Front-Ended

Mark Amerika is an American artist whose work focuses on translating the art of writing into new mediums. Mark’s latest work is the first film in his Foreign Film series, titled Immobilité. This full-length feature film was shot entirely on a Nokia N95 cell phone and is the first of its kind.

In collaboration with Brooklyn artist, Deborah Johnson, Front-Ended developed an application with the intent of “remixing” Immobilité for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The concept was to use the device as a medium with which we could create an whole new way to experience the film. The result comes in the form of a number of screen captures which the user can flip through at their own pace, while listening to loops from the soundtrack from the film.

Although Nokia devices make up for roughly 40% of the global mobile handset market, no unified platform existed for content providers and developers to reach this mass market. The recently announced Ovi Store seeks to provide a gateway to this audience by enabling third-parties to publish content of all kinds—including apps, games, music, video and more—for users to download over-the-air directly on to their device. Acting as a subject matter expert on this project, Front-Ended helped bridge the gap between Nokia engineers and interactive designers from Schematic in order to create both highly useable, and technically feasible user interfaces.