The Next Step

The Mobile Drawings and Electric Finger have been the seed that sprouted into a new garden of research and practice. This new body of work is being documented at Drawing | Thinking.

Electric Finger

Electric Finger: an experiment in touch surface drawing

Our fingers are electric. They emit electromagnetic frequencies that allow us to interact with touch screen technologies. It’s called “finger capacitance” and it’s this conductive property of our fingers that makes capacitive touch sensing possible. Mobile devices, such as my iPod Touch, are designed to respond to the taps and caresses of my fingertips, providing access to necessary but mundane information or allowing for moments of unique creative exploration. For decades, it has been possible to draw with a computer using a mouse or stylus, but now we can carry electronic sketchbooks in our pockets with the tools for mark making at the ends of our arms.

TRACEY: Drawing and Visual Research, Loughborough University School of Art & Design, Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK

Urban Speaker

Urban Speaker: broadcast cell phone calls in public space

The Urban Speaker is an art installation that transforms public space into an instant stage for mass communication. This portable urban furniture allows people to broadcast their voice in public by calling a telephone number from their mobile phones.

The Urban Speaker resembles construction signage and blends in with its urban surroundings. It consists of a tripod with an amplified loudspeaker, smartphone, battery and a traffic sign. The signage instructs passersby to dial a phone number to speak in public. Users who place the call get an automatic answer and can speak their mind for sixty seconds after which the call is terminated. A QR (Quick Response) barcode on the sign allows some mobile phones to instantly access the urbanspeaker.mobi website for location, event and other details as well as quick dialing of the installation's phone.

Callspace / Redux

Callspace / Redux 09/30/10 – Machines With Magnets

Callspace is a digital arts installation that utilizes cell phone technology to network ambient sound from unpopulated, site-specific locations throughout a given area. Six cell phones are modified to run on solar power and answer automatically when an incoming call is received. The modified cellphones are then placed in their locations throughout the city, and connections are made between the cell phones and cellular telephones located in the exhibition space. The output of each telephone is wired directly to a dedicated loudspeaker housed in a monolithic speaker enclosure.

More Art In Your Pocket

Rhizome | Art In Your Pocket: iPhone and iPod Touch App Art

As the niche genre of software art expands beyond the web and into mobile devices, media artists are finding ways to integrate their work into a new form of business model. Instead of giving away your work for free on the web, Apple's iPhone and iTouch devices provide an ample platform for distribution (through the Apple App Store) and hardware support for novel ways to experience screen-based work. Since the App Store was unveiled last year, the over 30,000 available applications have taken the form of everything from mock cigarette lighters (Zippo's App) to mobile flutes (Ocarina) to utilitarian apps such as Urban Spoon (Restaurant finder) to social networking in physical spaces (Loopt). Noticing this trend, media artists who once found their free and limitless distribution platform through a desktop computer browser are now turning their attention and creative efforts toward the mobile space of the iPhone.

Art in Your Pocket

Rhizome | Art in Your Pocket 2: Media Art for the iPhone and iPod Touch Graduates To The Next Level

As the iPhone and iPod Touch become more saturated into a population of people who never would have used their phones for anything other than making calls, it seems as if the chance for artists to create new work for the devices is becoming more commonplace and accepted. Even commenters in the AppStore have good things to say about art showing up in this context. One person said this of Snibbe's Antograph, "These apps are amazing and point the direction for the future of art, science, and technology. Soon these "ants" will be making music, operating on people, and stopping oil well leaks. What a great time to be alive." Another commenter hinted at the seemingly non-purpose of the Vanitas app, but how the design was still compelling enough for multiple visits, "Make no mistake, Vanitas is not a game even though it's made by a "game" company. There is no goal, no discernible narrative so - what is it? It's interactive entertainment. I found it terribly addicting." Maybe these forms of contemplative apps made by artists is exactly what is needed to change the driving force of the App Store and the ways in which mobile apps are marketed in the first place. Despite the rhetoric of Apple controlling access to its store and the apps featured there, overall, the mobile platform of the iPhone has begun to enable artists to get inspired to both revisit their old screen-based work and discover new forms of interactivity that these new platforms now enable.

By Jonah Brucker-Cohen

Ben Millen: iPhone Deconstruction

iPhone Deconstruction

In researching the iPhone as a part of Critical Wayfinding, the analysis of the device, the corporation, the vast network of shareholders, technology and the distribution infrastructure that surrounds it yielded an overwhelming amount of information. In an attempt to organize this information into a format that is engaging and reflective of the wayfinding foundations of the project, two large conceptual diagrams in the style of Harry Beck’s London Underground diagram were produced.

These are not maps in any conventional sense, but rather diagramatic representations of the interconnected space of technology, capital, instrumental value, exchange value, social and environmental impact that surround the device. The first diagram focuses primarily on the physical device, and the existence of the device as an object in our world. The second examines the placement of the device with respect to the individual and society.

http://www.benmillen.com/portfolio/projects/iphoneDeconstruction/map1.html

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

jörg piringer - abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Create and control tiny sound-creatures in the shape of letters that react to gravity or each other and generate rhythms and soundscapes. Dive into a micro world of sounds, movement and touch. But beware! Using this app might change your daily reading and talking experience.

The Sabbath Manifesto

Now, here’s a project that I can relate to:

Unplugging on the Sabbath - NYTimes.com

THE Fourth Commandment doesn’t specifically mention TweetDeck or Facebook. Observing the Sabbath 3,000 years ago was more about rest and going easy on one’s family — servants and oxen included.

Sabbath Manifesto

The Sabbath Manifesto is a creative project designed to slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world.

We’ve created 10 core principles completely open for your unique interpretation. We welcome you to join us as we carve a weekly timeout into our lives.

Popular Science on Electro-hypersensitivity

The Man Who Was Allergic to Radio Waves

Your cellphone does not in itself cause cancer. But in the daily sea of radiation we all travel, there may be subtler dangers at work, and science is only just beginning to understand how they can come to affect people like Per Segerbäck so intensely

Full Signal: Documentary on Cellular Health Effects

Full Signal

Since 1997 and the onset of GSM telephony, more and more cellular antennas have been popping up in neighborhoods all around the world to support an ever-growing number of cell phone users.

In fact they have become so prolific in some parts of the world that they disappear into the landscape with the same subtlety as cars on the street. And those that don't 'disappear' are cleverly disguised as chimneys, flagpoles, or water towers.

Full Signal talks to scientists around the world who are researching the health effects related to cellular technology; to activists who are fighting to regulate the placement of antennas; and to lawyers and law makers who represent the people wanting those antennas regulated.

Filmed in Ten countries and Six US states, Full Signal examines the contradiction between health and finance, one of the many ironies of the fight to regulate antenna placement.

ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

ElectroSmog

International Festival for Sustainable Immobility

March 18 – 20, 2010

The ElectroSmog festival is a critique of the worldwide explosion of mobility, and an exploration of the new forms of connectedness with others offered to us by network and communication technologies.

Our question is if these new forms of connectedness can help us to develop a viable new lifestyle less determined by speed and constant mobility, which is both ecologically and socially more sustainable.

iProcessing

iProcessing

iProcessing is an open programming framework to help people develop native iPhone applications using the Processing language. It is an integration of the Processing.js library and a Javascript application framework for iPhone. The iProcessing download consists of a set of example XCode projects that demonstrate many of the Basic Examples from the Processing web site (originally written by Casey Reas and Ben Fry unless otherwise stated) as well a number that demonstrate the use of various iPhone features such as multitouch, accelerometer, orientation, location, sound play/record, app state saving and so on. It is in development and is currently used by Luckybite and other designers and students for prototyping. You are welcome to use it and if you have any comments feel free to email us here. It is unknown as to whether apps created using the framework will be approved if submitted to the App Store. The software is provided "as is" and without warranty of any kind. iProcessing was created by Tom Hulbert at Luckybite in 2009.

The Children of Cyberspace

The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s - NYTimes.com

One obvious result is that younger generations are going to have some very peculiar and unique expectations about the world. My friend’s 3-year-old, for example, has become so accustomed to her father’s multitouch iPhone screen that she approaches laptops by swiping her fingers across the screen, expecting a reaction.

Oppression by Technology

Free yourself from oppression by technology - opinion - 27 December 2009 - New Scientist

Are we being served by these technological wonders or have we become enslaved by them? I study the psychology of technology, and it seems to me that we are sleepwalking into a world where technology is severely affecting our well-being. Technology can be hugely useful in the fast lane of modern living, but we need to stop it from taking over.