Telemegaphone Dale Update

The Telemegaphone Dale loudspeaker will continue to “speak” incoming phone calls until September 20th, 2008. For those of you who don’t know, Telemegaphone Dale is a 23-foot-tall wind-powered loudspeaker sculpture that picks up incoming calls and projects them into the mountains of Norway and the nearby village of Dale. Read more about this on Oddstrument here.

Unsworn Industries was kind enough to update us with some answers to some frequently asked questions (interesting) and a video from the opening ceremony - a call from Brooklyn, NY by sound artist Bora Yoon who played his 5-minute “Telemegaphone Concerto.” The performance was recorded from 2 miles away from the Telemegaphone so turn up your volume!

Q&A on Telemegaphone Dale:

What does it sound like?

If you are the caller you can hear a faint echo of your voice/sounds.

In Dale the sound is quite magical. It fills the whole valley like a soft voice from above.

How loud is it?

On a calm day you can hear the Telemegaphone sounds in the centre of Dale, some three kilometers away from the Telemegaphone.

The Telemegaphone is intended to be loud enough for people in Dale to be able to distinguish words and phrases, but subtle enough not to wake anyone up in the middle of the night.

What do the people of Dale think?

Some people complained that the volume was too loud for sleeping with open windows during calm, warm summer nights. After adjusting the volume slightly, others complained that the volume was now too weak.

One woman said: “This is great. I will sit on my porch with a cup of tea and listen to the world.”

Another woman said: “We like things a little bit crazy here in Dale.”

Expect many more opinions from Dale-ites to be published here in September.