Me, My Cell and I: Can You Hear Me Now?

The aim of interactivity is to eliminate the single artist's voice and replace it with that of the collective. The tenor is populist. And it owes something to the audience-dependent performance of the 1970s and identity politics of the 1980s. If artistic discourse of the '70s and '80s expanded to include people of color, women and gays, 21st-century discourse goes a step forward to include just about everybody, including everyday Joes and Marias.

Problem is, not every Joe and Maria, or even a cadre of Joes and Marias, can offer the kind of insight that one really talented artist might. Collectivity can so dilute its message that it ceases to make a point.

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That kind of plurality doesn't bother James Rouvelle, the MICA Interactive Media Department co-chair who shepherded the showing here tonight. At 38, Rouvelle is old enough to remember life without cellphones and the Internet. He's more than happy to witness the end of The Artstar.

"It's time for these things to be fractured," Rouvelle insists.

When Rouvelle describes a typical undergraduate class at MICA, the proceedings sound decidedly splintered. As Rouvelle lectures, a live "tag cloud" -- basically a computer screen that scrolls text sent via cellphone -- is projected behind him. Students latching onto particular words or phrases during the lecture will text them to the screen. The more students text a word, the larger it appears on the screen. Students also blast texts to each other's phones during class.

Though it sounds like a recipe for clowning, Rouvelle thinks differently.

"Every form -- tagging, SMS, speaking -- has a different syntax," Rouvelle explains. "There is value in those different syntactic structures." In typical speech, with normal subject-verb agreements and basic grammatical rules, Rouvelle maintains, "we get rid of things." Those things might include snippets of ideas that, when expressed, make for richer interaction. In other words, socialization has its costs.

Rouvelle thinks that alternative forms of communication can illuminate aspects of human experience normally left underground. If Rouvelle is correct, we may be in the midst of a revolution in artistic expression.

In artand in the classroom, personal technology like the cellphone offers an opportunity for the sharing of experiences and the building of what he calls "collective intelligence." For Rouvelle and his students, technology brings people together.

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Enter Dana Solano, a MICA junior, and her cellphone-based performance cum dinner theater skit "Sweet Danger," which is this evening's central event.

"It's almost like an ice-breaker game at a party," the impish 20-year-old Solano explains. "I'd almost say it was a game, but there is no objective."

Tonight, willing audience members are asked to register their phones before the performance begins. Via a number of preprogrammed text messages issued from Solano's phone both before and during the action, each participant is assigned a supporting role. "You are a zombie. Follow orders given my Marie LeFaux," reads one such message. Another prompts the recipient to say "awww" during certain moments of the action. Unscripted audience contributions spark the narrative and influence what happens onstage.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to go.

Decked out in a black cocktail dress and heels for her role as Marie LeFaux, Solano engages in some verbal sparring with her nemesis, the Justice Wrangler, played by her friend Edward Foster. On this night, though, some text commands were issued off tempo or not at all. After a few early audience "awwws" and the appearance of three zombies, the audience falls silent during the skit's final minutes.

After the performance, Solano regroups with museum executive director Irene Hofmann. Hofmann says she never received any messages. When someone hands Solano her phone, it's registering "sending failed" across its screen.

Solano concedes: "It could be that my phone ran out of minutes during the performance."

Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone, through April 22. Contemporary Museum, 100 W. Centre St., Baltimore. 410-783-5720. www.contemporary.org. Open Wednesday-Sunday, noon to 5, and Thursdays until 7. $5 suggested donation; $3 students. The exhibition has one more public event: "Tactical Sound Garden Toolkit Workhop" with Mark Shepard, April 14, 1-2:30 pm. He will lead the group in making a sound piece on the streets of Baltimore. All are welcome to participate and encouraged to bring an Internet-enabled device. To see the Brooklyn-based artist's work, visit: www.tacticalsoundgarden.net