon Press pic.Printed inGreat Britain. 0024-094X/91 $3.00+0.00 LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No.2, pp. 233--235,1991 233 The Poly-Phone will consist of multiple structural elements built as oversize telephone receivers approximately 13 X 2 m in size, each equipped with a loudspeaker for talking and a microphone for listening, thus enabling more than one person to call simultaneously . It will also be possible for the callers talking through the different giant receivers to hear and respond to one another; dialogues...