Renowned Author and
Digital Artist Team Up to
Create First Ever Instant Global Portrait Using Camera Phones
On October 12, 2005 at the Mobile
Imaging Summit executive conference in Monterey (CA), a major work
of art was created live in front of an audience, in a collaborative
process involving over one hundred individuals in countries ranging
from Brazil to Indonesia.
Entitled “The 5 Minute World”, the
project was the brainchild of a team composed of Alexis Gerard,
President of Future Image which hosts the Mobile Imaging Summit
executive conferences and author of “Going Visual” ; Rick Smolan,
author and creator of the best-selling photography books in history
including the Day in the Life and America 24/7 books ;
and pioneering digital artist Laurence Gartel whose work has been
exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Joan Whitney Payson Museum
and Long Beach Museum of Art among others, and figures in the
permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the
Bibliotheque Nationale. It was made possible by technology and
support from Hewlett-Packard and Motorola.
The “5 Minute World” demonstration
was designed as an evolution of the concept Smolan has become famous
for: Utilizing photography to create a portrait of humanity as it
exists within a defined period of 24 hours, or a week. By using
camera-phones, which have the ability to transmit an image
wirelessly shortly after it is captured, that period can be
condensed into a matter of minutes.
For the event, over one hundred
Motorola employees around the world were photographed with Motorola
camera-phones including the V635 and new RAZR V3x, displaying the
front page of the day’s newspaper in their local town. The images
were transmitted to a web page created specially for the event,
where they appeared on the conference’s large projection screen as
they filtered in, forming an instant composite of faces and
headlines of interest across the globe while Rick Smolan explained
the concept and process to the conference attendees as part of his
keynote speech.
Meanwhile Laurence Gartel, present on
stage alongside Smolan, downloaded the images to his computer and
placed them into a poster template which he created specifically to
commemorate the occasion. He then printed the resulting 24x36 inch
image on to a DesignJet 130 NR high-resolution large format inkjet
printer from Hewlett-Packard. By the time Smolan’s speech was over,
Gartel held up for the audience a finished piece of art which
included the contributions of people all across the globe.
The final phase of the event was the
production of a special limited edition of 500 copies of the
Laurence Gartel poster on an HP Indigo Press 5000. Using the Indigo
variable printing technology, the first 400 posters of the edition
were not only numbered but also inscribed to the name of each
participant – whether they contributed images to the poster, or were
part of the live audience that witnessed the poster’s creation (a
number of the remaining numbered copies are available through
Laurence Gartel)
Humanity
has a deep need to tell stories and this is why photographs are so
important to people,” said Smolan. “In 2003 digital cameras outsold
film cameras. In 2004 cell phone cameras outsold digital cameras. By
the end of 2005, a billion ordinary people will be carrying
camera-phones with them 24/7. The ability to shoot and then instantly
share images is going to dramatically change the way humanity sees
itself and how each of us tells our own stories.
The
explosive growth in personal network-connected image capture devices
is a fundamental shift, comparable for instance to the rapid spread of
PCs in the 90’s – but on a much larger scale” said Alexis Gerard,
President, Future Image Inc. “Just as ubiquitous PCs converged with
other technologies to birth the mass-market Internet, ubiquitous
camera-phones will converge with emerging technologies like image
recognition, virtual displays, and others that were topics at our
recent Summit, to change business and society in profound ways.
The
‘5 Minute World’ demonstration is a perfect example of how mobile
imaging is enabling consumers around the world to capture and share
their moments, seamlessly,” said Brian Krasavage, Director, Business
Planning, Mobile Imaging & Video Capture, Motorola, Inc. “At Motorola,
we’re committed to enhancing this rich mobile experience by creating
handsets that are intuitive and connected and supporting an entire
ecosystem of solutions for sharing, storing and printing life’s
everyday memories.
HP
is pleased to lend its imaging technology to enable this truly
first-of-its-kind event, which will allow hundreds of people to
connect in a way that was not possible in the analog world,” said
Aaron Weiss, director of business development, Digital Photography and
Entertainment, HP. “Digital photography has forever changed the way
people capture moments and share stories and memories with friends,
family and colleagues around the globe. This event is an excellent
proof point of the great possibilities enabled by digital photography.
The
"5-Minute World" project illustrated how technology has enabled us to
communicate on an instant basis, eliminating the time structure of
previous societies. The real challenge of the future is to capture
every living moment. Will that be done with a "third" camera eye
embedded in one's forehead? Or a "direct connect" from your eye to a
storage device? We have not had time to digest the social implications
of how digital has changed our memories, our relationships, and our
eventual ‘after life.’ Yet we are definitely going where no man has
gone before!" Laurence Gartel, November 10, 2005.
Humanity
has a deep need to tell stories and this is why photographs are so
important to people,” said Smolan. “In 2003 digital cameras outsold
film cameras. In 2004 cell phone cameras outsold digital cameras. By
the end of 2005, a billion ordinary people will be carrying
camera-phones with them 24/7. The ability to shoot and then instantly
share images is going to dramatically change the way humanity sees
itself and how each of us tells our own stories.
The
explosive growth in personal network-connected image capture devices
is a fundamental shift, comparable for instance to the rapid spread of
PCs in the 90’s – but on a much larger scale” said Alexis Gerard,
President, Future Image Inc. “Just as ubiquitous PCs converged with
other technologies to birth the mass-market Internet, ubiquitous
camera-phones will converge with emerging technologies like image
recognition, virtual displays, and others that were topics at our
recent Summit, to change business and society in profound ways.
The
‘5 Minute World’ demonstration is a perfect example of how mobile
imaging is enabling consumers around the world to capture and share
their moments, seamlessly,” said Brian Krasavage, Director, Business
Planning, Mobile Imaging & Video Capture, Motorola, Inc. “At Motorola,
we’re committed to enhancing this rich mobile experience by creating
handsets that are intuitive and connected and supporting an entire
ecosystem of solutions for sharing, storing and printing life’s
everyday memories.
HP
is pleased to lend its imaging technology to enable this truly
first-of-its-kind event, which will allow hundreds of people to
connect in a way that was not possible in the analog world,” said
Aaron Weiss, director of business development, Digital Photography and
Entertainment, HP. “Digital photography has forever changed the way
people capture moments and share stories and memories with friends,
family and colleagues around the globe. This event is an excellent
proof point of the great possibilities enabled by digital photography.
The
"5-Minute World" project illustrated how technology has enabled us to
communicate on an instant basis, eliminating the time structure of
previous societies. The real challenge of the future is to capture
every living moment. Will that be done with a "third" camera eye
embedded in one's forehead? Or a "direct connect" from your eye to a
storage device? We have not had time to digest the social implications
of how digital has changed our memories, our relationships, and our
eventual ‘after life.’ Yet we are definitely going where no man has
gone before!" Laurence Gartel, November 10, 2005.
