A new day and it has been very long time since I visited this diaristic tool. I want to introduce a new project idea I have been kicking around for a few months.
3g Art

This coming August ISEA 2006 will be in San Jose, CA which is very convenient for me being that most of my time is being spent in the South Bay. I had proposed the Oculus Project for ISEA but, I found fundraising extremely difficult as I researched last Dec and January. Additionally the Oculus was not accepted to the festival and I think it would be hard to sneak in ; )
I have decided to shelve the idea for a later date.

I became very interested in mobile technologies after attending a lecture by Dr. Genevieve Bell. Dr. Bell researches ethnographic impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for the Intel corporation. I learned about the ways mobile technologies around the world are used as the primary communication platform (in lieu of PC's). The mobile phone has emerged as an explosively rich instrument of culture because of the portability, infrastructures, and innovative use by the rest of the world. Please read my summary of her lecture Mobile Messaging in the Pacific Rim in SWITCH Magazine Issue 22.

Quite simply the majority of users on this 'connected' planet are using their mobile devices to communicate and participate. The United States' econonmic priviledge has driven the PC platform to thrive here; distancing the US culture from the international community once again(it appears to this commentator). The implications of this distancing alongside the current conservative political climate are suggestive to isolationistic or nationalistic histories best left to their historical placement.

My project involves distribution of digital art on the 3g platform alone. The stills or time based works are made to be seen, loaded, and shared on the personal devices that populate the majority of the world. The work is not to be consumed on the PC, projected on walls, or any other output. It is specifically aligned to be distributable on 3g devices as a new independent craft; it is a techne for and of 3g technology.

Questions and conflicts to confront:

uniqueness
1. Is the purity of the medium pivotal? Should I allow this project to be ephemeral or do I create an archive to capture and save the work to be exhibited after the festival. Is the "archive" an acceptable tool in this conceptual stance?

2. Is the work made, edited, and distributed by 3g devices alone? Can I make digital work and translate it to the project?

How to do it?
1. Set up a server to receive requests and distribute materials.

1a. Specifically made for sites of the festival. Users will find CLUE and will SMS to the address they will receive work that is site specific.

1b. Users SMS the database gumball machine and a protocol distributes an artwork per request. Users will not know what artwork they are getting until they open the reply much like a gumball machine.

2. Compile subscription. Collect addresses from festival goers and provide daily(hourly?!) work through the duration of the festival.

Variable: Despite which distribution model I choose: Do I allow festival goers to make work and upload it to the database?