October 15, 2001

3:47 AM

Sacrifice your mobile?Not sure if the US of A is gripped by the text epidemic sweeping Europe, but this sounds a bit different. What messages would you send? (Clean ones please!)
posted by snowgoon (15 comments total)

"Smash your phone"
posted by zztzed at 4:10 AM on October 15, 2001

"Just answer the effing phone"*

*If not then you must surrender control and be spammed, be very, very spammed.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:26 AM on October 15, 2001

"Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty."
"Do something nice to a complete stranger."
"Kiss someone you know on the tip of their nose."
"Support local music and independent film."
"Use your own brain to think with."
posted by ZachsMind at 4:35 AM on October 15, 2001

"Call your mother."

(heh. I was at the Media Centre on Saturday night. They do cool stuff.)
posted by holgate at 4:44 AM on October 15, 2001

look behind you.
posted by ColdChef at 4:45 AM on October 15, 2001

Set your ringer to "vibrate", slide the phone down the front of your pants, and answer no more calls today.
posted by pracowity at 5:05 AM on October 15, 2001

hold your breath for 3 hours
posted by Frasermoo at 5:07 AM on October 15, 2001

What's the point? Is someone doing this as a gag, to encourage wackiness, to destroy things, or to make money? What's the end result?
posted by davidmsc at 5:13 AM on October 15, 2001

Didn't they do this on "The X-Files"? I seem to remember an episode where people would get messages from phones, ATMs and such instructing them to kill.
posted by groundhog at 5:48 AM on October 15, 2001

What's the point? Is someone doing this as a gag, to encourage wackiness, to destroy things, or to make money? What's the end result?

It's art, see. The Media Centre has commissioned lots of projects which explore the way in which new technologies affect our personal space and social interactions. (Other projects are listed here under "Area #1", including the SMS poetry competition that was discussed here earlier in the year.)

One element is that mobile phones already have the capacity to make us "surrender control" in social situations: people draw attention to themselves, and often have incredibly intimate conversations in public spaces, because the technology challenges existing patterns of decorum. It's also reminescent of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies, which is itself an echo of the modern idea of "cultivated ex-centricity": to do something out of character.

But mainly, it's a bit of fun.
posted by holgate at 6:21 AM on October 15, 2001

Is there a link to the actual project yet? The Media Centre's website is very thin as of yet, and I can't find anything about this except the bbc article originally posted. I want to read more!
posted by jill at 9:12 AM on October 15, 2001

I like pancakes.
posted by msacheson at 9:52 AM on October 15, 2001

The phone made me do it!
posted by Carol Anne at 11:15 AM on October 15, 2001

Telefon
posted by bjgeiger at 12:04 PM on October 15, 2001

If you answer this message I will cut off your head. If you do not answer this message, I will cut off your head.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:29 PM on October 15, 2001