Mobile Drawings = Drawing on the Mobile

I have started an experiment of making drawings with free applications for my iPod Touch. This ties into a larger “Return to Drawing”* experiment as the mobile component. The plan is to draw a few pictures on the Touch every week and document the process/progress on Flickr.

My iPod drawings on Flickr

*I’ll post more about starting to draw again on performing the art...

QRcode Art

Sensitive Rose, mobile/net artwork by Martha Gabriel

SENSITIVE ROSE is an interactive compass rose formed by mobile tags (QRcodes) that map people’s desires. The interactions happen via cell phones or mobile devices and the results can be seen in a large screen projection (or in computer screens at www.sensitiverose.com/rose.php).

The work intention is to ‘navigate’ in the desires of the people, in a secret way, through a ciphered poetics of tags, which cannot be deciphered with naked eyes.

The interaction happens via mobile devices by scanning the QRcode on the right or accessing the URL http://www.sensitiverose.com/m/. The interactor must choose what he/she wants from life. After interacting, the effect can be seen in the Sensitive Rose (www.sensitiverose.com/rose.php). The desire is mapped as a colored dot on the screen next to the tag related to it. The tag (QR code) is re-generate with the name of the interactor and his/her desire, codifying a text like: 'Joe wants Love'. Each desire is mapped in a different color, like red for love, white for peace, yellow for money, and so on. The tags are generated after each interaction and when the relevance of desires changes, the whole compass rose changes as well to represent it.

The Mobile Misuse Manifesto (early draft outline)

(a work in process on the design and development of interactive technologies)

"We drive into the future using only our rear view mirror."
- Marshall McLuhan, 1967

Manifesto Section 1

1. Choosing to be “lost” or “disconnected” is an option.
2. Time is finite, whatever is implemented must be worth the value of the time invested. (development & use)
3. The planet is finite, whatever we develop or buy reduces it.
4. Whatever device we say “Yes” to means “No” to something else in our lives.
5. Disappointment is intrinsic in our experience of new technologies.
6. The malfunction and arrogance of constantly changing technologies must not be overlooked.
7. Technology may be inevitable, but our use of it is not.
8. Refusal is an option.
9. Failure as an option.

Subset A

1. If you build it, they might not come.
2. If you build it, they might come and then leave.
3. If you build it, they might all come and overwhelm the system.
4. If you build it, it will be obsolete in a matter of months, weeks, days, or minutes.
5. If you build it, you will have to build it again and again and again.
6. If you build it, someone else may have already done it (and better).

(feedback appreciated)

Preliminary Mobile Projector Play

Wii Project(or) from Rolf S. on Vimeo.

This is Rolf Steier, one of my Fulbright colleagues, demonstrating the possibilities of a mini-projector connected to a Nintendo Wii using the Wiimote Whiteboard capabilities. Rolf is researching the incorporation of mobile devices into children’s learning experiences - particularly museums. This is tangentially related to the project I am working on using mobile projectors, so I need to keep this in mind for possible future iterations... although I wouldn’t want to have to lug around a laptop for street performances, though...

more info and links on Rolf’s blog

Telephone Trottoire

I mentioned the Tantalum Memorial art installation in a previous post and now there is an interesting interview with one of the artists, Graham Harwood on Rhizome: Rhizome | Interview with Graham Harwood

The installation is on view at transmediale in Berlin this week and it’s one of eight projects to win the transmediale 2009 Award.