DigiFunArt Festival 2015 at The Seoul Museum of Art – Introduction
Many of you will be aware that I was invited to lecture at the Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea on 23 September 2015. It was a huge honour for me to be invited by DigiFun Art to participate in the DigiFun Art: Urban Scape Mobile Photography & Art Exhibition and Festival at this most prestigious museum.
Seoul Museum of Art is the representative art museum of Seoul, the capital of Korea and a central city of Asia, that aims to be a ‘Beautiful, Good, and Smart Art Museum.’ In order to accomplish this goal, the museum has set up two major objectives: to become a world-renowned art museum and to be a museum for the city and its people. Under such objectives, the museum is making great efforts to expand and promote itself as a place for culture and the arts as well as a space for meaningful social education. Through a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that reflect a cosmopolitan sense, regional characteristics, professionalism, and popularity, the museum hopes to reach its goals.
This exhibition titled ≪DigiFun Art: Urban Scape≫ aims to show how mobile devices and their various applications, which have become more than essential to us, also serve as a new artistic tool for artists; as well as to shed light on creative activities in new fields that have emerged through the various functions of smart devices.
The term ‘DigiFun’ in the title of the exhibition is a compound word made from ‘digital’ and ‘fun.’ Just as the contemporary British artist David Hockney has been creating and presenting a series of iPad drawings since 2009, portable mobile gadgets allow people to engage in creative activities without being limited by place or conventional tools such as brushes or water colours, and fulfil the basic need for novelty and pleasure.
The Opening Ceremony took place on 22 September 2015 and the exhibition runs to 13 December 2015. Please do visit, if you can.
Other artists participating in the Digifun Art Mobile Art Exhibition & Festival include Susan Murtaugh, Jeremy Sutton, Hong Seung-Hye, Hong Kyoungtack, Kim Yong-chul, Kim Yong-kwan, Park Gwang-soo, Lee Fi, Jörg Hinz, Ahn Seung-joon and Hong-kyu Kim. I also personally asked to include art by Sarah Jarrett, Mimi Svanberg, Jun Yamaguchi, Janine Graf, Roger Guetta and Carolyn Hall Young – their works including my own are displayed on a digital screen within the exhibition.
Huge thanks go to Professor Ahn, Amy Chung and Sangwoo Kang of DigiFun Art and also to Ara Jo Seung-Eun Una Lee and all their colleagues at the Seoul Museum of Art for organising and inviting me to lecture at this spellbinding mobile art festival.
Photos included here were taking by various people including Ara Jo and Sangwoo Kang.
Yesterday, I published the main Flickr Group Showcase that I showed during my lecture, if you missed that, please go here. In my next post, I will publish the first part of my lecture.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
One Comment
Carolyn Hall Young
Thank you so much, Joanne! Many thanks, also, to the organizers and to the Seoul Art Museum for hosting this event.