The Art of Mobile Phones

If only it were as simple as just a few phone calls But thankfully, for all those creative sorts out and about, there is a lot more to mobile phones than meets the eye. Creating art with mobile phone handsets, digital cameras and video cameras, many innovative designers and artists throughout the world have been having a little fun and promoting more serious messages with mobile phones recently.

Technologically or aesthetically fascinating, Nokia phones push the boundaries of nanotechnology design with the breakthrough concept of the Nokia Morph, but there are other eye-catching options already available on the market. Reminiscent of the Imperial Russian Faberge eggs , the Nokia-subsidiary luxury phone manufacturer Vertu has made its name by exquisitely designed mobile phones incorporating white and coloured diamonds. Painstakingly crafted and breathtakingly beautiful, these aren't the sort of mobile phones you would want to misplace or leave behind at a train station!

Others have chosen to incorporate mobile phones into their art. Boston artist Rob Pettit is just one artist who has opted to use mobile phone handsets in his installations. Creating beautiful and organic shapes and sculptures with discarded Samsung phones, Motorola phones and LG phones, he likes to think that his works have a message behind them too. Rather than just re-utilising a readily recognisable and ubiquitous symbol of every day life, Pettit considers that his artworks make a statement about modern mobile phone culture.

Ample opportunities are also given by the creative media contained within mobile phones. Cameras capture images that can be used to realise artistic dreams, whether still or moving. Digital camera photo exhibitions and mobile phone video film festivals are commonplace these days, which just leaves us asking - what's next?