Building a Culture of Ubiquity: The Hand
The information appliance is an intimate space, unlike the larger, more paper-like or cinematic space of the screen.	Following from this systematic reading of the screen as interface for the embodiment of digitally mediated experience, let us take the first shift off the screen and onto the hand. From the creation of Mattel Electronic Grand Prix to the Nintendo GameBoy [10] and Tamagotchi, electronic games are the precursors to the information appliance, and have been with us for over twenty five years. The introduction of information processing (PDAs), and cellular phones (distributed networks), create the opportunity for the creation of aesthetic experiences in the interstitial 'cracks' in distributed/cellular networks and highly localized devices like the Palm and Pocket PC. These devices, such as the Web-enabled cell phone and PDA/PocketPC have only been recently been recognized in the US as a platform for the delivery of cultural content. Currently, I know of few artists using these devices [11], probably due to their diversity of operating systems and nascent level of development/proliferation. However, the wireless networks bridge the gap between the Internet and cellular networks, and are the next logical step towards a ubiquitous transmission of cultural codes.	Courtesy of Nintendo
	The information appliance is an intimate space, unlike the larger, more paper-like or cinematic space of the screen. Even at the level of the device as a chip on a board embedded microcontroller, it hearkens to systems in which the body is biometrically linked to the digital aesthetic space, or that the experience could be distributed across numerous small devices in large collaborative interactions. On another level, the information plays on the precious and fetishistic, as is evident in specialty items like gadget watches and PDAs for teenagers [12]. Because of these aspects of such technologies, it is logical that there is a specious quality about these devices that bears investigation.
	In my own work, I have been interested in the information appliance as a place to subvert the intimate (both through violation of the 'trust' of the OS/user interface and creation of distributed collaborative spaces), to create networked experiences, and to become emotionally involved with the information structures we create. A project developed with the generative music company Sseyo was the SseyoPhone. [13]. The important concept for the phone is that is creates a step towards individual expression through the information appliance.	Courtesy Sseyo
	This was done through allowing the user to use generative music algorithms to create unique 'signature' ring tunes and network-based collaborative jams. In so doing, it questions the role of collaboration and collective interaction in distributed environments by blurring the line between the artist/musician and the sampler artist/interactor. The phone itself illustrates the aesthetic object as McLuhanist prosthetic, and transparent (yet still physical) interface to the digital sphere. Its mode of representation is still rather straightforward in following semi-traditional compositional and game play processes, but what may be even more exciting are culture jamming experiments for this type of platform.
	For example, one concept that plays on short-circuiting the intimate level of trust implicit in the functioning of an operating system is my series of Alpha Revision [14] interventions called "the Graphic User Interface". In one, based on Perry Hoberman's Error Message series, the user is greeted to hostile and ambiguous error messages when the applet is enabled in the Pocket PC. Instead of the usual error message, the user is treated to insults, arguments about Microsoft, and other comments which problematize the role of the palmtop as subservient assistant. In the other Graphic User Interface, the desktop is replaced by the visage of a mangled corpse, and the space of interaction is transformed into a forensic dissection table as the parts of the dismembered body replace the program icons.
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