Art? There’s an App for That
Marissa Guyton | Apr 12, 2011 | Comments 18
Courtesy of Christian Peacock
It’s a strange thought that the words “iPhone” and “gallery exhibition” can coexist in the same sentence. But the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art manages to do it with ease for their “Pixels: The Art of iPhone Photography” exhibit. The photographs showcase the work of unrecognizable, average Joes like you and me and, as you could guess, all the photos were taken with an iPhone.
That being said, the photos at the exhibition are not what you would expect for iPhone photography. In other words, they look nothing like the photos the average person takes with an iPhone camera. Looking at them inspires the thought: how could these possibly have been taken with an iPhone?
The reason is that most of the photos are not photography in the typical sense. Many of them are abstract, and look even more like they could be drawings or graphic art. You may even have a hard time convincing yourself that they aren’t.
Curator Jeff T. Alu can’t figure out how some of the photos were made, but he does inform viewers that nearly all of them were made using photo-processing applications on the iPhone. Painting, blurring, vintage and fisheye lense effects are only some of the available photo-processing tools available through iPhone applications.
Alu came up with the idea for this exhibition after stumbling across fellow curator Knox Bronson’s Web site, http://www.pixelsatanexhibition.com, which is dedicated completely to iPhone photography. The Web site is open to anyone as long as they follow a simple rule: all photography and processing must be done on an iPhone. The exhibition follows the same rule. Both also take care to specify that this means no photoshopping; a strange notion when so many of the photos look photoshopped anyway.
But there is a point to this rule. “iPhoneographers” pride themselves on using what little they have to work with to create amazing photographs. On his Web site, Bronson says that, “The iPhone IS a simple, limited, almost awful camera, which is part of its great allure for me personally.”
Despite its limits, the iPhone seems to be capable of everything a regular camera can do, and the exhibit is testimony to that. You have to wonder how many limits there really are when you see effects that seem to spotlight a single person in surrounding pitch-black darkness, bend and curve buildings, and blur an image without movement. There is even one underwater photo. The few photos that do not use effects are still striking as well. They are so crisp, they look as if they were taken with a professional camera.
Though the exhibition just opened last weekend, it has already attracted a lot of attention from other publications. Alu thinks that a lot of the press is due to the fact that people are attracted to exbihitions that “are a group of one thing,” or that put a label on a new form or trend.
But many other factors seem to be at play. Emerging trends do catch attention, but when that trend has to do with anything iPhone-related, they blow up. Think how important and ubiquitous apps have become in our lives — smartphone users gather them like treasures. iPhones even seem to dictate trends. Would any of us actually be playing Scrabble if there were no “Words with Friends”? Or think how many people would be interested in “Angry Birds” if it were merely an Internet game and not an app. I would even go so far as to venture that Facebook might not have become as big if it weren’t for smartphones.
There is a whole culture born with iPhones. And it’s no wonder; people have their iPhones with them all the time, and they use them all the time. Our entire lives are mediated by them. What’s interesting is that they were made to provide for us, but now we have turned the focus from us to them. The tables have turned and now we are “slaves” to our iPhones. Their apps dictate what we like, and we impulsively follow any trend related to them. This exhibit probably owes its popularity more to its relation to iPhones than to its being an emerging group or art form. Cross out the word “iPhone” from the title of this exhibit and it is half as interesting.
Filed Under: Entertainment
Knox, still havent gotton an answer from you if stipulations have changed. Thank you.
The article says – “The Web site is open to anyone as long as they follow a simple rule: all photography and processing must be done on an iPhone.” I was also told by Knox that another stipulation is that no images could be also posted on other iphone sites. Has that changed?
it’s the person behind the camera/iphone/smartphone, not the camera or the app and the creative mind that makes the image.
The article says – “The Web site is open to anyone as long as they follow a simple rule: all photography and processing must be done on an iPhone.” I was also told by Knox that another stipulation is that no images could be also posted on other iphone sites. Has that changed?
An iPhone is just another tool in the arsenal of an artist not unlike a pencil or brush. Part of the job of an artist is to take these tools and incorporate them within an idea to make art. For anyone who comes from “film” photography, digital is a hole other animal that requires other skills and the desire to test the “tool” to see what you get. With a little research one can view “pinhole” images taken with oatmeal boxes, VW vans and even the mouth of one artist that looks very much like the end results of some iPhone photographs. In 1838 a guy named Louis Jacques Mande Daguerra shot a photo from his Berlin balcony and produce and image that resembles the iPhone images of today. For Daguerra his camera that produced “Daguerra Types” was no different to him than the iPhone is for most people today. He carried it everyplace and was obsessed to us it where every he could.
What a great discussion! I am an OCCCA member who was also skeptical of the idea that “the words ‘iPhone’ and ‘gallery exhibition’ can coexist in the same sentence”. In a wide context, I agree with Guyton’s assessment of how many people are slaves to their smartphones these days. The diversity and quality of this exhibit, however, demonstrate that there are artists who harness the power of their devices like true masters–hardly slaves.
It is true that the origin of these works makes them more interesting. But hasn’t Medium been a central component of Message for a century? A new medium is an exciting thing, and OCCCA wouldn’t deserve its status as a *contemporary* art center if we didn’t explore it.
“This exhibit probably owes its popularity more to its relation to iPhones than to its being an emerging group or art form. Cross out the word “iPhone” from the title of this exhibit and it is half as interesting.”
Totally agree. It’s time to value work by itself not by how it was done. It’s so great to work with an iPhone, really lots of possibilities with it, even inside the art world. But if we want to call it art we have to show it wall by wall with other photography or any kind of art, to see if it’s average or not. We have to accept critique from no believers as the only way to go ahead.
And, as an iPhone photographer too, we must stop thinking we are doing something special because we use an iphone for it. Next step is just there for all who accept this.
Have you looked at the show Jordi? It is an amazing collection of work, demonstrating once again the range and depth being produced by the true iphonographic pioneers working around the world.
The writer was projecting her own obsession with the process as you always do.
What makes iphonography such a refreshing break from the current state of art and “real” photography is the lack of dogma, pedigree, theory.
But I repeat my question, have you actually looked at the show?
Great to talk with you again Knox,
Not sure about that break you mention. Art is always redefining, that’s why is so great. Artist are always beyond art world, breaking.
I have seen the pictures, of course. I love this medium so I try to see as much of work as possible. Also many friends in the exhibition.
What I see more and more lately is lots of work, sometimes great one, that really don’t need of an iphone to be done. Any camera and processing software could help to reach same result. And that’s good for me. Means iphone is actually a tool so usable. But very little images that really need of an iphone to be done.
That’s why I agree with the question of what will happen if we avoid the word iphone in our exhibitions, pixels or others. If we want to be serious we must accept critique, and search for viewers out of our iphone world. This step will give us the real measure of our work.
And, sorry, the only obsession with the process comes from pixels, as usual. Do this do that or you’re not pure
And I must also say that this is not a bad critic. Talks so well about exhibited work.
But seems that when someone questions the iPhone role as a value in art some individuals just react like being attacked.
Thnx for the write up Marissa!
I just wanted to log in and say that art just wouldn’t be art if it wasn’t controversial. As Knox and others have mentioned, any new emerging art form throughout history has received negative press. Must be human nature to want to reject anything unfamiliar or ‘unestablished’.
Speaking as one of the ‘unrecognizable Joe’s’ ( think I like Jo Nobody… catchier name!
But I suspect in a few years Marissa, you might be writing a very different piece about photo art created on iphones…
Happy apping everyone!
You mentioned that a lot of the work is done by unrecognizable average Joes – that’s the beauty of it. It’s art done by the masses. The barriers and walls created by self-imposed intelligentsia to separate themselves from the unwashed are being removed by mass-market commercialism and technology. Almost everyone has a mobile device and can take a photo. Then have an equal opportunity to create something beautiful with it. If it is good it will rise to the top. When something is outstanding, point it out give it credit. I am curious why is there no credit given to the artist whose work is posted? If credit is due, give it! It’s normally a common practice to give a mention to the shown work. That way that artist can become something more than an unrecognizable average Joe and Jane. That person who created that nude on the bed was I. I choose to use an iPhone for creating that piece because I wanted a desired effect but remember it’s not the device that makes the art. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Christian Peacock – photographer
Yes, iPhoneography and all mobile photography requires that images be shot and processed on the iphone/mobile device. These are not unprecedented parameters…perhaps you should read this recent article: http://nametbc.com/2011/02/the-rise-rise-of-iphoneography. Mobile photography became an “official” medium in (oh dear don’t quote me here) 2008, shortly after the introduction of the original iPhone.
iPhoneography/mobile photography is simply the newest photographic movement. Remember Lomography? Polaroid? Digital vs. film? This is simply another progression of a medium. Judge it for what it is and nothing more. Frankly, I have found that iphoneographic images stand up well to their sisters…I’ve worked in film and digital using both Photoshop and strictly darkroom methods. The work being produced now…on these tiny little screens…is amazing, ground-breaking, and worthy of a second look.
And what exactly is an “unrecognizable Joe?” Many iphoneographers are artists in their own rights, not that that should matter. The works should speak for themselves, regardless of whether or not they are “known” by arts communities. Just sayin’…
I am an iPhoneographer and proud of it. iPhoneography is not a passing fad, not a fashionable short-lived trend. People, listen up: we are standing at the edge of the precipice – it’s going to be one helluva thrilling rollercoaster ride! I am kicking myself for missing out on the OCCCA exhibition due to lack of funds, but I will definitely be submitting my iPhone Art to upcoming events.
Yes, the iPhone is flawed and limited. But the point of iPhoneography is to work within these constraints, not to try and make the camera better, bur to express ourselves creatively and perhaps produce images that please not only ourselves but others as well. To this end the iPhone platform proves its godlike status by providing iPhoneographers with a plethora of Apps to tweak, distort, grunge, fine-tune, illuminate, and generally have a lot of fun with images. That, plus the power of social networking through the likes of Facebook, Twitter etc etc etc and you have the capability of transmitting iPhone Art globally and virally, and making friends along the way. What’s not to like?
Marissa Guyton said in her review “There is even one underwater photo”. If my intuition serves me right, that would be the iPhone Art of my friend Aaron Davis from Cairns, Australia. Now, Aaron and I have never met face to face, he lives 3000 miles away, but we became friends through our shared passion for iPhoneography. Is iPhoneography here to stay? You bet it is!
Skeptical, much? Condescending, much? Sheesh.
Beginning with the question mark in your title after the word Art, you proceed to insult the contributing ARTISTS, barely compliment the images before you, doubt the integrity of how the ART is created, and manage to group all of us iPhonographers into a mindless, witless, trend-worshipping group with YOURSELF, if your language reads correctly (The tables have turned and now we are “slaves” to our iPhones. Their apps dictate what we like, and we impulsively follow any trend related to them. This exhibit probably owes its popularity more to its relation to iPhones than to its being an emerging group or art form).
Kindly speak for yourself, and give credit where credit is due: the art in the exhibit is AMAZING, and yes, EVEN MORE SO **because** ALL images were taken with and altered on naught but the iPhone! Like MAGIC, yes??
I also hope you will take the time to visit Mr. Bronson’s site,
http://www.pixelsatanexhibition.com, to gain a bit more perspective on what true iPhone art/photography is really about.
Thanks, Elizabeth. You just saved me a lot of time in my own response. Cross out the words in this article and I would be half as irritated.
It is the vision of the artists, not the apps, that matter. The iPhone is a camera/paintbrush: a tool and a medium combined, but nothing more. The pictures are wonderful because of the hard work put into the pictures.
Thank you for your review. I note that you were quite impressed with the imagery, yet in your last two sentences you almost dismiss the whole exhibition as well as the emergent art form. I feel compelled to address this.
As publisher and curator of the P1XELS site, I have watched the community grow and the work evolve at an incredible rate. I knew in January of last year (when I was mounting the first-ever juried gallery show of iphonographic art in Berkeley) that there would be a handful of artists, most of whom now call P1XELS home, around the globe who would push the medium forward. They have done so. And many more have joined us along the way.
I find iphonography so refreshing: a vibrant new medium unencumbered by the dogma and theory that has infected modern art for so long, as well as a release from modern photography’s doldrums and ruination at the hands of photoshop.
“Beauty is difficult, Yeats” said Aubrey Beardsley
when Yeats asked why he drew horrors
or at least not Burne-Jones
and Beardsley knew he was dying and had to
make his hit quickly
Hence no more B-J in his product.
So very difficult, Yeats, beauty so difficult.
‘So, famously, wrote Ezra Pound in Canto LXXX, recounting a cocktail party exchange between William Butler Yeats (Pound having served as Yeats’ personal secretary) and artist of the exquisite, the grotesque, the decadent, Aubrey Beardsley. Yet perhaps, thanks to the iPhone, the difficulty of beauty is no longer quite as true as it once was. An entirely new artistic medium is, perhaps, emerging: iPhonography, dedicated to photos taken on the iPhone.” (http://www.parcbench.com/2009/12/29/beauty-so-difficult/)
You sound somewhat like a critic dismissing Alfred Stieglitz’s pictorialist exhibitions of early last century, claiming that photography is just a fad and gimmick.
If you think that it is just an app that creates the work of Maia Panos, Jon Betts, Andrea Mdos, and any number of artists on the P1XELS site (see artists in categories), I invite you to create your own pictures and submit them to the site.
Not a bad write-up. As one of the artists in the show I’ll be calling myself “unrecognizable Joe” for the remainder of the week. Just a thought: has it occurred to you that many of those in the show are artists who simply use the iPhone as an artistic tool? Much like painters use…paint?
Thanks for the great review of our exhibition! Just to clarify, ALL of the photos in the exhibition were shot and processed completely on iPhones, not nearly all. Hard to believe, eh?