Section 3
Abstract, Background, and Conceptual Apps

There are many apps that generate abstract art. This section will look at some of the most usefu ones that should be in everyone’s toolbox and a few others just to get you thinking.

It should be noted, here, that there are dedicated artists who choose to spend their entire supply of creative energy exploring these apps to the nth degree. This is their artform, the search for beauty in abstract visualizations and, perhaps, the subject of another book.

My goal here is to round out this very large group of apps to the most relevant and the ones mobile artists have gravitated to as part of their digital toolbox. The goal is to also provide an insightful visual overview so the prospective artist can effectively determine their possible value to his/ her own iPhone/iPad art.

They include apps that are interactive fractal generators, kaleidoscope apps that allow for transformations of any image on your camera roll, abstract image-generating apps of various types, 3D modeling apps, and apps that let you paint like Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko. The section also includes apps that are designed to transform your photos in various abstract ways.

This section concludes with examples of apps that were created as art pieces, so that the art is the experience of interacting with the app, not necessarily the outcome. Created by artists who have taken up this new challenge, they force us to wrap our heads around the very concept of app as art. The section ends with a chapter where the iPhone itself is the artwork and with some final thought-provoking ideas on “What is art?” as it relates to mobile devices.