gravitymax in transition

mindtouch is a fascinating research project by university of east london smartlab phd candidate camille baker. using mobile phones, body sensors, and custom software, baker creates a platform for collaboration and exchange of visuals and non-verbal experiences.

The intention of this project is to contribute to performance technology studies by investigating’liveness and presence’ within the context of a specific networked, mobile media performance research project, currently underway, in order to uncover any new understandings that may have emerged from the use of new wireless  and mobile technologies.

This project involves creating a mobile networked performance that utilizes a database of archived of streamed and/or archived video clips created by video enabled mobile phones, to then be retrieved, streamed and remixed during a live visuals performance(s). The event or events will form a performative, collaborative, non-linear narrative montage or remix, that will possibly be streamed back out to anyone’s phone and the internet, and then archived. These events will be starting in London, UK in July + October, Vancouver in Aug/Sept, and possibly Perth and Asia next year.

This research explores mobile video/media on phones for their immediacy, low quality – imperfectness, but spontaneity, at the speed of thought – with its rewriting, superimposing, and remixing of ideas, flashes and clashes of images and emotion, layering of meaning and stream of consciousness and equivalent – or simulation of telepathy and collective, if chaotic intelligence.

the world’s first feature-length mobile phone art film. exhibitions and screening at chelsea art museum from april 8 – may 9, 2009.

A story about a future world where the dream of living in utopia can only be sustained by a nomadic tribe of artists and intellectuals, Mark Amerika’s Immobilité mashes up the language of “foreign films” with landscape painting and literary metafiction. The work was composed using an unscripted, improvisational method of acting and the mobile phone images are intentionally shot in an amateurish or DIY [do-it-yourself] style similar to the evolving forms of video distributed in social media environments such as YouTube. By interfacing this low-tech version of video making with more sophisticated forms of European art-house movies, Amerika both asks and answers the question “What is the future of cinema?”

an interesting combination of natural and gestural input using sound waves. by scratching textured materials on surfaces such as table, wall or even your own thigh, a small sensor deciphers magnitudes and patterns into various input for devices. white paper available for download.

a fun and brilliant way to extend the capabilities of standard number keys on a phone. there is definitely beauty in simplicity.

12Pixels is an innovative interface, mobile phone application, and web service that allows people to draw and share pixel based imagery using only the keys of a standard mobile phone.

a slight deviation from the usual topics, this post is interesting in the social and cultural perspective. a recent washington post article reports how homeless people are using cell phones to track job opportunities, update food stamp applications, and communicate their whereabouts to others. as pay-as-you-go phone prices go down, society’s urban nomads are becoming resourceful in finding ways to get back on their feet and perhaps maintain a small amount of dignity and independence.

“Phones are really a lifeline for many people,” said Adam Rocap, director of social services at Miriam’s Kitchen, a nonprofit drop-in center for the homeless. During a string of attacks against homeless people sleeping downtown in the fall, two victims called 911 for help after they were assaulted, he said.