My friend and collaborator Connor Dickie arrived a few days ago. He is working with me on my second project here which is entitled ’10 sec 1 bayt’ and which take place from Oct 12-Oct 14th, 2009.
“Many Tajiks are aware that for those cell phone users who have a plan with the Central Asian telecommunications company named Babilon, the first ten seconds of any phone call are free. To take advantage of this freebee, strategic users have developed a new art form – the ten second conversation.
Inspired by this contemporary cultural form and the Tajik tradition of 2-verse poetry (or ‘Bayt’), Marisa Jahn in collaboration with Connor Dickie, the Sogd Education and Culture Center, CEC Artslink, and Bactria are initiating a competition for the best ten second poems. You are invited to participate; newcomers to Tajik poetry are invited to try their hand.”
We have the website set up and ready to go for the competition’s launch on Monday morning (see www.10sec1bayt.com).
In the States we have various cell phone services that record incoming calls and parse them into mp3 files. They don’t offer this service here, and there other technical obstacles given the telecommunication structure here in Tajikistan. Further, we want the audio files to be instantly pubished to the web. TO solve these problems, Connor is building a robot that will automatically answer the phone when someone calls the line, record the file, reduce the file size, and post it to the web. Since we don’t know whether we will be able to access the call log for the duration of the project, Connor is creating an alternate automated system in which a computer will automatically take a photo of the phone that is positioned directly in front of the screen’s camera; the pic will then allow us to corrolate the audio file to the phone number. Here is an image of Connor hacking a cell phone headphone mic and another in which we are swapping hats with the local police force.
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