The Lifeline Automatically Routes Calls by Area Code to the Nearest Crisis Center

Author

Benjamin Arthur Colling, Bard CollegeFollow

Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Music

Project Advisor 1

Sarah Hennies

Abstract/Artist's Statement

A Blue Passenger

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The Lifeline Automatically Routes Calls by Area Code

to the Nearest Crisis Center

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College by Ben Colling

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

May 2024

A Blue Passenger

This project embodies and responds to the daily endurance of disordered eating, exhaustion, and body image. The title “A Blue Passenger” characterizes an eating disorder as a constant part of life, and while it can be overcome, it will never go away. This invokes the image of a person and a physcial represenation of their disorder traveling side by side as passengers. The project is plunderphonic, consisting entirely of processed samples.

The final cover, shot by Harrison Edington, is a portrait of me taken late into the night outside of the New Robbins dorm, with blue tint covering part of the camera flash. I felt the picture showed exhaustion and embodied the mental strain of body dysmorphia.

This project sprung off from a project much older in its inception titled Pfect Garden, an unconventional vaporwave album surrounding my experience in a psych ward and the death of my roommate. This was my first attempt to create an album tailored to a listener with a particular lived experience. I released 2 albums under the Pfect Garden project, but neither of these are meant to capture experience in the same way that A Blue Passenger does. Pfect Garden is first and foremost a dedication to a friend, it is an elegy and a tribute to an imagined reuniting that will never come. A Blue Passenger, on the other hand, is a dirge, swinging between emotional low points and physical pain.

The Lifeline Automatically Routes Calls by Area Code

to the Nearest Crisis Center

The album is focused on mental health resources and outreach. As an artist, I’m drawn to individual experience, and creating pieces that reflect a person’s thoughts in real time. I was influenced from seeking help using the 1-800-273-8255, or “TALK” crisis line. The “goal” of the album is to find comfort and peace, it’s ordered to show a gradual healing from fear of the outside world (Tracks like “When I was 13 I Snuck Out onto My Roof at Night” or “Maybe if I Leave it Alone, It Will Go Away”) to a gradual peace with oneself (“There is Hope”). Several of the titles of the songs are appropriated from governmental crisis line communication, “There are Urgent Mental Health Realities Driving the Need for Crisis Service Transformation Across Our Country,” “Making It Easier for Americans in Crisis to Obtain Assistance from Trained Counselors,” and “We Have Been Raising Awareness and Offering Support to Everyone Who is Struggling” all are quotes taken from the FCC website describing the capability of the 988 hotline. The interlude “Someone Thinks You Need Extra Support Right Now and Asked Us to Help” is taken from an automated instagram response after an account is reported for possible self harm.

The use of field recordings is of particular interest to me, as in the past I’ve used nature recordings to indicate a safe or peaceful atmosphere. The field recordings on this albums are much louder and create an unease, especially in tracks like “When I was 13 I Snuck Out onto My Roof at Night” and “We Have Been Raising Awareness and Offering Support to Everyone Who is Struggling”. Both use field recordings of ordinary nights recorded with a sensitive microphone, making the playback seem far more intense. The remaining material on the album comes from edited samples from preexisting recordings, personal recordings of technology, piano, and telephone calls.

A uniting theme between the two projects is healing. They both create a soundscape reminiscent of trauma that allow a conclusion. I use the term “traumawave” to describe this approach to music. The audience for this music has always been myself, Pfect Garden being a project that began with the intent to never be released. Part of the appeal of this approach to art is that in lieu of verbally explaining personal trauma, this more immediate avenue effectively translates feeling through expressive means. I struggle greatly trying to explain why the nights I spent calling crisis hotlines feel so important to me even when the stress of my life at the time means so little to me now, and I could never explain my difficulty with eating using only words. For me, these emotions are beyond language.

A Blue Passenger Sample List

Prone 1 Prefab Sprout - Hallelujah Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker - Half a Man Last Night I Had a Terrible Dream Antenna - Seaside Weekend All in the Family Season 8 Episode 24 “The Stivics Go West” Pang / Rumble Todd Rundgren - I Saw the Light Brainstorm - Waiting for Someone Starland Vocal Band - Mr Wrong Eek A Mouse - Star, Daily News Or Gleaner Gene Harris - Higga-Boom Strawberry Switchblade - Secrets The Carpenters - I Can Dream, Can’t I? Mishio Ogawa - On the Road Pit of My Stomach Parliament - Prologue Trevor Wishart - Red Bird: A Political Prisoner’s Dream, Pt. 1 A Blue Passenger The Koobas - Constantly Changing Dan Fogelberg - Since You’ve Asked Michelle Duggar’s Message to Her Daughters About Body Image The Carpenters - Goofus A Hole So Deep: FouseyTUBE - Goes OFF on Keemstar and Clout Gang!!! Loveliescrushing - Luminareal TRNST1 Perc 037 Aoife Ni Fhearraigh - Lonesome and Troubled Digital Underground - Holla Holiday Feint Yuko Kanai - Morning air Prone 2 Brad Love Turning of the Earth Johnny Mnemonic (1995) - Johnny Breaks Down Faint The Vampire Diaries (1996) (PC) Dialogue w/ Stephen Flying Lizards - Cirrus Played on the Ribs Richard Stepp - Caught Up In A Whirlwind Johnny Mnemonic (1995) - Johnny Breaks Down Tube The Godz - Godz Omen - Bounty Hunter Zapp and Roger - Heartbreaker (pt I) Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Talk (Bright Moments) Fed Through Claude Denjean - Alone Again, Naturally Arthur Russell - Tone Bone Kone Tenpei Sato - Red Moon Held by the Floor The Carpenters - I Can Dream, Can’t I? The Bonnevilles - Zu Zu

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Open Access

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Recommended Citation

Colling, Benjamin Arthur, "The Lifeline Automatically Routes Calls by Area Code to the Nearest Crisis Center" (2024). Senior Projects Spring 2024. 310.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2024/310