«Opera Calling» was an artistic intervention into the cultural system of the Zurich Opera. By means of audio-bugs placed within the auditorium of the local opera house, the outside public is given access to the performances on stage. The performances are retransmitted to the public not through broadcasting, but by telephoning each person in Zurich individually.
From March to May 2007, !Mediengruppe Bitnik and Sven König hid
audio-bugs in the auditorium, transmitting the performances of the Zurich Opera to randomly selected telephone land-lines in the city of Zurich. In proper style of a home-delivery-service, the inhabitants of Zurich were able to listen to the on-going opera performances for as long as they wanted, through a live connection with the audio-bug signal.
For the duration of the project a total of 90 hours of live opera performance were delivered to 4363 households.
In the summer following the project, !Mediengruppe Bitnik and Sven König asked 8 artists to use the recorded telephone calls as raw materia l for remix es. These became «Opera Calling! Cut-up Edition – Remixed and Reinterpreted»
«Opera Calling Cut-up Edition» is released on 400 handnumbered CDs, designed and custom-made by Rahel Arnold and Rebecca Pfaffhauser (http://www.rahelarnold.com - http://www.rbkes.ch).
