[UPDATE]: To make this process easier, my phone number has been made available for text messaging (to registered users only) through this service so we can cut down on private messaging over the internet and the hassle is creates for me to erase messages etc. Also: I failed to mention that my phone cannot receive or send picture messages or any voice recordings/music etc. I am hoping to change that in the future - when I'm not sure but I feel that making those options available greatly increases how creative this project can truly become.

And the last thing: THIS IS IMPORTANT! Please keep in mind this is ART, and as it stands at the moment this is MY art project. I will NOT condone sexually suggestive/threatening/or otherwise harmful content towards a person personally. This means that if you, as a participant do not want to be subjected to any sexual themes, anything that you could possibly find disturbing please mention it BEFORE I send you a piece of this poem. That is absolute imperative. I WILL NOT! Aim anything at any participant personally. Therefore the use of certain words such as "you", "yourself", "us" or anything I'm not mentioning here that implies including/aiming any ideas/concepts etc at the participant personally will be watched carefully. I WILL use swear words, explicit themes, possibly disturbing ideas and/or concepts/notions in this project. Be aware of this if and when you agree to participate in this project. If you are easily offended, either refrain from participating or make mention of what it is you do not want to receive.

I am NOT here to DAMAGE social interactions or to cut off social interactions with people over preferences, to ostracize, isolate or otherwise traumatize people. That would be absolutely counter-productive to my aims, and I want to keep lines of communication open to as many people who are willing to receive it, as much as possible.

I am here to write a poem, to an audience willing to be an audience.

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This community is a response to the loss of real, vital one-on-one communication between individuals.

With the advent of the internet and mobile phones, our daily interactions with one another has been cut down to two second, typed responses with little to no thought behind them. Although the creativity of the artistic community has gloried in this new technology, there has been very little or passive interaction on the part of any outsiders to this community. Interest is only sparked once something has a dollar value behind it as seen in advertisements for ringtones and texting centers sending out jokes or one-liners to anyone willing to pay their fee.

Text messaging has offered anyone able to afford a mobile phone an easy way to access anyone anywhere at anytime with a few short and sometimes abbreviated words that costs next to nothing. Text messaging has exploded in popularity amongst mobile phone users, enabling us to tell our friends, family or acquaintances what we're doing at any time.

"LOL im takin a shit. wut u doin"

With this medium, the opportunity to have a global wide community is available and open to us.

However even with this opportunity, like all things (the internet being a prime example,) it has been squandered. Left to the "im takin a shit wut u doin" 's of the world.

This community is a response to that. Trails will be left throughout the World Wide Web, calling out to anyone (and/or anyone they would know) willing to take passive participation in a long-term project to write a poem spanning (hopefully) throughout the world of text messaging and mobile phones, connecting users for the time it takes to receive and read the text message from a real person reaching out and attempting to evoke a reaction from whoever is to receive it.

This is Project S1M4S0.

Little has been done to use this medium for any artistic purposes despite the potential it has to enable an artist to reach out to an audience available to him/her at anytime anywhere in the world.

This community will be a community formed under the belief that art should be FREE and made available to anyone in the world, despite their education, ethnicity, economic status, geography, gender, lifestyle, sexual preference etc.

The only discrimination made by this project will be towards those without any access to a mobile phone. This is unfortunate as communication should be made available to anyone and everyone, however perhaps as this art projects grows, evolves and mutates ways will be found to surpass this barrier presented before us. I can only hope, and continue to seek out new forms of communication.

In it's early stages, this project will begin with a poem.
Participants of this project will send me their phone number privately, with a guarantee that this phone number will NOT be disclosed to any other parties other than myself for any purposes whatsoever.

This phone number WILL be stored however in a paper file/journal for the purpose of keeping a record of who I sent a text message to, at what date and time, and what was written. The receiver may remain anonymous, no names need be given and no response is expected or required from the participant (in fact any response should actually be posted to this community or in any threads this community may start throughout the web.) Once the text is sent off, the number and text will both be erased from my phone so that no electronic trail will be left on my phone (the reason for this is a security issue for anyone participating in this project - explained below.)

Each participant will receive a text message of 140 characters (or less) - as this is the maximum number of characters available to me to send out 1 text message. This piece of poetry will be a continuum of a much larger and vastly greater poem connecting participating mobile phone users to one another in this experience.

However the stipulation is that each user will receive only ONE text per phone number.

I would like if anyone agreeing to participate in this art project keep their piece of poetry to themselves, as I plan on revealing the poem in exactly one year from now. (August 21/2010)

Be aware that this poem is written piece by piece, user by user. This poem is a living mutating thing - it it NOT pre-written, and is written user to user. No piece of this poem will be re-sent to anyone else, the piece of poetry I send to you will be yours and yours only. However, even though this piece of poetry may be yours, you will be agreeing to release the contents of your piece of the poem when the entirety of the poem is to be revealed.

I AM acknowledging however that there *WILL* be individuals wishing to reveal their piece of the poem to each other or to anyone else they wish to do so. If this is the case with you, I only ask that you do so without seeking for others to reveal their pieces of poetry to you in return. This is a private interaction between me and whoever I send this piece of poetry to, respect that. Do not ask others for their piece of poetry, do not attempt to manipulate others into divulging their text message from me.

Which brings me to one of the last points of this art project.

I am fully aware of the risks that are presented with this project. I acknowledge that there is no way for me to assure anyone who wishes to participate in this art project that I am not some internet creep trying to scam people of their phone numbers for whatever nefarious purposes one could dream of. However please be aware and also acknowledge that I, as the poet/artist, am taking an EVEN GREATER RISK than any individual participant of this project. I am divulging MY phone number to not just my friends, or anyone I know and interact with on any kind of basis, but am divulging MY phone number to anyone wishing to participate. I cannot, will not and have no right to ask for the personal information of anyone choosing to participate in this project. As this is the case, I could very well divulge my phone number to any creep on the internet looking for an easy target. Unlike you, the individual participant divulging your number to ME, one person...I will be divulging my number to what could only be ten strange people I've never met and will never meet face-to-face, to (and keep in mind this is a HIGHLY unlikely number) five thousand people.

Coming into this project, knowing full well the possible consequences of my actions, I am choosing to acknowledge this risk and take it as part and parcel of this project. As I mentioned earlier, your phone number WILL NOT be stored on my phone - it will be erased as will the text message attached to that number in the case that anything occurs like some creep hacking my phone (like I said - any nefarious purposes someone could dream up of,) etc. I want this to be a secure interaction between you, the participant and myself and try to keep the risks at a minimum.

My goal is to connect everyone, on an individual basis to one another, to take interaction via text messaging to a whole new level and experiment with this medium available to everyone. I want to make the mundane and thoughtless process of text messaging, a more thoughtful and provoking experience than it has been used for up to this point.

Respect this community. Respect the people who become a part of it.

I encourage everyone shares their thoughts, ideas and concepts in regards to this project with the community and myself. I want this to be interactive, and if this grows into something bigger than myself that has a positive impact than I've achieved something much grander than anything I could have hoped for.

I DO caution against being too free with personal information - DON'T give out your phone number, e-mail, mailing address etc to just anyone on the internet. Exercise caution and use your GOOD judgment wisely. If you don't know, just ask - that is what a community is all about. I want to reduce the possible negative impacts or consequences of something like this as much as one possibly can.

There is a community on livejournal for anyone interested, please follow the link.
Project S1M4S0