Well, this was my first year attending this conference, and I was completely blown away. I didn’t really know what to expect, since I’m not very experienced with Flash, and wondered if the content would be over my head… I took a good hard look at the sessions and descriptions, and there seemed to be an attractive balance between the technical sessions, and the business/creative/panel sessions, so I took the leap! (And am I ever glad I did!)
Here’s the list of sessions I attended:
How to B.S. (brainstorm) Better – Jason Theodore
Think Globally, Design Locally – Alan Smith & Patrick Keenan
The department of homeland graffiti – Evan Roth, Graffiti Research Lab
Director as Provocateur – Shilo
Beyond the Knowledge: The art of playing – Erik Natzke
The Pixel Whisperer – Mario Klingemann
The Madness of Interaction – Grupo W
Designing Fiction – Tali Krakowsky, Imaginary Forces
Flash 2D and 3D effects – Ralph Hauwert, Unit One Zero One
New Works – Joshua Davis
How Buck Goes About Making Commercials And Stuff – Buck
North Kingdom, an inside view – Robert Lindström, North Kingdom
Flash now and in the future – Richard Galvan, Adobe
We do it cause we love it – Niko Stumpo, Hana Zuki
Making the invisible visible – Zachary Lieberman
G49 Behind the scenes: Things are not always as they seem – Group94
Cinematic Motion Design – Devoid of Yesterday’s Chris Hewitt and Rob Chiu
Breaking Away – Robert Hodgin
Some of the most notable sessions:
Breaking Away
Robert Hodgin is an unbelievably talented guy, who has been working with the program Processing in order to create his stunning art. His session was mostly centered around his different work, his processes and inspirations. Start simple, he says. And make lots and lots of mistakes! What can I say, this session actually made me want to number crunch!
Below is an image from his magnetic ink explorations.
Beyond the Knowledge: The art of playing
Erik Natzke is a designer/programmer pushing the boundaries between design and technology. He uses code to produce beautiful abstract works of art.
The Pixel Whisperer
This session was a great balance between creative and technical. Mario Klingemann
(who considers himself a “computational artisan”) was a joy to listen to, and he shared with the audience some of the stunningly useful applications that he has been developing, which can be found at http://a.viary.com/
Making the Invisible Visible
This session was awesome! Zachary Lieberman creates interactive installations which make your jaw drop! Projections that react to your speech and your movements, music generated by the creation of random shapes… Stop-motion animation techniques are used to trick the eye into seeing the shapes magically lift themselves off the page. It was just a sneak peek of some of the incredible projects he’s been working on recently. Fascinating and inspiring!
Thoughts / Reflections / Inspiration
• Baby steps, start simple
• Some of the most beautiful work can be created through programming
• Experiment, make mistakes
• Take inspiration from nature
• Collaborate with people who have skills you want to learn
• Don’t waste time working on projects you aren’t passionate about
• Always keep learning
• Ask yourself, what have I done for the world?