1968
Cessattion of attivities as solo percussionist, Artist in residence, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey. 1968-69
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I installed ten telephone lines at the station and asked people to call in during a two-hour period with whatever sounds they wanted. It created a live sound collage made with the participation of anybody within a twenty-mile radius the ten million people who were living there. These Networks gradually progressed into a series of radio/telephone events, in different cities. In the middle of the seventies. Max Neuhaus
Student in residence, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey.
Exhibition Max Neuhaus. Telephone Access, September 4 Thru October 14 1968
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Looking back to 1966, it seems as though I began these broadcast pieces almost by accident. I was asked by a woman who was the music director at radio station WBAI in New York if she could interview me. At a certain moment while thinking about it I had this idea -- instead of talking, why not try to make a work for the radio itself.
I realized I could open a large door into the radio studio with the telephone -- if I installed telephone lines in the studio anybody could aurally walk in from any telephone. At that time there were no live call-in shows. The idea of putting phone calls directly on the air rather than prerecording them was not greeted with open arms.
I got the telephone company to install ten telephones in the studio by telling them they were for taking the responses for a fund-raising campaign.
With a friend, I built this wonderful pre-answering machine ten-line answering machine. Each phone sat on a small platform and had a solenoid controlled lever which fit under its receiver. A plastic cup with a microphone inside was fitted over the ear piece. The mikes and solenoids were connected to a box with switches controlling the solenoids, and pots for the mike gains. The output went to an amp and a speaker.
The results were wonderfully unexpected. I had done a mailing which told the people about time and the phone number, so there was no shortage of calls. In fact because there were so many, entering into the work became a game of chance. Your call had to coincide with that of another person hanging up.
I had told people they could phone in any sounds they wanted and asked them to leave their radio on while calling so that I would have some different feedbacks to work with. I saw myself as a sort of moderator. I tried to form interesting combinations of callers on the air and counterbalance the extroverted with the introverted.
I think I was a little in shock after it was over. It wasn't an idea that I had thought out, it just came to me. Realizing the scale of this thing. I had made a virtual space which any one of the ten million people living in greater New York could enter into by dialing a telephone number. It gave me a lot to think about.
Max Neuhaus
hans-ulrich-obrist-interview-with-max-neuhaus-2005