I managed to get up to Manchester for the FutureSonic festival. Officially I was there to help exhibit Bob the Lamp, but as Elly pretty much had it sorted, I had time to get involved in the talks and debates that were going on. As I previously said I found it pretty interesting, and a welcome return to open debate on the subject of technology & future. The last conference I attended was about digital media, in London, but I can’t remember what it was called and that pretty much sums it up.
Highlights for me included:
- Aaron Koblin showing his amazing data visualisation using processing, for the Radiohead music video. The most interesting part was the way the 3d laser scanning machine thing collected reams of data while Thom Yorke performed the song. Of course, Terabytes of data were moved into the actual visualisation within a few hours, the beauty of programming. He now works for Google. That’s what you get for being damn good.
- The Semantic Web and how it will supercede the web in its amazing “linked data” way… that was good.
- Making Fun Serious was an exhibition by RCA students in collaboration with Yamaha, the artifacts turned used commonplace household objects into musical instruments. See image of chair. Yes that’s me. Why not make a debut on my own site in a picture of me looking (+ acting) like Stephen Hawking. You sit in the chair, and speak into the microphone on a stick. You then use the joystick situated on the arm of the chair, to modulate, amplify and distort your noise, and it is projected through these distributed trumpet like speakers.
- Usman Haque’s Natural Fuse which I never quite got my head round, but was fascinating nevertheless. It is a network of plants and control units that monitor the energy consumption of a mains outlet, and serves as a natural circuit breaker by controlling the quantity of water given, according to the carbon footprint of the said energy used. It was commissioned for this event which also looks interesting.
I’m yet to find my notes, so perhaps I’ll add more to this over the next few days.