Joiner, collage camera

Joiner

The collage as an art form reminds of the way our vision works- the nanosecond twitches of focus that render our immediate visual environment. Japanese media duo exonemo have been working with this sentiment along with some inspiration from David Hockney’s ‘The Joiners’ series, to develop an iPhone application whereby photos are instantly collaged and made manipulable. Bearing the same title, a functional homage to Hockney’s collage works, exonemo played with the idea of having an image instantly collage, in particular they were interested in people’s faces- what they considered essential to remembering a person. Focusing on the possibilities of the touch screen led exonemo to work towards enhancing their overall photo taking experience. In Japan, where a considerable mobile picture culture exists, simply referred to as, ‘shameru,’ or directly translated as ‘picture mail,’ has users taking mobile camera photos of any visual spectacle encountered and transmitting a visual souvenir or greeting to their desired recipient. Indeed, a number of simple, in-phone, post-production functions exist though they haven’t really been seen in Japan. Upon taking a photo, ‘Joiner’ enables a visual remix live and on the spot with the displayed image automatically collaged and each individual fragment, or cell, is available for further parsing, spreading or overlapping and reintegrating via the touch screen. Pinching the screen can cut down the respective range of individual cells in the formed grid to create a depth effect in the morphous photomontage. exonemo have opened up a whole new world for users to experiment and edit with the photos they have taken, offering new a sensory and tactile platform for interacting and sharing our visual environment. Joiner was presented at Interferenze Seeds Tokyo 2010. Check the Interferenze Seeds Tokyo 2010 photo set here.

Vicente Gutierrez