Tomorrow is the start of the 7th annual Conflux Festival in NYC. I’m showing a new project there in collaboration with Tim Redfern called “Inquisitive Devices” which examines the transition
from public to personal broadcasting, and the present day usage of the radio spectrum through the proliferation of ‘Bluetooth’ enabled personal communication devices carried by pedestrians in the city. Inquisitive Devices” actively searches several points of a neighborhood intersection for Bluetooth signals and creates audible sounds based on the advertised names of detected Bluetooth devices, using speech synthesis and real-time audio filtering techniques. The project is encased in 3 birdhouses and will be situated at the LaGuardia Corner Gardens on the corner of Bleeker street and LaGuardia Place just south of Washington Square Park. I’ll be giving a short talk about the project tomorrow at the Conflux Headquarters, also located on Laguardia Place. So check out the piece if you are in the area and don’t forget to turn the Bluetooth on on your device…