Dialtones is a large-scale concert performance whose sounds are wholly produced through the carefully choreographed ringing of the audience’s own mobile phones. Because the exact location and tone of each participant’s mobile phone can be known in advance, the Dialtones Telesymphony presents a diverse range of unprecedented sonic phenomena and musically interesting structures. Moreover, by directing our attention to the unexplored musical potential of a ubiquitous modern appliance, Dialtones inverts our understandings of private sound, public space, electromagnetic etiquette, and the fabric of the communications network which connects us.

Levin's work spans a variety of online, print, installation and performance media. Most recently, Levin and his colleagues presented the Dialtones Telesymphony (2001), a concert whose sounds are wholly performed through the choreographed ringing of the audience's own mobile phones. Levin was granted an Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica for his Audiovisual Environment Suite (2000) interactive software and its accompanying audiovisual performance, Scribble (2000).

Levin received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the MIT Media Laboratory, where he studied with John Maeda in the Aesthetics and Computation Group. Prior to this, he worked as a research scientist and interaction designer at Interval Research Corporation for four years. He currently resides in New York City, where he teaches interaction design at The Cooper Union School of Art and the Parsons School of Design.