Join Us Mobile Photography Awards
Published: April 16, 2012
Category: News & Events, Photography
Medium: Photography
ArtHaus ~ 411 Brannan Street ~ San Francisco, CA 94107 ~ Map Link 415-977-0223 ~ www.arthaus-sf.com
Pixels are the paint of the 21st Century. And our hashtag for this event is #MPASF for Mobile Photo Awards San Francisco!
Technology is spawning so much incredible creativity raising challenges for traditional galleries and critics to “keep up” with the new art forms and with the emerging artists as well.
Two galleries who are leading the way are ArtHaus, in San Francisco, and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art. They are exhibiting the selected works from the 1st International iPhoneography Awards - works of art that were created on the iPhone. Chase Jarvis really opened up our minds years ago with his book, “The Best Camera…Is the One That’s With You.”
What all of the apps and the filters cannot do though is create an artistic composition. This still requires an artist’s eye, an artist’s soul, a special synchronicity in time between the creator and the subject / inspiration. Over 2200 submissions were filtered down to 26 award winning photographs for the 1st International Mobile Photography Awards. Shane’s piece, Gingered Torso, won for the Percolator app, created by John Balestrieri, of Tinrocket.
The idea and production credit both go to Dan Berman, a photographer himself yet also a man with a much larger vision. He assembled a panel of jurors to help curate the 1st International Mobile Photography Awards. He also engaged “app” developers - those geeks who help the rest of us make art or at least express the moment. Despite the fact this art was created from electronica, having an online-only show just wasn’t enough.
Art is perception at its most subjective; art is the farthest we can find from “good or bad” - but that hasn’t stopped many from dismissing certain forms of art as not being legitimate. And so iphone art is making its way from the street corner to the critic’s corner, one show at a time.
What shifts things is when well-respected galleries, like ArtHaus and OCCCA, stand behind the emerging art form. What if pixels are the defining artistic medium of the early 21st century, as oil paints were to the early 15th century?
As a non-artist, the end result is what matters to me. Knowing that something was created on the iPhone or iPad, only inspires me more! Shane and I can stand next to each other and click the shutter, producing vastly different results. We can lounge on the sofa using the same apps, producing vastly different results. Somehow his BFA pokes its way through, or perhaps more accurately, his artist soul is alive and well behind the stylus.
I sincerely hope you will be able to join us at the ArtHaus Gallery on Tuesday April 24th where we can gaze at the gorgeous and thought-provoking iPhoneography and answer that question together, “What is art?” Also, enjoy a cocktail, thank James and Annette for their visionary commitment to digital art, and consider adding to your own personal art collection.
Please click the share links below and tell your friends and colleagues who live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Thanks! And join us here on Facebook too. - Roxanne
