A Pair of Inventive Artists Developed an App That Enables Strangers in Quarantine All Over the World to Talk to Each Other

Feeling lonely during quarantine? Thanks to two tech-savvy
artists, there’s an app for that.

Artists Max Hawkins and Danielle
Baskin have invented a creative way to serendipitously connect
people who are self-isolating during the outbreak of COVID-19. The
call service, which is merrily dubbed QuarantineChat, has begun to garner more
and more users as the world begins to self-isolate to prevent the
spread of the virus. 

The idea is simple: people can
sign up to receive random calls from others in quarantine through
an app created by the artists called Dialup. 

The app was initially conceived
last year, but has taken on new relevance in the age of
coronavirus. It was inspired by an earlier project Hawkins created
to “document the nighttime experience.” Called Call in the Night,
it functions similarly to Dialup, except those who sign up are
connected by a random phone call in the middle of the
night. 

Hawkins tells Artnet News that
when he met Baskin, “she
asked if I could build a ‘call during the day’ to keep her company
while she was stuck painting in her studio.” So he created a
prototype for a group of their friends with features like
end-to-end encryption, categories for discussion such as
self-employment, and high-quality voice codecs, which translate
audio into digital audio. With that, Dialup was born.

The project became more
poignant—and gained a new name, QuarantineChat—in recent weeks.
“When we heard about people all over the world in quarantine, we
thought we could also host calls specifically for people affected
by the virus,” Baskin says.

At the moment, there are around 70 people using the service, but
Baskin confirms it can handle any number of users. “Whether 20 people pick up or 20,000 people pick
up, everyone on QuarantineChat is paired randomly in a one-on-one,”
Baskin explains. So far, participants are quite international—the
most popular time zones are Pacific Standard Time and Iran Standard
Time. (The virus has hit South Korea, Iran, and Italy particularly
hard.)

“We hope our project brings
magic and serendipity to a new reality where thousands of people
are stuck inside alone for the next month,” Baskin says. “It
benefits people’s mental health to have random spontaneous
connections—and it’s also fun.”

The pair have sought to bring a
light touch to the project (“Subtle humor is important during times
of chaos,” Baskin notes), including elevator music at the beginning
of calls and a cute name, QuarantineChat, which is meant to evoke a
‘90s-era chat room. “While COVID-19 is not a lighthearted matter,
we want this project to bring people moments of joy,” Baskin
says.

As the public health crisis
continues to escalate, many artists and museum leaders are coming
up with creative ways to ensure people still have access to
culture. Museums and galleries in China and
Italy are
scrambling to make their collections accessible online. Hawkins
also hopes that curators and museum directors will see this moment
as an opportunity to “look at all the great art that’s already
being made on the internet.”

QuarantineChat is not the only
artistic project coming out of what Baskin is already calling “the
quarantine era.” Baskin herself has made a prototype of a
protective face mask onto which people can print their faces in
order to be recognized by their friends (and unlock their phones
using face ID). It started out as a dystopian joke, but since she
put the prototype online, she has received thousands of requests
from people looking to buy their own. She hasn’t decided yet
whether to actually produce them since she is aware there is
already a global shortage of mask supplies.

Baskin is also part of a
Quarantine Art Residency, a group of artists who have been sent
antiviral copper fabric by the group’s creator to incorporate into
a work of art that they will post online. “Culture persists,” she
says, “even if there’s physical limitations.”

The post A Pair of Inventive Artists Developed an App That
Enables Strangers in Quarantine All Over the World to Talk to Each
Other appeared first on artnet News.