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CNN Live At Daybreak

'Ear' of Beholder

Aired September 02, 2002 - 06:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: You might be hard pressed these days to find someone who thinks the ringing of a cell phone is like music to their ears.
But CNN's Andrew Brown has found a place where cell phones are becoming kind of an art form.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a digital aquarium, 150 mobile phones in a glass tank on display at London's Design Museum. When you dial a number on the side of the tank, the phones go off in sequence, creating an effect which is meant to look like a school of fish swimming around.

The exhibit is the work of Digit, a design company. Its employees are encouraged to think outside the box, although they can think inside one as well.

SOPHIE WOODS, DIGIT: What inspired us was just using an everyday technology and putting it within an art environment and seeing what you can do.

BROWN: With mobile phones, you can do all kinds of artistic things these days.

When Francesca Luk and Pang Wai feel the urge to draw or paint, they pick up the phone and call their friends. The conversations are a kind of creative distraction, unlocking their hidden potential.

FRANCESCA LUK, ARTIST: Through the conversations, you can get immediate message (ph) from the environment, from people and from the words I have spoken.

PANG WAI, ARTIST: For this kind of drawing, we can directly express ourself.

BROWN: Luk and Pang, who are based in Hong Kong, have just launched their own exhibition of mobile phone art. Critics say...

AMELIA JOHNSON, ART EXPERT: Quite simply, it's doodling, and whether you can transform that into a higher level of art remains to be seen.

BROWN: While fans say the pictures make a statement about mobile phone users, who try to focus on too many things at once... TOM HILDITCH, COLUMNIST: You kind of like have these sort of deflated balloons moving between frames, and you know, that's really a nice way of expressing the sort of -- the uncertainty of where the person is that you're talking to on the phone. When they come and switch on the mobile phone, they take a call, the whole gyroscope goes.

BROWN (on camera): ... some people say it's the artists who have lost their gyroscope. This isn't a piece of art. It's a phone!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened to the good, old still life. I'd like to see a jug (ph) and an apple, thank you.

BROWN (voice-over): But there again, you could say art is whatever you get hung up on.

Andrew Brown, CNN, Hong Kong.

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