At a recent This happened, Simon Oliver (Hand Circus) demonstrated to us the process of creating his iPhone game Rolando. I will write about this more once have the video of the presentation online, but what is very clear is that as a gaming & entertainment platform it is really going to take off. Indie developers can now create applications themselves and sell via the app store direct to a large customer base. Unlike the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP that are closed development & no (official) publishing to ‘bedroom coders’.
I’ve discussed with many people the possibilities of the iPhone as a platform for delivering software art & interactive toys, created by artists & designers. This starts to ask many questions. Who would the target audience be? Would people pay for software art? Why do they buy it?
Something I’ve mentioned in the past about Toshio Iwai’s work for Nintendo DS… “Electroplankton is really like an archive of his previous artworks. The tiny creatures reminiscent of Music Insects. Two plankton Lumiloop & Luminaria being portable game versions of his installation Composition on the Table from 1999″.
This took Toshios work to the mass market. Most people bought it without knowing who the artist was, many people also bought it as they were fans of the artist and wanted the work in their pocket.
Also recently I bookmarked SRC, a japanese ‘creative label for screen media’. An interesting approach, like a record label..”Here we will produce, develop, and sell various interactive art / software / video-based projects”. Dropclock, by the talented Yugo Nakamura et al, is released as a free trial but $15 to buy.
So will the iPhone work as a platform for artists? Are you an artist or designer working on something? Leave your comments below.
Here are two people currently adapting their works to iPhone…
Golan Levin
Golan Levin created Yellowtail in 1998-2000. “an interactive software system for the gestural creation and performance of real-time abstract animation”. A former student of Golans, Lee Byron (in the photos above), is working on converting this artwork for the iPhone, this time with multi-touch input. Golan will be released via the app store soon for a small fee. Here is a work in progress video.
For the programming readers, Lee has put up a bit of interesting info about the development on his blog. Hopefully this will lead to a Processing or openFrameworks style coding environment for creating iPhone applications, thus easier entry points for developers.
Andreas Muller
Andreas Muller is also working on a port of his popular For All Seasons application. Photos here.
Update: now available via the app store, video here
I am playing with iPhone SDK myself and I found it interesting both as geek and as UI designer. As geek I found interesting to see how Apple (or more precisely NextStep) evolved C in Objective-C, as designer how multitouch interactions could be used in day to day life. Iphone is a pretty impressive platform, many features and good perfomances, so I am not surprised many are playing with it. Personally I don’t know if I would invest money to have someone else art piece on my device to show (show off to friend?), but if these would be very engaging (games a la Toshio), well that is a different story, I am already buying games. No doubt is a very portable and powerful platform and I’m already showing off to some friends some experiments I am doing ;)
I think the iPhone as an interactive entertainment device has huge potential. With bluetooth, camera and GPS, you could have a lot of fun with various kinds of applications.
But as an artistic medium, I’m unsure. Does it mean that you are restricted to viewing work on your iPhone, thus creating accessibility issues? (I haven’t seen the what Simon Oliver created so its hard to gauge)
Like Christian, I don’t think I would invest money in getting someone’s iPhone art onto my (imaginary) iPhone. But other avenues could be looked at. Interactive ring tone visuals? Pervasive gaming? Using the bluetooth or GPS to record location data to create imagery? The versatility of the device makes it exciting and the freedom to create applications really adds to that.
I don’t own an iPhone, but my friends that do have all shown me some app that shows off the features of the phone (multi touch, tilt etc). This will of course wear off over time.
It depends on price. Most good games are selling for around $4-5. If an artist sold something for under this price, people wouldn’t have to think twice before buying the app.
Yellowtail is expressive & creative, ala Toshios Electroplankton. I think is something that might be key for successfull art apps on the device, rather than passive screensavers.
I could see that with the gps, the group Blast Theory could very well release one of their artworks to a wider audience if they wished.
Yeh, Blast Theory’s other work used a Sony PSP (from what I gather from project photgraphs) so using the iPhone as another Pervasive Game vehicle would be ideal. The more devices that could partake in PG would open that market up hugely.
I agree on the stationary wallpaper concept, though I’m not convinced people will just throw their few dollars at any title, application or iPhone art.