Mainstream musicians are not the only ones intrigued by the possibility of the ringing opus. In 2001, the multimedia artist Golan Levin, now a professor of electronic art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was the co-creator of « Dialtones, » a « telesymphony » (flong.com/telesymphony), composed entirely of the rings of audience members’ cellphones. In Britain (where pop-inspired ringtones already often outsell the songs they are based on), there’s a wide variety of phone art, from Nick Crowe’s « Axis of Evil » national anthems (artones.net) to Stream & Shout, which paired artists and students to create original ringtones (streamandshout.net).
[Dessin de Thomas Fuchs pour l’article du NYT]
