From the Pixel to the Sensorium: De-Emphasizing the Lens and Making Smart Media

In 2010 Max Schlesser completed a PhD based on the cell phone as a documentary making device with a focus on the pixel. At the time the pixel was a marker for a new form of media-making. Since that time the cell phone has become a smart phone and has become sophisticated enough to be used to create mainstream movies. It would be easy to stop there and view the smartphone as an alternative means of creating a conventional form of lens-based media – I propose something more radical.

Smartphone media-makers using the latest iterations of this device no longer have the pixel and the imperfect image at their disposal but given the vast array of sensors now accessible through the phone – they have something no other single media-making device has – unparalleled access to the human sensorium. Utilizing a media archaeological approach, I will delve into the smartphone’s unique connection to the human sensorium and discuss ways in which media makers can harness this multi-faceted device to create work. As VR and AR take up much of the current experiential media making spot light we must not neglect the immense media making power of a singular device, accessible to almost everyone, which can not only take photographs, but can collect data relating to the world around itself, track its user, and through the use of apps, format, deliver and project potential new forms of media.