While some may lament the relentless onslaught of images produced in the global photostream that has resulted from the unholy alliance of smart-phones and sharing sites, the good folks at iPhoneArt.com would like you to know that a great number of artists have also turned their attention to the new media and are doing their best to make real art with it. This week, the exhibition space at the Santa Monica Art Studios at the Santa Monica Airport becomes an IRL (or In Real Life, as the kids say) repository for the fruits of all this thumb-labor. Expanding well beyond photography to encompass the still largely unrecognized genre of software-based fine art, as well as sculptural, filmicArt and performative work, the Los Angeles Mobile Arts Festival 2012 celebrates the potential for innovation, interactivity, romanticism, storytelling and wide-eyed wonder offered by these most ubiquitous of tech tools. The 100+ artists participating in the festival would like to assure you, this is about as far from bad-taste tagging and snapshots of strangers' dinner orders as you can get. C U this wknd? Exclnt. Santa Monica Art Studios, 3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. Sat., Aug. 18, 7-10 p.m.; exhibit runs thru Aug. 25, noon-6 p.m.;. free. iphoneart.com.

Wednesdays-Saturdays. Starts: Aug. 18. Continues through Aug. 25, 2012

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