If you’re walking through your local park and happen The electronics turned out to be the easy part.
upon a device looking like something out of Yellow Jolliffe assembled the embedded controller by
Submarine with loud random voices blaring from it, hand, threw in an off-the-shelf car stereo ampli-
you’ve found Daniel Jolliffe’s “One Free Minute.” fier, a couple of gel cell batteries, a 200-watt
Designed to promote anonymous public speech, compression driver, and a serially controlled MP3
One Free Minute allows calls to the cellphone inside player. The sculpture was ready to make some
the sculpture to be connected for exactly one minute serious noise.
to a 200-watt amplifier and speaker. The results can From the woman who called to say she had
be empowering, funny, touching, and downright pancreatic cancer and wanted to tell her children
loud. The speech produced by Jolliffe’s sculpture she loved them before she died, to political ranters,
can be heard clearly for more than 150 feet. to silly singers, Jolliffe credits them all. “The people
The 41-year-old Canadian artist created One Free who call up and lay their guts on the line, saying
Minute for his master’s thesis project at Ohio State what they really think — this piece was built for
University. It’s attached to a bicycle for easy move- them and they are the real creators of what is good
ment, and he’s taking it on tour throughout the about One Free Minute.”
U.S. and Canada. If you want to speak live, send email to
There’s clearly a political aspect to One Free info@onefreeminute.net and you’ll receive the live Minute. By creating a tool that allows anonymous number before the next performance. You can free speech in public places, Jolliffe hopes to let also call a number anytime to record your message activists speak without fear or recrimination at a (see website for numbers) or send MP3 files for time when governments everywhere are increasingly public broadcast. —Bruce Stewart vigilant of who is saying what and where.
The sculpture was designed in Rhino CAD, which To make your own cellular megaphone, see page 129. offers a wide range of visualization options. Once
Jolliffe settled on the look he wanted, he used a >> One Free Minute: onefreeminute.net process similar to building a wooden boat, creating the shell out of fiberglass and epoxy and then See One Free Minute in action at sanding — lots of sanding. makezine.com/04/made.
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