smSage receives SMS text messages, which are converted to audible speech, using a text-to-speech engine with a synthesized voice. It speaks these messages coherently at first, but which each repetition, starts to mix them with previous messages it has received, producing a concrete poem. The voice becomes quieter ... A new message wakes it up again, for brief lucidity, before sense begins to dissolve again.

Although not very aware of its surroundings, smSage can detect nearby bluetooth-equipped phones (as long
as they are set 'discoverable') and use their advertised names to try to elucidate a response (i.e. by saying
'hey there Ralph, why not send me a message on 087 1234567?'). When the piece isn’t receiving any
messages, it periodically advertises its presence by asking for a message to be sent to its phone number.

The device is contained in a security camera housing. It takes the function of a security camera and turns it
around – rather than capturing information from the environment, it projects onto it, voicing and remixing
participants comments and observations in a transient, ephemeral way.

The project mimics the speaking security cameras recently installed in Britain, which allow camera operators
to admonish people for “anti-social behaviour”. Instead of the voice of officialdom, this device transmits the
voice of the public. Anyone can speak through it. And whatever their message, it is quickly mutated by a
camera that, unlike it’s normal cousins, is no mere conduit for information. Perhaps the camera is itself mad;
a city voyeur overtaken by the information pouring into it, it babbles to itself, rejecting its official function and
embracing the overlaying, shifting information scape of the city.

For an article about talking surveillance cameras, see this BBC piece:

The project takes too the coherence and predictable functionality of ubiquitous mobile communication and
challenges their sense of purpose and efficiency, creating a platform for audience communication which is
cyclical, disguised and obtuse.

smSage builds on previous projects such as simpleTEXT which provides a public platform for discourse via SMS, and Song of Solomon , which continuously remixes a bank of audio samples between order and disorder.