Sadie Plant & Mobile Phones

Nostradamus nearly became the most popular boy at school last year, accordian to search engine google. Wonder whether he would’ve predicted that we’d suffer burst eardrums in 2002, from fearsome flocks of birds evolved to whistle mobile phone ring tunes together?
Alas, probably not. Sadie Plant on the other hand, has the sort of juicy mind that may have predicted such an occurrence. And she spoke on the fone, about fones for 3D.

And I’ll tell you why she’s worth a read too, why excited little me sat recording her voice on a dodgy kitchen table answering machine. Wasn’t b.cos she was commissioned by a phone company to produce a paper on the social and cultural implications of the mobile phone, though that’s how I snared the interview. Sadie Plant is also the juicily electric author of ‘A Most Radical Gesture‘, ‘Zeros & Ones‘ – the hidden history of women’s role in the development of communications technologies, and most recently ‘Writing on Drugs‘.

“It was a straightforward commission – would I be interested in doing some research?,” said Sadie across the wires, and so began her ‘opportunity to focus on the mobile phone’.

What did you learn from your research?
It made me realise how quickly the mobile has gone from a yuppie toy to being so widely available in so many parts of world.

What do you think of the digital divide and that half the world’s never made a fone call?
Well the mobile is making a big difference – obviously that’s by no means happened yet… but it’s the first piece of technology with the potential to do that… and increasingly mobiles can be used for accessing other information such as the net. In the UK it’s bringing change to people who had been cut off from all kinds of useful information and economic information actually. In a future Afghanistan, it’ll never be easy to put in telephone lines, but mobile phones can bring telephony and net to remote places like that. (Sadie spent 4 months in Pakistan on the Afghan border b4 s11).

Have u had any phone dreams?
God what a question, I don’t think I say I have – though that would be a good sign of how well mobile phones are integrated into our everyday lives.

What are some of the politics of the mobile?
There are some very imaginative and politically interesting ways of using sms, and sms is almost the most interesting thing about mobiles. People seemed to find that capacity by themselves and it’s been marketed to them later. Text messaging adds to their capacity to communicate with people around the world. The technology of communication is only one side of a broader thing happening – increasing mobility. People get spread but networks of friends survive in ways they never would have before. We have a new culture of mobility, of working on the road, with huge movements of migrants etc…

Reading of Late?
All sorts – 19th Century novels – Joseph Conrad, lots about Afghanistan, this Swiss playwright, Friedrich Durrenmatt… who is becoming more popular now that he has had a book filmed (‘The Pledge’, directed by Sean Penn).

So *where* are we when we’re on the phone?
Er Birmingham..(laffs) I have no idea. You and I are in our own little space that somehow involves you, me, our telephones, Brisbane and Birmingham. So many people just say now – I’m on the mobile…?

What’s next?
I’m trying to write a novel, not exactly a novel but something a bit more fictional. I spent some time recently in Islamic countries – and I hope this book will somehow draw on those experiences.

Sadie Plant Stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Plant

www.phonebashing.com
Some people dislike public mobile fone usage so much, they wear giant mobile phone suits and go around stealing and smashing stranger’s fones. Conveniently, they videotape these moments so u can see them too.

www.phonelosers.org
Page title: “This page makes me want to cream on myself”
Frontpage quote : “I wish I was black. Then I could have a white girlfriend.”
Like you’re not already there.

Big Cancerous Things
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~arundell/bigthing.htm ( now dead )
There seems so many pages with ‘scientific’ reports with postive or negative things to say about cancer’s relationship to mobile phone usage. You can always try telepathy, or maybe soothe yourself by these pictures of oz-icons from the big prawn to the big peanut.

Autobot Roulette:

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