My Kinda Ringtone

"You never know." -Jonathan Keats, artist

CONCEPTUAL RINGTONE SILENCES CELLPHONES

Subscribers Hear Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds of Silence Whenever Someone Calls Them... Artist Jonathon Keats Offers Silent Ringtone Free-of-Charge Through Leading Mobile Content Provider Start Mobile... Silence May Go Platinum in 2007...

JANUARY 5, 2007 - Since the beginning of time, pure silence has been available only in the vacuum of space. Now conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has digitally generated a span of silence, four minutes and thirty-three seconds in length, portable enough to be carried on a cellphone. His silent ringtone, freely distributed through special arrangement with Start Mobile, is expected to bring quiet to the lives of millions of cellphone users, as well as those close to them.

"When major artists such as 50 Cent and Chamillionaire started making ringtones, I realized that anything was possible in this new medium," says Mr. Keats, whose previous art projects include attempting to genetically engineer God. "I also knew that another artist, John Cage, had formerly tried, and failed, to create a silent interlude."

Mr. Cage once famously composed four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, which was performed on a piano, in front of a live audience, back in 1952. By all accounts, though, his silence was imperfect, owing to the limitations of the technology available at the time. "John Cage can't be blamed," says Mr. Keats. "He lived in an analog age."

"My Cage (Silence for Cellphone)" dispenses with performer and piano and auditorium, instead utilizing a continuous stream of silence produced on a computer, and compressed to standard ringtone format. This silence can be heard whenever a call comes through, whether out on the street, at a noisy concert, or in the quiet of home. A remastering of Mr. Cage's classic, "My Cage" is also a remix, according to Mr. Keats. "It introduces serendipity into the equation, delivering performances unpredictably, whenever calls come unexpectedly. You never know."

The silence may take place without the listener being aware of it. Or the listener may hear a call - phantom silence - when there's no one on the line. "'My Cage' is all-encompassing," Mr. Keats explains. "Even those who don't use it as a ringtone have the potential to experience it, in the silence of an unanswered call."

While noting that Mr. Keats doesn't have a cellphone of his own, and may be less-than-qualified to make global pronouncements about them, Start Mobile CEO John Doffing believes that "My Cage" may be a platinum hit. "People want a respite," he says, "and not everybody has the time or money to go to a spa. The virtues of silence are unsung."

Nevertheless, Mr. Keats is careful not to take credit for silence in general, and hopes that people will bootleg his creation, just as he was inspired by John Cage. Mr. Cage, who died in 1992, could not be reached for comment.

"My Cage (Silence for Cellphone)" can be downloaded now at www.startmobile.net/433

* * *
Jonathon Keats is a conceptual artist, novelist, and critic. For his most recent project, at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, he exhibited extraterrestrial abstract artwork. He has also attempted to genetically engineer God in a petri dish, in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, and petitioned Berkeley to pass a fundamental law of logic - A=A - a work commissioned by the city's annual Arts Festival. He has been awarded Yaddo and MacDowell fellowships, and his projects have been documented by KQED-TV and the BBC World Service, as well as periodicals ranging from The San Francisco Chronicle to New Scientist. He is represented by Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. For more information, please contact Mr. Keats at

jonathon_keats@yahoo.com, or see www.modernisminc.com/artists/Jonathon_KEATS/
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