Breaking News: "eyephoneography" exhibition hit by mindless vandalism

The eyephoneography exhibition that opened its doors to the public last Friday, the 17th of September, at The Hub in Madrid, Spain, has been suspended due to the mindless acts of so called artists.

Information is a little limited due to legal reasons, but the following statement has been posted on the eyephoneography website.

"the eyephoneography #1 show has now been suspended. It was supposed to last until October 1st, but the 48 exhibited images that had attracted so much interest in the past days were torn down by some people of the HUB-Madrid."

Following questions about what had happened, the eyephoneography organizers have posted the following statement.

"Here are some facts. We knew that in the two weeks of the exhibit (17/9-1/10) some events would have taken place during the evenings (when the HUB is closed to the public) . The photos could stay if the organizers of the other events agreed and we were to take them down if they didn't. We also had the option of re-installing them once the evening event was over. We had already obtained agreements for the Monday 20/9 and Thurs 23/9 events but those organizing the event on Wed 22/9 wanted them down. We had until 7:00 pm of 21/9 to take down the show. For the morning we had arranged some important meetings with the director of PhotoEspana, the curator of photography of the FNAC Spain, and a curator of the Reina Sofia Museum. We would say that considering also the exposure on the cultural pages of "El Mundo" and "La Repubblica" two of the most read newspapers in Spain and Italy, and all the other agencies and art magazines that you can see in the right column of this blog, mobile photography never had that kind of exposure before in the art world.

Anyway we had already arranged to take down the images after the meetings to re-install them the day after.

However, all the photos were torn off in the morning and we had to cancel the meetings. No calls, no emails, no messages. The images had been mounted naked full bleed on 3mm dibond. Imagine how delicate they were. We found them piled up on a table like trash. Smudges, scratches, some attached with double-face tape one on top of other. A real tragedy."

It's Showtime

Over the next few months or so, there will be a number of high profile iPhoneography exhibitions in the USA and Europe, and just so you don't miss out on the chance to attend one or more of these events, here is a round up of what and where they are.

i.Phoneography - International iPhone photo contest

Today is the last day you can submit your iPhone only photos to this international iPhone photo contest, organized by Italy's Arteaparte, with the chance of being included in their first exhibition, at the Sixth Edition of the Contemporary Art day, which will be held at the FIAF Gallery Arteaparte on the 9th October 2010.

For more information on this event, please visit the i.Phoneography website.

Please note: Despite any possible confusion over the name of this competition/exhibition and website, the iPhoneography blog is not associated in any way with this event. Whilst I was one of the original jury members, I have now withdrawn my services from jury.

eyephoneography - mobile photography back into the world and onto your wall

This is a bricks and mortar exhibition being held at The Hub, Madrid, Spain, launching with the iPhoneography of Sion Fullana, Greg Schmigel, MissPixels and Marco La Civita.

The open event will take place on Friday 17th September, with the first exhibition will running until the 1st October.

For more information on this event, the organisers, and  the iPhoneographers, then check out eyephoneography.com

EYE'EM - New York Exhibition 2010

Following on from the successful of the EYE'EM Awards and exhibition in Berlin, the EYE'EM team are taking EYE'EM on the road, with the first of many pop-up exhibitions taking place in New York on the 27th - 29th September at the OpenHouse Gallery, 201 Mulberry Street.

Whilst I will not be able to attend this event myself, the iPhoneography blog is fully supporting the EYE'EM events.

For more information on the EYE'EM New York Exhibition, head over to the EYE'EM exhibitions page on their website.

iPhoneography Exhibition at La Panera Art Center, Spain

This is the second iPhoneography exhibition being held in Spain, but this time it's a the La Panera Art Center in Lleida.

The exhibition will run from the 2nd October to 14th November, and will feature the iPhoneography of Valeri Ardini, Koichi Mitsui, Alex Kess, Dominique Jost, Jordi V. Pou and Sion Fullana.

For more information on this event check out the La Panera Art Centers website.

Pixels — The Art of the iPhone Coming To An Apple Store Near You

This is the big one, and congratulations goes out to Knox Bronson for securing this prestigious event.

Apple asked Knox, the curator of Pixels to produce a number of events that will be held at Apples larger stores across the USA and around the world, introducing iPhoneography and showcasing some of the artists who post on Pixels to the general public.

The kick off event will take place at the San Francisco Apple store on the 23rd September at 6PM, followed by the New York City Soho Apple store on the 29th October. Next up will be the Chicago Apple store on the 21st October followed by London (which I will be attending) and LA, although dates for these events are yet to be confirmed.

For more information on these and other Pixels events, check out Pixels — The Art of the iPhone.

eyephoneography: Meet Darren Milligan, member of the selection committee

In just over a month the inaugural eyephoneography show, being held at The Hub in Madrid will open its doors, and the first member of the selection committee is Darren Milligan, but who is Darren Milligan?

Darren Milligan, who are you?  "I am a designer and director of digital media projects at the Center for Education and Museum Studies at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, USA. There I produce digital learning resources, manage social media initiatives, and direct websites including the two-time People's Voice Webby-Award-winning digital portal for education at the Smithsonian. I serve as art director and producer of the Institution’s teacher magazine (Smithsonian in Your Classroom) and integrated online interactive IdeaLabs. In 2008, I also worked on the team that established the Smithsonian as one of the founding institutional members of the Flickr Commons.

I am a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the American Association of Museums Media and Technology Committee, and serve on various Smithsonian committees focused on education and web/new media strategies.

I am also an amateur photographer and manage the blog, printedprimate.org, focusing on pre-photographic images of primates in western cultures."

Darren's full interview about how he became involved in the eyephoneography exhibition, and his thoughts on mobile photography, can be found on the eyephoneography blog.

Announcement: iPhoneography and eyephoneography

Following the announcement a couple of days ago of the 1st eyephoneography event at the Hub in Madrid, Spain, this coming September, the iPhoneography blog is pleased to announce it will be collaborating with the organizers of this event, sharing ideas and working closely together to make this event a success.

I will be attending the open event on the 17th September, spending the weekend in Madrid before flying back to the UK.

Myself and organizer Rocío Nogales Muriel hope to hold some extra events during the launch weekend, which we will announce here on the iPhoneography blog, and on the eyephoneography website in the coming weeks.

Press Release: eyephoneography at the Hub, Madrid, Spain this September

The art of mobile photography comes to Spain this September thanks to an initiative by the Hub Madrid, that seeks to promote this new way of photographing with the final goal of establishing a lasting connection between the community of mobile photographers, and their Spanish audience.

What began a few years ago as an innovative way of capturing and sharing images via mobile phones continues to attract people, and it has even been featured in specialized magazines such as American Photo Magazine (see the November 2009 issue). Until now, these photographers have gathered in a virtual community characterized by an impressively strong commitment toward this new photographic vision. “I was captivated by how fast these photographers create and share their work as well as by the power of the images captured by such a “rudimentary” shooting tool”, states Rocío Nogales-Muriel, the person in charge of the first show of this kind in Spain.

Four representatives of mobile photographers have been invited to participate in this inaugural eyephoneography show. The only native Spanish and professional photographer included in the exhibit, Sion Fullana, lives in New York and can be considered together with another invited artist, Greg Schmigel, pioneer in this type of photography. They do “streetphotography” and were two of the four mobile photographers included in the above mentioned American Photo Magazine article. Fullana focuses his peculiar look on the urban reality of New York City, which acquires a powerful halo of mystery and admiration. Out of this unique stage emerge familiar but unrepeatable topics and subjects surrounded by a delicate chromatic selection. In Fullana’s words, “one of my biggest assets is how passionate I am with what I do, and I recommend some of that to everyone! It’s not about snapping shots of everything that looks cute. It’s about putting effort, patience and love into developing an eye for subjects or situations that will make a compelling picture, one that has something to say or can express a feeling. His homonymous page was one of the first to show mobile photography next to his traditional production and it quickly became an influential platform from where he inspired hundred of followers worldwide. 
 
The other mobile photography pioneer, Greg Schmigel, offers to those passionate about American cities and photography the chance to enjoy the heart beat of these urban jungles through his black and white images in his blog “Just what I see”. These images evoke frozen frames from noir films or comic strips that form our visual memory while inviting us to observe without being observed; to live a moment captured and exposed before our eyes thank to the expertise of someone who describes his photographic creation as a personal therapy. “I don't set out to produce art, per se. There's something special and unique about shooting street. It's real. It's true. It's slices of life as we see it ... and many times, slices of life as the rest of us miss it”, whispers Schmigel.

Behind the nickname MissPixels hides Isabelle Gagné, the third photographer included in eyephoneography #1. This Canadian graphic designer builds images with impossible topics, angles and compositions taken out of a fairy tale dream, all of them wrapped in textures so plastic that they evoke the materiality of painting. “Be it for my illustrations, my paintings or my iphoneographies, I choose consciously to modify, to alter the regular order of colors by making them explode. I make the basic colors vibrate, contrast and burst. In my iphoneographies, the images are captured spontaneously; I look openly for a pictorial accident. I then amplify this circumstance as if it were developed chemically. Only my chemical substances are the apps, explains MissPixels about her work.
 
The work of Marco La Civita, the fourth eyephoneography #1 photographer, has been featured in off-line shows devoted to mobile photography. Italian-born and based in Madrid, he is an aeronautics scientist who has been taking pictures for many years. The difference is that now he dares to share his images with other mobile photographers and the rest of the world thanks to his iPhone. In his iPhoneblography blog, La Civita posts only “photos shot, processed, and uploaded with an iPhone”. “Someone said that my photography is a ‘chromatic and compositional research’. Touching the chromatic and compositional sensibility of other people is my aim”, muses La Civita about his work. His pictures are the result of a curiosity for the objects and textures that inhabit our streets, whose aesthetic and symbolism he captures. Against this special backdrop, La Civita poses his eye upon revealing details, unthinkable angles and secret relationships among our everyday objects.

This first event will take place on the 17th September 2010 at the Hub in Madrid, Spain.

Additional information about the selected pictures and activities planned for the opening weekend will be published during the next months. In the meantime, interviews to the artists and members of the selection committee as well as other information will be regularly posted on the eyephoneography blog, Facebook and Twitter.

The full press release can be downloaded here.