Excerpt from Christian Marclay's work, Telephones, 1995.

For as long as I have had a phone I have required only that it can be used to 1. store numbers 2. send and recieve text message and 3. take and make calls.

This minimalistic approach to my mobile has led me to inherit various mobile phone cast offs, all gratefully received and enjoyed and used with delight over the however-many-years I have had a phone. However, my growing obsession with Audioboo means that I am increasingly keen to upgrade to something with Internet access, which uses the Android platform, so that I may become a consumate user of the boo. What is the boo? Well, from the Audioboo website:

While browsing Audioboo, you can experience people's sonic records of events. I love this boo by Phil Campbell, describing the incredible peace when all the flights were cancelled due to volcanic ash, for instance, and this one of Birds, Bees and Traffic [And no planes] from a Luton Garden, by James Hart. There are boos about everything, so for textile interest I love this boo of Celia Pym darning holes and there is something charming and creative about the National Trust's boos, including the lovely 'guess this sound' feature that is periodically booed.

Flickr - a website for visual photographs - has been adapted by users to contain countless user-created concept projects, such as this beautiful 'people sleeping in libraries collection' or the 'sonic arts' group photo pool, which is a great resource for contemplating how sound ideas translate into visual mediums. I am new to Audioboo so am not yet sure of either how I will use the technology, or whether or not group project equivalents like the shared 'photo pool' of flickr can apply. However, it seems that adding a tag to a boo means that a tag-search will bring up everything with that tag on the one page, so it is possible that Internet users and boo-makers will be able to organise their own pools or group projects by cleverly using the tag feature.

I like very much the idea of using Audioboo with a mobile phone. Although the sound quality will not be as good as that achieved by using an EDIROL, the casual and social nature of Audioboo is perfectly suited to pocket-technology. For me, the application is all about content over form or how the technology is used, rather than the fidelity of recordings created using the platform. However, if you are obsessed with sound fidelity, you can take the wav vs. mp3 test over on noise-addicts. I find that my muji cardboard speakers do not faithfully translate any noticeable diifference between the two file formats!

So I am shopping for a phone which will let me boo, and considering the applications and concept projects that could hang on this technology. I'm thinking that I'd like to trade the bog-standard ringtones, too, for something amazing like Michael Raphael's latest offering - it's a great wind recording, made in new Jersey - or one of the Chris Watson downloadable ringtones, created in association with the forthcoming Whispering in the Leaves installation at Kew.

Phones flickr group