iAMDA’s Annual International conference, MobileArtCon, is now open for registration! The official conference site has been launched (90 days prior to our greatest 3 days in NYC ever!

To register or to learn more about this year’s retreat, visit the conference site.

Hope to see you there!

Yes, it is official! Mobile Art Con 2011 is a go!  We have confirmed the dates and location for iAMDA’s 2nd Annual International Conference…err..UN-Conference, and now we want to share it with YOU!

Mobile Art Con 2011 (new name pending) will set up shop at NYU ITP for a 2nd year.  The conference dates are confirmed for October 1-2, 2011 with art making activities, events and ‘happenings’ running the full week prior (9/25-9/30).

We anticipate a bigger and even more exciting event than last year!   If you weren’t able to make it to last year’s gathering, this is your opportunity to see what everyone’s been talking about!  And if you made last year’s–well, let’s just say, it was only the beginning!

So STAY TUNED, everyone! Info on events, travel and how to submit workshop proposals will be released over the next few weeks.

Wanna volunteer? Become a MobileArtCon 2011 Sponsor? Or perhaps you have some ideas about activities or things you’d like to see at the next MobileArtCon. Email us and let us know!

*Note:  The above image was fingerpainted by JoseAndres Guijarro Ponce at  Times Square during MobileArtCon 2010.  To view more images and video from last year’s conference, visit www.MobileArtCon.com or check out iAMDAOrg’s YouTube channel.

MobileArtCon opening event sponsored by Brushes

It’s hard to believe it has already been two weeks since MobileArtcon. With everyone back home now, it seems like a good time to reflect on what happened and what made the event a success.

One of the amazing aspects of MobileArtCon was that a bunch of people- most of whom had never met, came together not only to make the event happen, but to make a community. Most of us knew of each other’s work from Flickr, but had never seen or spoken to each other in person. Even the organizers knew each other only through weekly skype calls. If you look through the pictures from the events, it looks like a group of old friends-a community.

MobileArtCon was a first chance most of us had to meet and talk in person-to see each other’s work first-hand and to share ideas and methods. One of my favorite parts of the Con, besides the great presentations, was seeing artists show each other what they were working on, how they did it and what other cool apps are out there.  While social networking sites have allowed us to find each other and see each other’s work, real-time connections help us expand the conversation and explore possibilities in a way the confined world of social networking can’t.

MobileArtCon Saturday Night in Times Square

We are already thinking about the next MobileArtCon-where it will be held, what it will be about, but until then what’s next? How can we take that energy and sense of community  and collaboration with us and keep it going throughout the year?

One answer seems to be with local and regional groups and meetups. One group from Spain has already started talking about a Spanish language group. We all need to reach out to the people we met at the con, whether through in-person meetups or even video chat to continue the conversation and collaboration.

In the coming weeks we will be working on the website-making upgrades and improvements and adding tools for collaboration. The goal is to make something that is more tailored to the needs of the group that will allow us to share our knowledge and ideas in real time and work together on projects.

Let’s also take the energy and sense of community that came out of our first conference and put it to work for iAMDA. In the coming weeks and months we will be applying for 501c3 status which will expand our fundraising possibilities and allow the organization to work toward developing educational programming, exhibitions and an expanded conference.

The most important thing we all need to do is keep communicating with each other. Join one of the discussion boards on the site. Invite other mobile digital artists to join. Give us your feedback and let us know what you want from this organization.

This amazing clip Autodesk produced of the Con makes me miss my new friends, but it is also a little picture of what we accomplished. MobileArtCon was the start of something new, something big, but it was just a start. Let’s keep it going.