Channel 4 is about to launch a mobile blogging site called “Big Art Mob” with contributions from around the country. According to the press release users will be able to send pictures of public artwork from their phones and have them appear on the website in real time.
The Big Art Mob invites people to help make the first comprehensive map of public art across the UK by sending photos, text, video and audio to do with public art from their mobile phones. Using a combination of Google Maps, a geo-coding facility and ‘tags’ (i.e. labels/keywords) created by the senders and viewers alike, these photos and moblog ‘posts’ will collectively form an interactive map to celebrate and preserve the country’s wealth of public art.
This is the first use of mobile blogging technology by a major UK broadcaster and could help the technology become more mainstream.
Adam Gee, Channel 4′s commissioning editor, New Media, says:
There’s no comprehensive map of the UK’s public art, simply because there’s so much of it. But now, with a combination of networked media and people power, for the first time it’s an achievable public challenge. As well as documenting the richness and diversity of our public art, the Big Art Mob will highlight the fun of moblogging and provide the base for a lively, visually-oriented, UK-centred arts community.
