What’s the largest of the 52 United States of America?
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Archive for the 'Inspiration' Category
30
Dec
Joke…
14
Nov
Best Job Ever…
I have been freelancing for the past year and was getting on okay, but in July I stumbled across a job advert that spiked my curiosity. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I applied for the job, got an interview, trialed - part time over 2 months and started full-time again in October. I am now helping to build an army of robots to take over the world*
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17
Nov
Jello Biafra
Last night we went to see Jello Biafra at the Princess Pavilion in Falmouth. He was doing a spoken word tour and having heard some of his stuff from CD’s a mate had lent me, I was really keen to see what he had to say.
Well, he did not look like I expected at all, for some reason I expected someone a bit skinnier, maybe it’s his voice. His “show”, for want of a better word, was really good, especially the monologues - check out “Ass Clowns in Toyland” which is a wonderful satire on Washington DC.
The stuff Jello talks about is mainly US orientated, but a large part of this was devoted towards “The War On Terror” (TWOT) & Bush generally being a tosser (TWAT). It’s interesting to hear that the US media is apparently so biased and dumbed down that most ordinary Americans may not actually know what is going on. I would be interested to hear what other Americans think about this point.
Jello made his points in a lucid and entertaining way. I am not going to believe everything I hear without reading around, but most of what he says does not come across as paranoid conspiracy theories. Like Mark Thomas yesterday, he immediately distanced himself from all the people who think 9/11 was a conspiracy of the US government.
The only disappointing thing was the audience, from hearing the CD’s I was expecting a bit of audience participation, but I got really pissed off with people having their own private conversations & shouting out totally non related anarchist bollox at regular intervals. Jello had to ask people to shut-up a couple of times, but handled the crapness pretty well. Someone commented that people may not have known some of the people, places or things he was talking about, but then neither did I, but at least I could get the gist of what he was trying to say and I learnt a few things on the way.
He summed stuff up pretty well by encouraging people to start small and try to make a difference in their community - not peeing up the walls would be a good start, but probably too difficult for the noisiest drunkest fuckwit in the audience, his partner being the second most irritating. Maybe my community spirit should extend to them a bit more, but I would rather help people who want to help themselves…
Maybe there should have been an interval as the show ran for the best part of 3 hours, but Falmouth audiences have annoyed me yet again & my patience with pissed and stoned idiots is running thin - no wonder nothing gets done if you can’t remember what you are supposed to be doing when you wake up the next day.
15
Nov
Mark Thomas & McDemo’s
I have just come back from seeing Mark Thomas at The Acorn in Penzance and feeling very liberated after a very funny evening.
For those of you who don’t know, Mark Thomas is a comedian, activist and presenter who enjoys doing political stunts to make everyone realise how fucked up some of the things in our world are. Check out his website for more info www.markthomasinfo.com
Anyway, I saw him a few years ago, in Edinburgh where he mainly talked about his work on the Ilisu Dam campaign, which was both funny and then harrowing at the same time.
His latest target is the governments ridiculous law the “Serious Organised Crime and Police Act” 2005, which has a provision to restrict the right of protest near Parliament. As usual, he has found brilliant ways in which to exploit the ridiculous nature of the law and his act contained all the stories relating to this.
For all the armchair activists wanting to make a point, he has also started a company called McDemo’s that will protest on your behalf for £5 (The Happy Demo) or 99p (The Value Demo). Make sure you get over to www.mcdemos.com in order to see how you can register your protest.
It was a wicked show & if you can get to see him, or get his DVD then make sure you do. If not, at least buy a Value Demo and register your dissent with the politicians.
Keep an eye on his website too, as he is working on a huge stunt that could put the icing back on the cake - as long as the icing does not read anything political, we can all join in.
Tomorrow it’s Jello Biafra live at the Princess Pavilion in Falmouth. Get political!
08
Nov
Flash On The Beach
I promised myself I would start blogging this year and after a few failed attempts, I have been truly inspired to say something. I also have to write an evaluation so this will help me out too.
I just got back from Flash On The Beach in Brighton which was my first ever conference and I have to say the best so far. Anyway, for those of you not in the Flash world, it was a chance to get together and geek out about a piece of software and the world that revolves around it. Mundane you might think, but if you throw in some well known people from the industry of multimedia, design & print and get some of them to show off the work they have done, you may be as inspired as me to make a conscious effort to explore the world of Flash or just the work of these people in more depth.
Before going, I did not really know what to expect, but thought that one - two hundred people in Brighton getting a chance to see some good stuff and learn was a start. My first surprise was walking in on Monday morning to find about 800 people - wow. I was also a bit starstruck seeing quite a few faces of people who’s blogs I have been reading for the past 18 months too - what do you say to someone who can do this
I tried to plan a bit of a schedule and choose a few people I really wanted to see and as a result, my list seemed a little too heavy on the creative / graphics side of things rather than the coding one. I mainly write code, so I thought I may need to remedy this, but after the first day, I realised that following my heart rather than my head was the best thing to do. As a result, I got to see some of my heroes and well known people from the industry & some new people whom I had not yet discovered.
I have come away from FOTB totally refreshed and inspired - last night I had about an hour’s sleep on the train, but was awake writing down about 50 ideas at 2am. I think this is the start of something really good.
Anyway, who was there, what did they do & what did I see? Well, check out the original schedule here
Stuff that was cool:
Chris Orwig talked about telling a story behind something to engage and hopefully get an emotional response. He also gave us the impetus to find more interesting ways in which to present ourselves using these ideas.
Joshua Davies gave an amazing insight into the way he produces his work using Flash to generate illustrations & sketches then hand picking out the best bits to produce compositions. I really liked his full on personality & humour - fuckin’ awesome. You can look at his slides here: http://workshop.joshuadavis.com/
Brendan Dawes’ session gave me a sense of nostalgia. He talked about going away from the “default” so I really need to make sure my blog template is changed soon otherwise there will be trouble. I must find out what records he cut in the 90’s. The only thing in my notes from this session was “inspirational nutter” which about sums it up…
Craig Swann was another person who talked about getting away from the usual stuff and I really got into his idea of messing around with video / electronics / Flash and combining these technologies. His presentation was really cool looking too, but his MIDI guitar & camera was great to see - Think Differently.
Mario Klingemann - wow, like Kraftwerk got a computer. Might have to call him “super Mario” as he prepends everything with the word, but stuff generally is super if he has anything to do with it. This is the guy to ask anything about Flash & Bitmaps. He is also doing some amazing work creating multi-touch interfaces just by using a webcam and some of his really cool code. http://lectures.quasimondo.com/
Carlos Ulloa showed us some really cool tricks to start doing 3D simply and then showed off his work on the Sony Bravia site - nice.
Alex Jenkins and A.N.Other (sorry) from Unit 9 showed us some of their work and talked about getting an emotional response - a theme emerges here. Alex has done animation work on some of the cooler sites that you may have seen around this year like Adobe’s Creative Mind see more at http://www.unit9.com/
Robert Hodgin who developed flight404 has had enough of the limitations Flash so he has been using Processing. His talk continued to astound me as he revealed his work piece by piece - building up from simple components into his Magnetosphere project. Just check out the video piece he did to Trentemoller’s audio - make sure you have about 10 minutes and somewhere quiet to enjoy it. This had to be the highlight of the conference for me - audio is often neglected in work I see, but sometimes it can be combined with visuals to create a sublime & moving experience. Definitely got an emotional response.
Erik Natzke was another guy who’s name I had heard a lot, but only recently discovered. Again, he does some really interesting stuff with Flash, algorithms & visuals. Music seems to be an important part of this guys inspiration and most of his presentation stuff was accompanied with some of the sounds that drive him. He also showed us one of his video pieces, which, again, blew me away. On top of all that, I managed to get one of his beautiful prints from the Concentrik work - cheers Erik!
I have been waiting to see Neville Brody for ages - I was mimicking his stuff at school. I was a bit miffed at first because his presentation started the same as one I have seen on video about “restarting” and challenging the norm. But it did change soon enough and it was interesting to see behind the work Research Studios did on The Times newspaper. I am not sure if he got to see the other presentations by various guys, but maybe he will find out that most of the people I have listed above are all saying similar things to him - get out there, play, challenge the norm & do something different.
Finally Jared Tarbell rounded off the conference with a cracking presentation showing how he does his work. The stuff he does is a bit more rooted in maths algorithms than some of the other guys work, but it can produce some beautiful results - check it out at Levitated.net but also go and have a look at the Etsy project he is involved with.
There was loads of cool stuff going on that I have not listed here, so go and explore the sessions / speakers and look at their sites. The general theme seemed to be break the rules / think different / play more and seeing this stuff, I am inspired & determined to start messing round and experimenting with my Flash code again. Watch this space…
