mobile-mentary @ CREAM symposium / VISIBLE EVIDENCE (Germany)

In the panel-presentations at the CREAM Symposium and the VISIBLE EVIDENCE conference in Bochum (Germany), I explored the potential of mobile phone video footage as a new form of documentary filmmaking. I outlined the prospects of this new unconventional medium within the domain of creative media practice and introduced the FILMOBILE network. FILMOBILE is a project, which aims to create a dialogue between the industry, filmmakers and artists working with mobile devices through a variety of on and off line events (www.filmobile.net). In addition I screened extracts from the mobile-mentary project (www.mobile-mentary.co.uk), an experimental documentary shot on a mobile phone in Japan in 2006.

In 2000 the first camera phone was introduced in Japan and six years later mobile phones with video and still cameras have outnumbered the volume of film and digital cameras combined and industry research forecasts a continuous development for the next years.

In my practice-led research investigation I am drawing upon various mobile phone videotexts in the contemporary mediascape, such as mobile phone footage mediated by the BBC or videos, which have originated through subversive networks of peer groups and (online) communities. Beyond contextualising amateur footage through documentary theory I referred to the proliferation of creative mobile media, which surfaced within the field of artistic media practice and documentary filmmaking.