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App Art
NYC | 2008-present
Definition, research, history, and creation of work in the realm of App Art
The advent of the iPhone in 2007, then the App Store in 2008 served as a critical juncture for the start of a new art form.
A surge of activity and interest followed, with artists creating artworks in the form of apps running on the revolutionary new device, featuring a touch sensitive screen and gestures that activated and operated apps on it.
An early example of this kind of work arrived in 2008 from ambient pioneer Brian Eno and musician / software designer Peter Chilvers, titled Bloom, an app that created generative visual and sound patterns by simply tapping the screen.
In 2009, conception and planning began on the Poetics app began, following experimentations in physical sculpture, installations and interventions in the iheart poetics series of work. In 2011, a Kickstarter was launched to fundraise the cost to design, code, and launch the app, and in July 2013, Poetics v1.0 launched in Apple's App Store.
Over time, with continuing development of the app, related art projects, and collaborations, it soon became clear this was a new form of art: App Art.
+ArtApp
+ArtApp was an art collective founded in the spring of 2015, dedicated to research, incubate and support the nascent App Art movement and arts-centered apps worldwide.
The founding members, Seth Indigo Carnes, Serkan Ozkaya and Paulina Bebecka, New York City artists and a gallerists, connected through their relationship with the Postmasters gallery. A fourth member, Kaitlin Till-Landry, joined soon after the collective formed.
In November of 2015, the group launched a petition requesting that Apple create an Art category in its App Store for all art-centered apps worldwide.
The petition garnered over 13,000 signatures, including Christiane Paul, Scott Snibbe, Kevin McCoy, Paul Miller (DJ Spooky), and Mark Tribe, along with endorsements from The Andy Warhol Museum, NEW INC, Artsy, Phillips Auction House, Eyebeam, ZKM, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Postmasters, Bitforms, and many other organizations.
+ArtApp participated in several public panels and projects in 2016, including App Art: a new medium at Creative Tech Week, NY Tech Meetup, and ArtAppHQ, a month-long temporary autonomous zone for art and technology at The Clemente in the Lower East Side in New York City.
ArtAppHQ culminated in a panel discussion titled Creating Apps / Creating Art, featuring Seth Indigo Carnes, Paulina Bebecka, Serkan Ozkaya, Malcolm Levy, Joshua Ott, and Kenneth Kirschner:
Over time, the collective recognized an Art category would make a massive tech company the main curator and gatekeeper of App Art. In a pivot, +ArtApp decided to create its own app, designed to curate and support App Art. Design began, but the coded app did not come to fruition. By 2020, +ArtApp was no longer active.
Across this time period for +ArtApp, Seth Carnes worked on a draft definition of App art based on the Wikipedia entry format. The draft was never entered on Wikipedia, but is now published as a post on sic.studio:
Press
“The “app as art” movement is just beginning”, PandoDaily, September 11, 2013.
“Poetics: this ‘app as art’ lets users mix media on photos: Did Greenpoint give rise to the first ever iPhone app as art? The case of Poetics“, Technical.ly, December 20, 2013.
“Why Aren't More Artists Working in the Medium of the Mobile App?”, Pop Matters, June 30, 2015.
“Five Obstacles that App Artists Face”, Pop Matters, August 10, 2015.
“Object-Oriented Poetry: An Interview with App Artist Seth Carnes“, Pop Matters, September 22, 2015.
“If Apple Cares So Much About Design, Why Does the App Store Ignore Artists?”,
Vice, Nov 13, 2015.
“Artists to Apple: Add an “Art” Category to the App Store, Already!”, Vice, Nov 13, 2015.
“Why the Apple App Store Needs an “Art” Category”, Pop Matters, November 16, 2015.
“In Emerging Tech, Artists Should Lead”, Huffington Post, Nov 30, 2015.
