++ SMS story ++
sms to web based project
http://sms.cult.bg
by NIKOLAY CHAKAROV
Short concept
The SMS is one of the contemporary forms of communication. This project aims to create an interactive “literary work” written by a sequence of SMSs with a random number of participants who add lines into one common text.
We often rely on incomplete information that we later develop in our own way and create our own point of view. In this way untrue stories are created that refract reality through the prism of the subjective points of view and fantasies. This project simulates a similar system of creation of similar stories.
principle
The core of the project is a web page in which everybody can state their participation in the project by filling in information about themselves and the number of their mobile phone. At a specific period of time each participant in the project receives an SMS containing an unfinished sentence. He has to finish the sentence and return it to the server. Then he has to finish the next unfinished sentence, which should follow the previous finished short story.
SMS1
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SMS2
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SMS3
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Sender: user It could hear even the faintest sounds even those that… |
This last unfinished sentence is sent to three other random users who have to finish it. In this way we have a story with one beginning and different developments. If the user cannot finish the story using only the last sentence he can send the server a specific code and he will receive the previous sentence. The server shuffles the SMSs in such a way that users can never receive their own sentences and cannot develop the story in their own way.
The whole story is published on the site where one can follow the creation of the different clones of the story.
Technical characteristics
The whole system is based on mail and web server, which send SMS messages at regular intervals and publish them on the site. Every user who has stated his desire to participate automatically receives a mailbox through which he sends and receives SMSs from the other users. The web server follows all SMSs and publishes them on the site.