"New Verizons" is an eleven-part document of an unguided trek through Princeton University to find as many pay-phones as possible within a three hour period. The initial recordings were garnered using my cellphone to ring the bells of each discovered phone and serve as the foundation to recreate a type of filmic event, wherein the phone's musicality is portrayed as a protagonist engaged in an event on the distant horizon, disappearing at the instant of our arrival.

I would encourage you, if walking around, to ask passersby as to the locations of any pay-phones or call the numbers directly and listen.

click to listen to each of the 11 pieces

Bio

Jon Brumit works creatively with social design, structured improvisation and obtuse performance interventions, typically in public spaces and often using sound.

He has presented solo and collaborative works widely in the US and abroad at venues including Southern Exposure, MOCA Detroit, Novi Sad Contemporary Museum, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial with Neighborhood Public Radio.

His projects have been supported by the Creative Work Fund, Oakland Arts Council, CEC ArtsLink, Meet the Composer and the San Jose Public Arts Commission. Features and reviews of his work have appeared in the NY Times, SF Chronicle, Artforum, Punk Planet, and the Today Show.

sound fiiles for NEW VERIZONS

#1 - #2 - #3 - #4 - #5 - #6 - #7 - #8 - #9 - #10 - #11


The listener might well conclude that the event depicted within each filmic moment is the final battle, near the base of the Radio Tower Eating Club (G3) on the Hill of Meggido at Friend Center, between the surviving rebel Q-factor Operators of PU's last VCXO (self-designated GoDCoM since colonizing the area surrounding the tower circa 1756 AD and successfully legislating "Frozen Dinner" mandates) and the rival returning Strategic Analog Transmission Attack Node Technologies Inc LLC, the highest ranking Colonial Dinner Club Forces of the now defunct Spatial Development Wire-Clearance Corporation (known for their inner-colonizing organic CSA tactics), both of whom use predominantly sound as weapons during battle, although with varying expression. It has been consistently remarked that this particular battle is noteworthy due to the rivals' incessant near-misses within each episode of battle as the 1s and 0s of S-Tech frequently pass both above and below, respectively, the combatant G-COM sine waves, however modulated, as well as the reports of visible airborn gene markers from trace food particles migrating onto Prospect Avenue.

©2008 jon brumit