Hello everyone !
Most of “Keitai Trail !” members has already arrived at Linz, Austria. A small, cozy and beautiful city.
They have been working very hard to prepare their workshop, presentation, etc. supported each other with campus 08 members from the University of Tokyo. However, also enjoy drinking beer and wine !
Anyhow, Ars Electronica 2008 will start Sept. 4th !!
They have designed their workshop space as a communicative, playful sphere with Japanese teas and sweets, and tatami mats. It is because they want audience to feel easy to participate in movie making of “Keitai Trail !”.
Small plastic cases with tissue papers and inserted commercial flyer are very popular among street corners in the cities of Japan. They apply this very Japanese material culture as a tool for distribute “Keitai Trail !” flyer in Linz. Isn’t it a cool idea ?
One of their challenges for “Keitai Trail !” is the poor situation of Mobile phone (“Keitai” in Japanese) technologies for movie production and edition. Although Japan’s mobile technologies have highly advanced especially on movie functions, most technological systems are for receiving and viewing services, not for producing or creative activities.
It means that Japan’s high tech mobile phone are good at consuming images but not good at expressing images. One of the purpose of this workshop is to expose these unconscious technological bias of digital media to public, tries to explore a new direction of mobile phone usage as a medium for people’s expression.