Apps
At App Store you can install lots of different apps, for example for entertainment - including socialization, games and creative work. Today, we are particularly interested in photos, (including selfies!) and how we can help to transform those pictures and make them shine even more and give them new life through various filters with the help of apps.
Mirawarri is a photo and digital image-making art app to bring your photos to life and stand out from the crowd with the Mirawarri digital frames, stickers and stamps.
Mirrawarri’s technical functions
When you have install the app at iPhone or Android you can use it to create unique photo creations, either with your already stocked pictures or with a whole new taken picture.
Once you have selected the picture you want to continue with, you will see three menu items. In those menus you can choose between different frames, different stickers and different kind of stamps. With the items from the three menus you can create some unique images.
The different items from the three menus are inspired from the Warnayaka Aboriginal Art Centre in Australia's central desert. The app is bursting with color, beautiful Warlpiri painting from the Warnayaka Art Centre and photos from Australia's red centre.
When you are satisfied with you created image, you have the opportunity to save it in you photo album at your phone. You could also share it on different social medias and if you want, you can use the hashtag #Mirawarri to share your photo creations with other Mirawarri users on social media - and be part of an ongoing project.
The aesthetic expression in the app
In the photo and digital image app, Mirawarri, you create some unique images with the help of cultural symbols, known from Warnayaka Aboriginal Art Centre in Australia. Because of the use of those symbols, you not only use the app for entertainment, but also to create some kind of symbolic art. The symbols in the items have history and though you maybe don't know the story of the symbols, the result of your creative image gaining some added value.
When downloading the app, the app's description says following: "Forget boring hearts and flower-crowns; add a totally different, eye-catching aesthetic to your selfies". Since an aesthetic expression can be interpreted differently from person to person, it's not obvious that everyone finds your created image aesthetic, but what makes this app's function possible as being aesthetically is these historical symbols which originate from centuries ago, created by a people, many of whom are considered to be inspiring.
What this app does differently from other apps is to involve a culture that is brought to life in a digital world. It is a new opportunity to get young people to work with aboriginal while creating art. With the technical ability to share the finished image on social media, it can wake up the interest of others in the app and open more people's eyes to these symbolic items and maybe to increase the interest to get involved with the aboriginals culture.
Reflection
In the text Welcome to Airspace by Kylie Chayka, the German co-founder of Third Wave, Igor Schwarzmann establish that over the past few years, something has happened. That every coffee place looks the same whether you are in Odessa, Beijing, Los Angeles or Seoul - the same raw wood tables, exposed brick and hanging Edison bulbs. And the funny part of it is that they have all independently decided to adopt the same faux-artisanal aesthetic. And it creates you going to the same place all over again. What’s interesting about that? Maybe not much, but it is some kind of safe and not too excited.
The creators behind the Mirawarri app; Gretta Louw and Owen Mundy have tried to create an app that is innovative, yet still easy and a bit familiar for the users. The new is the use of aboriginal art in the creations of images, and the familiar is the way to create the images, as well as to save and share on social media.
There is a good chance that the users would be able to use the app quickly. The question is whether the users are entertaining enough and if you do not already have knowledge about aboriginals; will it be interesting for the users to interact with? Personally, I quickly lost interest in using the app and although I have been in Australia myself and studied aboriginal art, I don't think the app managed to give me added value and reason enough to interact with it.
