10.02.06 One Free Minute, mobile freedom of speech.
With One Free Minute you have sixty seconds to letting your own thoughts, feelings (or anything else you feel the urge to communicate in a range of 50 meters) be heard from its physical position. One Free Minute is a mobile sculpture conceived by Daniel Joliffe that also guarantees anonymity to all the submitters. Joliffe publishes on its website a detailed list of the sculpture tour dates and places, allowing people to leave a message on its answering machine. The message will then be played randomly in the public place of choice during one of the artist's performances. The project doesn't claim a specific originality or innovation, but instead it consciously offers an interesting clue on the communicative dynamics sparked by the massive mobile phones use, highlighting the exasperated dichotomy caused by this medium use. Sure enough, if on one hand the possibility of maintaining the network of relationships without thinking at the distance is an achievement, on the other hand the private life is publicized, and the dirty linen are washed in public. One Free Minute is argumentative against this 'bug' effect, offering freedom of speech without paying the price of the traceability. The privacy is replaced by some arbitrary controls, or, if you're lucky by involuntary auscultations, involving anybody is within hailing distance.
Francesca Tomassini