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…
Wow, I am stoked because a website I designed has just won an award!
