12 Additional Stunning Examples of Mobile Phone Art

Mobile phone art takes many forms. We’ve previously looked at two dozen different examples of cell phones in art ranging from performance art that utilizes cell phone ring tones for audio to sculptures depicting mobile phones in society. With so many different mediums to choose from, artists around the world continue to create amazing artwork related to mobile phones.

Here are twelve more terrific examples of how mobile phones and art can blend:

1. Mobile Forest Exhibition. This 2008 art exhibition that took place in Japan last year was designed to explore the intersection between art and technology. A particularly interesting art display combined electrical outlets, mobile phones and polyurethane rubber antlers to create artistic phone chargers designed to look a bit like high-tech animals.

2. Mobile Art Watch Project. This is an ongoing mobile phone art project through which Shift art website collaborates with Crypton Future Media to distribute the works of various artists through the medium of the cell phone to mobile phone users in Japan. The most recent project in the series is by an artist named Kojiko, a Japanese graphic designer who created three interesting designs which can actually be downloaded to your (Japanese) mobile phone and then used as a watch. The designs include a monster whose eye blinks to mark each passing minute and a graphic design with dual patterns that move to show you the time.

3. Pearl Diver with Cell Phone by Masami Teraoka. This is an example of a standard medium in which a mobile phone is represented. The medium is drawing. The image is of a beautiful woman diving for pearls. Interestingly enough, there is a cell phone there in the water with her. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean but it sure makes you look twice at the drawing.

4. Cell Phone Drawings by Brett Rogers. Brett Rogers is an average guy who lives in the middle of the United States. He also happens to be someone who likes to spend his free time drawing what he sees around him. Not too long ago, he realized that there was a drawing application on his mobile phone. He began to create drawings on his cell phone whenever he got any downtime and these drawings have now started to become locally well known as art that blends nature and technology.

5. Sleepy Urbanite. A lot of average people have been able to express themselves artistically through their mobile phones. One such person is the artist whose series Sleepy Urbanite made some headlines. The artist used her cell phone to take photos of people who were sleeping on the train during her commute. It made her boring commute a lot more interesting for her and resulted in some really cool artwork. This is an example of the cell phone as the tool for creating an art series.

6. “Th tale of ltl br” (The Tale of Little Bear) by Colleen Chartier. This is an interesting project which combines writing with photography via the mobile phone. Photographer Colleen Chartier created this photo-text cell phone story using the language of mobile phone texting and sticking to a rule that each line of the story could be no longer than a single line on a cell phone screen. The story consists of eighteen image-text panels that tell (and show) the story of Little Bear.

7. Artistic Cell Phones. It can be argued that a beautifully designed handset is in and of itself a work of art. Many people believe that to be the case with the Japanese handsets designed by artist Yayoi Kusama. This inspirational elderly artist is well known for a body of work filled with different polka dot designs and her new Japanese handsets are just one more extension of this lifelong series of work.

8. Cell Phone Life Series by George Delaney.  George Delaney is a painter. He has created an entire series of paintings which consist of a woman standing still in the center of the canvas speaking on her cell phone. Some of the women are clothed, some are nude. Some are set against boldly colored backgrounds, others against more neutral ones. In each of them, the woman holds a cell phone against her head with her left hand.

9. Code Switching. One of the reasons that mobile phones intersect so interestingly with the art world is because of the fascination that many of us have with how technology and art relate to one another. Code Switching was an interactive art installation by artist Michele Pred which took place approximately two years ago in California. Gallery visitors received a Nokia cell phone preloaded with software designed to read barcodes. On the wall of the gallery was a large black and white canvas hand stitched by the artist. The visitor uses the phone to scan this artistic barcode; the barcode was read by the phone and then led the visitor to a website which revealed a message from the artist on the phone. Interesting!

10. The Sickle and The Cell Phone. This bronze sculpture by artist Gu Xiong was created over eight years ago and is one of the earlier examples of cell phone art. It’s a fairly large sculpture (1.5 metres high x 2 metres long) which was commissioned in 2002 by the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in Canada.

11. Music of Christian Haines. The mobile phone can be used as an audio device for creating music. To many, this is an art form. Christian Haines has certainly elevated his exploration of the mobile phone as a musical instrument to the level of art. This Australian sound engineer has created works of audio art for various music and technology festivals including the Adelaide Festival of Unpopular Music and Electrofringe 2009. At this latter event he used a mobile phone interface to play electronic music for a crowd of tech lovers in a performance called Quiet Appreciation.

12. Recycled Plastic Sheets.  We’d be remiss if we didn’t include at least one green artist who recycles old mobile phones into art. There are several great artists doing this (Rob Pettit, featured in our previous articles, is perhaps the most well known) but one of the most diverse types of art created from mobile phones is colorful recycled plastic phone cases flattened out into pretty plastic sheets. They’re turned into beautiful sheets sized at 1200 x 800mm and approx 6mm thick. These sheets can be hung up as wall art, turned into tabletops or made into display panels. What a creative use for old cell phones!