Be Smart

Digital artist Aya Karpinska has published a digital children's literature piece, entitled, "Shadows Never Sleep," for the iPhone and iTouch, available for free download from the iTunes App Store. (For the Apple device-impaired folks, you can watch Quicktime and html demos on her site.

There won't be any spoilers here. I will say that the narrative uses sparse text and black and white images to create a slightly spooky quality in this work, described as "zoom fiction." The genre's name comes from its interface, which is an innovative utilization of the touch screen's unique two finger "zoom" feature to explore the narrative. She collaborated with Nick Dalton, who did the programming, and Roxanne Carter was the model for the stark silhouettes.

It's exciting to see artists starting to experiment with these new digital forms and move beyond the games and efficiency mobile applications that are popular and useful, but somewhat obvious.