Cellular phones aren't just displaying books, movies, art, and music; they are also being used to create them. In the future, the cellphone will become an essential creative tool, just like cameras, camcorders, paint brushes, and musical instruments. For some people, it could become their most important tool.
The so-called cellphone novel (keitai shousetsu) is typically uploaded chapter-by-chapter to Websites where it can later be downloaded to phones. It has become a big business. Some Japanese novels have been downloaded hundreds of thousands or millions of times. A few are published as paper books and become hugely successful. In 2007, five of the top ten bestselling novels in Japan were first composed on cellphones.
Deep Love, about a teenage prostitute, has been turned into a television show, a graphic comic (manga), and a movie.
These novels typically are composed of short sentences, slang, and emoticons, and they are written by young women for young women. Sex, love, drugs, fatal diseases, and personal experiences are hallmarks of many of these works, although some are in other genres, such as science fiction and fantasy. From what I've read about them, they are often melodramatic slop. But I'm not the target market.
Many people in the Japanese literary establishment see these keitai shousetsu as junk that is damaging literary standards. However, at least these novels are encouraging people who never wrote creatively to start writing; and they are sparking people who never read novels to read something with a semblance of a plot.
Moreover, established authors and publishing houses are entering the business. An 86-year-old Buddhist nun, who is an accomplished writer and translator, has written a cellphone novel that has been published as a paper book.
Although this sort of "literature" isn't generating buzz in Europe and the United States, you could try writing your own novel in 140-character chunks. Quillpill
offers a Twitter-type service for composing on any cellphone or an iPhone. The Textnovel
site allows anyone to upload novel segments via email or SMS and to read the stories on the site.
By the way, cellphones with HD video will be available in a few years.
Phones also will be used to create artworks, especially with increasingly higher-resolution screens. One interesting new program is OilCanvas for the iPhone. You select a photo already in the iPhone and edit it with your finger's "brush strokes." Cellphone photo editing software has been available for years. However, I envision a new generation of programs to create art with a finger or stylus instead of a pencil, brush, canvas, or desktop computer.
I also envision a new generation of cellphone music composition and enhancement programs. The Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology has just introduced ZoozBeat, which enables music enhancements by shaking or tilting an iPhone as well as recording voices that are integrated into the music. ZoozBeat also is available for three Nokia N-series phones. Make sure to view the demo video.
Also make sure to view the video for MooCowMusic's Band software for composing music employing a variety of instrumental sounds and complex cords. Another music program, MusAic, is available for Java-based phones.
Musicians won't always carry their instruments. Painters won't always have brushes and canvas. Videographers won't always have HD camcorders. But they almost always will have cellphones -- which will become crucial tools for all types of artistic endeavors.
The cover of this week's New Yorker magazine was created by an artist who used the iPhone's "Brushes" finger painting application. "Brushes" also has another application, "Brushes Viewer," that shows how the finger painting was accomplished -- and is interesting to watch.
The New Yorker Web site discusses the procedure, includes a "Brushes Viewer" video of the process, and says additional drawings by the artist will appear on the Web site.
"Ocarina" is a fascinating application by Smule for the iPhone that turns it into a flute-like instrument. The "instrument's" keys are on the touch screen, and you make music by blowing into the iPhone's microphone opening while touching the virtual keys.
If you know what you're doing, the music sounds rather good. There are numerous videos with Ocarina music, including how to play it. In addition, the Smule Web site includes musical notations for playing several pieces, including the "Minuet in G," "O Canada" and "Greensleeves."
Also, you can hear other people's musical efforts via the software's "global view" feature.
In addition, Smule is sponsoring a contest. The top ten videos of people playing the Ocarina receive $1,000 each, and runners-up get t-shirts. Check out this video.
This is very cool, and perfectly highlights how cellphones can become "artistic" devices.
Camera phones as art have been explored for many years. The handset vendors, especially Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have held contests and sponsored exhibitions of camera phone photos. The vendors also have hired famous photographers to take photos with their camera phones and have sponsored/hired consumers to travel around a country or even around the world taking photos.
Now, handset vendors are sponsoring contests for videos. We're seing short videos and even full length films created entirely on camera phones. The Sundance Festival has a camera phone film festival and other conferences also are sponsoring mobile video contests.
During the GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February 2009, the great actor and director Kevin Spacey will be the host and keynote speaker at the MOFILM Mobile Short Film Festival. In fact, the use of camera phones for shooting great artistic photos and videos has become so well known that I didn't spend much time discussing it my ThinkerNET column and, instead, focused on newer artistic activities, such as writing novels, drawing and composing music.
I don't know if every person has an artistic side, but cellphones with basic art programs -- drawing, composing music, writing text, etc. -- could certainly encourage people to explore their artistic sides. I'd be surprised if cheap or open source art-type programs weren't available in many forms that most people could afford.
Today, many phones have cameras and a large subset of those also have video recording capabilities, so people can explore their photographic "sides."
I try to be open minded about art (and other things as well!). Art is so subjective that it's difficult to say what it is. I hope, though, that we will see cellphones being used to create art. It seems logical to me, especially because we're already beginning to do it in a very modest way.
I was just browsing and was surprised that there are already some organizations that are holding exhibitions for mobile speific art work. Have a look on this. I would love to attend any of such forthcoming event. :)
Perhaps the more sophisticated cell-phones can bring more felxibility in tersm of tools and like already mentioned we might see specialized version of cell phone for specific artist with specific enhanced features for a painter and as an other example a cell phone that might give more scope for a movie maker and so on. And if so they would have its own merits and demerits like if it is not be cheap then that will restrict its use in public who are not as such artist. And why this bothers me is ....because i feel every person have an artist (of some kind ) in itself and if proper tools are available for lesser price then that art can come up with new vision and shapes.
Any kind of art irrespective of its framework has its own beauty and need appreciation and i would also love to see a new era of mobile art.
As you mentioned about controversy about mobile "art" to be judges differently i agree with you. Ofcourse such arts should not be undermined by difference in its "make" rather i suggest an open-minded-ness towards such arts. and yes art should be judged based on its quality and content. You are right!
"bringing the arts to people who never before had the tools to compose
music, draw (and edit) a picture, shoot a video, read a novel, etc.
certainly is beneficial for a country."
From what I've seen of some of Picasso's later work, I think he was locked away without his paints! (I prefer his earlier paintings.)
It's fascinating that cellular phones are beginning to offer ways to create a wide variety of "art," whether it's music, photos, videos, etc. Although the Swiss Army Knife-approach certainly has many disadvantages, for a child to be able to take photos or create music -- just on a phone -- could be revolutionary.
Perhaps we'll see some sort of open source movement for free cellular phone software for artistic pursuits.
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