Fracture is the latest in a series of cubism based applications that include Self Portrait? and the WiiMote portrait generator. This time, however, the platform is the iPhone and the subject is the user. Photographs can be taken on the spot or selected from the image library, and used to 'paint' abstract portraits which can be saved to the gallery.

Aesthetics employed by masters such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque have been studied and recreated in this painting tool. In particular, the visual language of the Analytical Cubism movement has been recreated.

Experiencing artwork in this manner is a new and fascinating phenomenon. The ability to carry art in one's pocket empowers both the consumer and the artist; users can be inspired whenever they choose and artists have a new platform with the potential for reaching huge audiences. Apps that fall into this category tend to adopt a distinctly digital aesthetic. Fracture's departure from this approach affords it a paradoxical quality. On the one hand it juxtaposes old and new, the analogue and digital; on the other, there is a strong correlation between Cubism, one of the first contemporary art movements, and mobile art, in that they have both introduced deviations from traditional forms of display and consumption.