Ubiquity: The Journal of Pervasive Media - Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2013

This article focuses on the contemporary dissemination of audio-visual mobile technologies in Brazil, which interweave aesthetics, politics and culture. Signs of the phenomenon come from the do-it-yourself practices adopted in the daily lives of individuals and groups previously excluded from a broad access to cultural consumption and production. This new scenario happens as a result of the increasing embedding of mobile technologies in daily routines, and of the emergence of a networked culture that eradicates people’s dichotomous positions, such as transmitter/receptor, or active/passive. Based on concepts of heterotopia, we investigate a movement where cultural placements are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted. Our aim is to reflect on two issues: first, how audio-visual creation, through the propagation of mobile devices, becomes tactile material for anyone in urban slums and peripheral areas of Brazil; and second, the process of (self) creation that takes place through the engagement of these communities in film production. Based on the work of Jacques Rancière, we depart from the assumption that there is an equality postulated by art as the equal ability of anyone to experience any kind of life by exceeding the limits of what is expected of body, perception and affection.

The article describes the process of creation of a sensorized insole built with biomaterials (latex from Havea brasilienses) as a mobile wearable device. The insole will acquire physiological data (galvanic skin response, foot pressure, temperature) combined with locative systems (GPS) to create a kind of ‘emotional living map’ of the city. The system is enactive: Varela et al. define the concept, as the situation when ‘organism and environment enfold into each other and unfold from one another in the fundamental circularity that is life itself’. Previous tests show the insole is a good personal health assistant, especially for people with diabetes (who are potentially affected by foot ulcers). The biomaterial and pressure sensors used can predict some of the areas most affected and contribute to healing. An artistic background is also presented to show how artists using different technologies created the debate about art versus urban space versus body. Locative media art practices also contribute to the exploration of the dynamic processes used to create different maps. The project is a result of transdisciplinary research between arts and technoscience, and involves the collaboration between artists and biomedical engineers and other scientists from the Art and TechnoScience Laboratory and the Engineering and Innovation Laboratory (both at Gama College of the University of Brasilia) in collaboration with MediaLab – MIT-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Camera Culture Group).

This article is intended to address a deficit in current information about new technology user patterns in the ‘developing world’. Western media primarily focuses on high-income western industrialized societies and ignores most other counties. Reporting on the Third World, especially Africa, is preoccupied with disasters, famines and conflict (disaster porn). General information and good news stories about the Third World are seen as of ‘low interest’ to western audiences. Research into patterns of media use in the field of cultural studies also tends to be preoccupied with developed countries, and recently there has been particular focus on the iPhone. This article explores the diversity in the international profile of mobile phone users across cultures and classes using seven case studies: Kenya, India, Brazil, China, Russia, New Zealand and the United States. This study is intended to demonstrate – through a review of literature and information from international databases – how user patterns vary widely cross-culturally, even in developed countries. The explanation for these variations is traced back to economics, cultural values and the wider socio-political context. Patterns in mobile phone use are closely related to social class and incomes, which in turn reflect the way people work and use their leisure time. Major differences occur between owning a mobile phone – or ‘feature phone’ – versus a smartphone. In the past, mobile phone usage was limited to texting and calling plus a few other features, while smartphones offer a much greater diversity of functions because of their access to the Internet. Differences between the two types of phone are diminishing as more mobile phones have access to the mobile web. The relatively high cost of smartphones means income levels play a key role in patterns of ownership. Because standards of living are higher in the developed world the class background of smartphone users is broader than in the developing world where ownership is concentrated in the affluent and middle classes. Cost remains the major consideration in most countries. In 2013 the popularity of the iPhone is being challenged by new competition from Samsung, as competition between ‘features’ intensifies.

This article intends to highlight the concept of egalitarian communities of communication through the latest developments of mobile technology and peer-to-peer (P2P) communication networks. With the help of the French author Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical theory on the ‘inoperative community’, we will try to show how a community of communication among equals depends on its members’ anonymity, its infinite openness and its ubiquity. Taking these features as a starting point we will analyse how we can consider the so-called mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) as a real and paradigmatic model of ‘inoperative community’. Our aim is to propose the infrastructure underlying these networks as a model of a community of communication among equals, since it enables the anonymity, openness and ubiquity of its members.

Over the past decade, technological advances have enabled the transformation of mobile phones with built-in cameras into sophisticated digital media tools (smartphones), capable of recording, editing and sharing high definition video content across global communication networks. Advances in smartphone technologies, and in particular increased lens quality, data memory and improved camera functionality, have arguably contributed to the emergence of a new kind of film-maker who recognizes and exploits the creative potential presented by camera phones. In this article, the authors will examine the challenges and perceived opportunities for film-makers using camera phones in an Australasian media context, including the ways in which camera phones may facilitate innovative practices around the production, sharing and viewing of digital films. The subsequent emergence of dedicated festivals for the screening of video content captured on camera phones is driving interest in new forms, new genres and new practices in film-making. We outline ways in which these festivals provide ‘amateur’ and independent film-makers, along with audiences, with a vital platform to initiate discussion, debate and the sharing of video content produced by film-makers from culturally diverse backgrounds.

This article discusses the convergence of media technologies, participation culture and the new vernacular of mobile device photography. The author and Lincoln School of Media colleague, James Field, are developing a participatory interactive documentary project entitled 24-hours.in (www.24-hours.in), exploring new opportunities for participation, collaboration and the potential democratization of documentary production. Utilizing user-generated video captured on mobile phones and smart devices, the project is participatory whereby the audience contributes documentary videos around the theme of 24 hours in a city or location. With reference to Džiga Vertov’s seminal 1929 documentary film Man with a Movie Camera, the intention is for the videos to document the cities, the people that live there and their daily lives. The aim of the project is to have an open and collaborative platform to which anyone can contribute; for the audience as ‘user-producers’ to document their city or location, the people that live there and their daily lives. Building on Vertovian concepts, the project explores the potential the ubiquitous camera-phone ‘eye’ may offer for a unique and cumulative version of ‘cinema-truth’ to emerge. By exploring a model of participation we have moved away from the authorship of a single person towards mass authorship and a collaborative montage vision, and in doing so revisit Vertov’s aspirations for the democratization not just of technology but also of creativity.

Technically, mobile images belong to the ‘point-and-shoot’ tradition. In this scheme, mobile visual applications have facilitated changes in both the aesthetic qualities of mobile images and their effortless sharing. This mobile technology has developed hand-in-hand with its many different imaginable uses; for instance, mobile modalities allowing families and friends to communicate enable the formation of strong audio-visual bonds. This type of ‘mobile visual habitus’ is created through various sharing channels and can activate creativity, affection and social networks. Taking into account the intimacy involved in the use of mobile visual apps, this article seeks to shed light on aspects of this everyday affective mobile visual usage. How does mobile technology change our relationships with our own mobile visualities, our strong ties (i.e., bonds with friends and family), and thus our own audio-visual private history construction and those of our loved ones? As this question is overly broad, no exact answer or position can be determined. Nevertheless, through micro-social networking examples, I intend to analyse how usage of mobile visual apps will continue to change, influencing and enlarging possible methods of communication and engagement through and with private mobile images. These overarching practices will definitely continue to have an increasing impact in connection with broader cultural and social changes.

Using Džiga Vertov’s seminal experimental film Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), as the central text for this practice-led research, the authors have produced short experimental video works that explore cities through the lens of the mobile phone-camera. In this article the authors investigate the creative possibilities of camera-phone technology, and how in turn these technologies may extend or give rise to new modes of experimental and/or hybrid cinematic forms. With particular reference to the authors’ mobile videos (Spatial Threshold and Lifts), this article discusses the aesthetics, constraints and opportunities presented by camera-phone technologies and how these factors may influence the production of experimental mobile video.

“E Vaine Toa” was filmed and edited on location in Rarotonga during a 10 day production in November 2012. Working in collaboration with a mobile filmmaking crew from Massey University, Wellington and the Cook Islands National Council of Woman this mobile-mentary (mobile documentary) captures the voice of women in the Cook Islands and encourages their participation in governance and leadership.

In March 2012, 40 students in three countries collaboratively engaged in trans-national movie-making with their mobile phones. In this global experiment, dubbed ‘Entertainment Lab for the Very Small Screen’ (ELVSS), the international teams (each containing members from all three countries) employed Web 2.0 platforms (Alexander 2006) to collaborate across space and time, creating mobile movies that explored issues around environmental sustainability.

With powerful mobile computers in our pockets we are but at the beginning of not only letting creativity re-enter our daily routine (through the use of mobile devices), but also of embracing data as a new material, using electrons instead of atoms to reach out to and touch the observer. Artwork created in this way will become less static and eternal, and more interwoven and adaptable as we keep changing.

24 Frames 24 Hours defines mobile film-making in a cultural context. The study draws on new paradigms of participation and simultaneously analyses creative processes while developing connections in the local community in a global perspective. Besides the aesthetic refinement of mobile film-making, the research project is a prototype for community involvement through creative practices. Local communities engage in mobile film-making and shape representations about their communities and futures. Through a custom-design, user-interface with GPS functionality, mobile videos will be linked into a global collaborative documentary project. Innovation will manifest itself in leveraging into twenty-first-century creativity and new forms of self-expression.

The project is called HONO (a kupu Māori/Maori word that can be translated to mean ‘to connect’), and it invites rangatahi to connect more meaningfully and relevantly with their communities using digital tools. On 14 September 2012, a team of rangatahi Māori got together to shoot two short documentaries using mobile phones. HONO, the first digital storytelling and mobile phone workshop with rangatahi was set over three days. It included full immersion on Hoani Waititi Marae for two days, and some working sessions with great (and ‘fast learner’) teenagers, which led to the production of a series of short mobile video stories produced with smartphones (Nokia X3 and iPhone 4S), which were edited into two final mobile-mentaries (Schleser 2011). HONO consisted of three parts: ‘Immersion and initiation’, ‘Filming and creation’ and ‘Editing and production’.