22 posts tagged “technology”
Coming up this July 2-3 in London is a new event called 2gether08 that is being organized summer-festival style, combining the best of conference, with a bit of Festival fun mixed in. Check out what’s happening here:
2gether08 is brought to you by the innovative UK broadcaster Channel 4.
***Early Bird Discount Passes Available Now***
You’ve got until this Monday, 16th June, to
get an early bird discount for passes.
Register here: http://www.2gether08.eventbrite.com/
Come along and help...
Solve Bigger Problems at 2gether08
On offer are two days and nights of talks, workshops, debates, interviews, parties, awards and some surprises. More than 300 people from throughout London’s creative industries are planning to attend and the speaker line-up includes politicians, writers, a philosopher, economists, entrepreneurs, technologists, scientists and more to soon be announced. See the who’s who list of speakers here http://2gether08.com/programme/
Among attendants you’ll find many of London’s top influential creatives from new technology, business, media, art and entertainment, all gathering to hammer out new ideas, along with a few positive action steps that can be taken to make the world a better place. I’m hoping that this is going to be similar to what happens, when ideas get started, and spreading at TED talks.
2gether08 is a Grassroots, DIY, Co-Created, People-Powered Festival of Ideas
Most inspiring is how 2gether08 is being organized, with the active participation of those attending. Invitations and calls for ideas went out among London’s creative entrepreneurial community to begin shaping the agenda for what 2gether08 will tackle, and topic discussions will cover every subject from climate change to international relations to community issues. At the heart of the concept is a focus surrounding how new technology can propel social change, and it is social networking that has been shaping out 2gether08 across London.
I can report that the organizers are listening, with about 100 workshops being organized for attendants, by attendants.
My agency Hai Media Group is proud to be among the supporters of 2gether08.
We are helping out the organizers with PR support, if you have queries about press passes, please contact me. Download the 2gether08 Event Alert here:
**If you have a blog, or Twitter, or know someone who does,
please post news about this event, and help get the ideas going.
I’ll be blogging about what ideas emerge from 2gether08, and
if you have any pressing topics that you’d like to see guest’s put
their heads
together on, I’m interested to hear your thoughts, so please leave a
comment
about what is happening in your part of the world that needs attention.
You are welcome to contact me here, or email me at info [at]
haimediagroup [dot] com
Helping out to solve bigger problems with 2gether08,
-Lisa
Who’s Lisa Devaney?
I head the Hai Media Group, a multimedia communications company based in London,
offering client’s traditional public relations, combined with new technology marketing strategies. I also perform, creating original Cabaret-style comedy skits for festivals, theatre and parties. Find out more about me, and the talented entrepreneurs I collaborate with, by visiting: www.haimediagroup.com
Thames University senior lecturer for digital media and artist Richard Colson, this week debuted his new book The
Fundamentals of Digital Art to a sold-out audience of about 300 at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London. His reference book traces the early days of digital art, beginning with a timeline that starts with the 1950 publication of Norbert Weiner’s ‘Cybernetics and Society’ essay exploring the integrated relationships machines have with humans.
Nearly six decades on, the field of digital art remains a discipline that is still being defined by both artists and technologists who are constantly experimenting with new approaches and applications. The artist’s tools rapidly emerge with new technology developments, transforming the medium, every few months. Richard Colson told the audience that his new book is original in its effort to put into context what has been emerging between the intersection of technology and art for these past decades. He talked about his favourite decade of attending art school in the 1970s, when, he fondly remembered, making art from technology had a very organic approach among its creators, who were boldly going where none had gone before. With no commercial objectives or support at that time, the creations that resulted were all conceived from pure creative motivation, and the human mind’s desire to build something, because you can. This mindset is best put by Marshall McLuhan, who Colson quotes in his book:
“The artist is a man in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness.”
Colson’s book features his personal selections of digital artworks that he finds to be pivotal in the movement from the
earliest works such as James Seawright’s 1968 piece called Scanner. Scanner hangs from a ceiling, within labs of IBM and depicts the historical innovations in data-processing machines. It is an interesting place to think of finding art, dangling from the inner sanctum of the early days of the computer industry’s ‘Big Blue’ corporation. Comment from Jasia Reichardt explains this moment in time of the late 60s of an era when:
“What was significant was that the computer brought in its wake new people to become involved in making art and composing music. People who had never thought of putting pencil to paper, brush to canvas, started making images.”
Among those who were boldly exploring new territory is Steve Roberts, who in 1983, rode a a computerized recumbent bicycle across the America, that he kitted-out with technology gadgets, including an early version of a laptop, that allowed him to stay online during his journey. His contraption was the first known ‘mobile office’ and, as Colson features in his new book, makes us wonder – was it art or technology? Clearly it was a mix of both, with the spirit of an intrepid adventurer mixed in.
“The project took six months, a well-focused, fast-track, all-out effort that I recall with wistful fondness from my current perspective of overwhelming complexity. The bike had to be fabricated from scratch, as the few recumbents of the day were too delicate for the anticipated abuse. I hired a wizard frame builder to braze a strong and well-balanced substrate, a decision that proved correct countless times over the ensuing decade as it was subjected to 17,000 miles of overloading on often-inhospitable pavement. I liquidated my suburban lifestyle, assembled a camping system and a simple electronics package powered by a 5-watt solar panel, established a base office and basic network protocols, and hit the road.” –Steve Roberts
The author’s cherry picking efforts of digital project highlights from this era of art, opens our own thought and imagination to how everyday gadgets and technologies are possibly art in themselves, or have been used as supplies for art creations. Locative art projects make use of GPS systems, PDAs, mobile phones and other easily available consumer gadgets to experiment with technology in new ways. An example of this is the Greenwich Emotion Map by Christian Nold, produced in 2006.
Among my own favourite selections in the book is Daniel Brown’s creation of mutating plants, in which a computer programme is set free to allow for digital plants to reproduce and mutate into any shape and style they wish. You can play with some of this artist’s creations at www.play-create.com.
How Do You Collect Digital Art?
In conversation with some of the attendants at the book launch this week, some of us wondered about what avid art collectors are doing to preserve some of the early works of digital art. Some of the earliest are run on now out-dated technology platforms, like those huge mainframes found at IBM, and how might you store and keep hold of such a piece and would it still be of value? It seems this area of art is still an affordable and highly collectible option for art appreciators.
I’ve certainly got a personal history with this form of art, much like Colson describes of his own experience, as I’ve visited a number of digital art galleries, supported the Cybersonica festival and Cybersalon organization, and watched my brother’s work evolved over two decades . My brother has been described as being among one of the earliest digital artists to emerge from the discipline, for work he did in the early 90s with his experimental website e13.com, as well as commissioned pieces with Gasbook, Shift and MoMa. My brother laughs about the day a high-brow art gallery owner phoned him up and informed him that he was looking for digital artists to exhibit in his gallery show and would my brother make something for it? That was around 1993, and it seemed the art world had suddenly turned its attention to the things web designers and technologists had been tinkering with for a few decades in their spare time.
With Colson’s new book, it does feel like a tipping point may be reached in this field, in which more attention will be given to the value of the creations of these visionary creative people operating in the intersection between art and technology. If you are a collector, it might be time to preserve your early CD rom and Floppy Disks that capture the early days of graphic programmes, and if you have the space, store the classic Apple computers so that you’ll have the technology platform to experience the original digital artist’s works.
If
you want to get started understanding who’s who and pivotal in the field,
Colson’s book is a good starting point and is packed with interesting reference
points for anyone studying digital media today. The Fundatmentals of Digital
Art will certainly be a course favourite among those training to become the
next generation of digital generation of technology-savvy artists.
Looking
forward to what today’s digital artists
will make for the future,
-Lisa
PS: While visiting the ICA for Richard Colson’s book launch, Vivienne Westwood past me in the lobby, and I was awestruck. She truly strikes an impressive display in real life as is fitting with her reputation. She was at the ICA for a speaking engagement.
Who’s Lisa Devaney? I head the Hai Media Group, a multimedia communications company based in London, offering client’s traditional public relations, combined with new technology marketing strategies. I also perform, creating original Cabaret-style comedy skits for festivals, theatre and parties. Find out more about me, and the talented entrepreneurs I collaborate with, by visiting: www.haimediagroup.com
Today I've officially hung up an OPEN for business sign in my virtual shop window.
I've started telling the whole wide world about the Hai Media Group, my London-based agency offering traditional public relations and multimedia communications services to a variety of clients. Find out all about HMG here:
View HMG's launch press release here.
Why hai?
Yes! keeps the show going. Yes! lets the amusing script emerge and yes is a word that overcomes stage fright, welcomes others into your show, and is the absolute key to opening your mind to creative possibilities. For me, I began using the word yes much more often, beyond the stage. The impact was transformational. It was the word YES that got me here to London, when I said yes to my husband Dr. John Fraser Laird Devaney's proposal of marriage. Oh, by the way, the .com URL for calling my company the Yes Media Group was taken. I like hai better anyways. :-)
I'm sipping a bit of champagne right now and giving myself a hard earned huge pat on the back for this committment. I've been working really hard since late August 2007, to get everything I need in place for this moment. I'm now at a point in time where I feel confident enough with HMG to let everyone, even my Mom, know about this entrepreneurial venture. I've been operating as an independent PR consultant since 2002, but my business has grown to include collaborating with other professionals in a variety of exicting fields, and I felt strongly that it was time to hang a brand on what I've been doing. Setting up this business has meant that I've had to spend a lot of quality time with my computer, often on weekends and late into the night over the last six months. In addition to creating the HMG brand and business plan of action, I've been keeping up existing work and personal life responsibilities - and blogging here on Vox.com! I've heard it a million times from independent business people about how working for yourself is a 24-hour job, and I certainly now know exactly what they are talking about. It's like I'm pretty much working all the time! The good part is that pushing yourself to be entrepreneurial and self-sufficient can also be extremely self-motivating.
HMG is allowing me to do a lot of very positive things and has opened up really exciting potential opportunities. While I am the founder and director of this young company, I do not work alone! I've teamed up with some really great media partners, all who I've worked with in some capacity during my career both in the USA and here in the UK. So, here is my big thanks to the following very supportive people who have been encouraging in helping me with the steps I've needed to take with this business:
- Sarah Platt and Ben Styles with Kinura.com
- Barbara Anglisz and Nick Cordua, who run Adept Technologies. Barb, who is among my BFF crew, has been a long term pal who I met waaaay back in my Silicon Alley days, a client, and a very skilled business person I emulate and respect.
- Dr. Richard Barbrook, political science lecturer at the University of Westminster, and author of Imaginary Futures, who early in our friendship and professional association working with Cybersalon and its festival Cybersonica, spotted that I had a blazing creative and entrepreneurial spirit and helped me culture this to better fit the London community. He also figured out that I'm an artist and performer, in addition to my PR profession, and has enjoyed, and encouraged, my occassional impromtu showcases of odd spoken word poetry, improv ballad singing and comedy performance art.
- Kate Risker, who, in my opinion, and experience of working nearly 15 years in promotions, is London's absolute most amazing event organizer. She's a delight to be associated with here in London, and in a lot of ways reminds me of myself -- about, well, a long time ago. Her enthusiasm and passion for the event's industry is infectious. She keeps a blog on Vox at www.missrisk.vox.com
- Vijay Chattha who heads the high-tech public relations firm VSC Consulting in San Francisco, and who I've worked with as a virtual 'ambassador' for his company here in London for a few years now. What I most like about Vijay is that he is not at all just a PR guy, he has fantastic intelligence, a big multicultural heart, and entrepreneurial skills and experience that very few PRs possess. Vijay also DJs, and sings, with a fantastic Punjabi-hip hop jazz funk band called Black Mahal, who bring bhangra beats to the masses, and he supports the beautiful charity Project Ahimsa. Did I mention he is a really nice guy as well?
- Gerry Griffin, the founder and CEO of Skill-Pill, who truly delivers a very important leadership characteristic of being a person who 'shows' rather than 'tells' as he is freely sharing knowledge with people, and in this way is someone I am learning a great deal from about the business world.
- Helen Keegan, who is a mobile marketing expert and writes the popular mobile industry blog Technokitten.com and who I give a heck of a lot of credit to for how I developed the name and branding of the Hai Media Group, as, tough critic though she can be in business, totally steered me in the absolute right direction with what I've been up to in my professional life over the last few years, and continues to be a navigator through what is inevitably the rough, rough, seas in the oceans of start-up business and self-employment
- Dan Boultwood, a rising comic book star in Britain, who helped me develop a logo and branding for HMG. I've been his fan since meeting him in my early days of living in London. And got very enthusiastic about his work, as I am a lifelong fan of comic book-style art in all its forms. Look for his comic series Hope Falls, which he produces with the writer Tony Lee, and view his mind-blowing portfolio at: www.shedmanor.co.uk
- Steve Double who is a total A-lister portrait photographer. Wow! - check out his photographs at www.double-whammy.com
- Heather Luttrell who is the founder and president of IndieClick.com, based in LA, an amazing digital visionary, who also happens to be a long term BFF (yes, you can have lots of BFFs and I have a few) from back in my Alley days, and a business mentor who has helped me learn a lot about the digital world in the last decade +
- My adored friends in New York City: DJ Mark Flynn and my beloved BFF soul sister Karin Louise Mahoney who I am now allowed to tell the whole wide world this news --- Mark and Karin are GETTING MARRIED!
- My husband Dr. John Fraser Laird Devaney (a PhD in physics that is!) who is my absolute secret weapon especially in swat team problem-solving IT needs and emotional support for this scary adventure
- & many, many, many more people on earth!
I may try to list all the other people I value (who don't mind being exposed online) in a separate big praising, big love post - all who have offered both really good business counsel and ongoing friendly, trustworthy support. Some of these people even go back to my childhood days growing up in the New York City metro area! HMG is a testament to the kinds of service and creative work I have delivered over the years, but more importantly - it is a beginning for what I aim to bring to the world moving forward.
My simple mission with HMG is to offer sensible service to my clients that makes full use of my two decades of communications experience in traditional PR, while keeping a very alive eye toward the future of how best to reach out to target audiences in ways that hopefully do not feel intrusive, or piss them off. With HMG I'll be folding in new technology marketing approaches where possible with client campaigns, which is why I'm defining my service offerings as being multimedia communications. In my opinion, the best approach to delivering messages is through multimedia that mixes up a variety of tools and tactics. I'll write more about what multimedia communications means to me professionally, but it is basically what ever single one of us live with, use and for the most part enjoy, every single day. Multimedia might mean being struck by an awe-inspiring still photograph, a hilarious YouTube video or an SMS text message that you get on your mobile phone. Multimedia is everywhere and everything around us and is changing every single day.
I'm a participant and creator in the emerging multimedia media landscape -- and so are you.
Welcome to my multimedia garden and I'm looking forward to adventures with my Hai Media Group.
Grow With HMG
You may also notice the plant theme going on here with the Hai Media Group. Nature and plants and the symbol for growth that they represent are central to what I am all about. Green also happens to be my favourite colour. I may live in the big bad city, but in an urban environment it is the green growing plants that mean so much to me -- even if it is just one struggling weed growing up between the cracks in the pavement. That struggling weed is representative of who I am, and what this business is all about. Plants also symbolize so much of my own artistic endeavours over the years, as well as the works of so many of my artistic friends. HMG is here to support the struggling weeds that show amazing potential. We will never STOMP on the growing creative energy that struggles to force its way up through the cracks in the pavement, because to do so is to kill spirit and energy that might emerge to fantastic potential and benefit everyone. HMG is a a watering can, a stake to hold up your business, nutrients for growth and supportive wall you can lean on when the fruits of your labor get a little to heavy to bear.
-Lisa
With my new business I am also happy to share my direct office contact information for you. Email me at: lisa@haimediagroup.com
Just like this:
"MacBook Air is ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything
else. But you don’t lose inches and pounds overnight. It’s the result
of rethinking conventions. Of multiple wireless innovations. And of
breakthrough design. With MacBook Air, mobile computing suddenly has a
new standard."
Ad copy to dream about.
Sarah Meyers is sooooooo lucky:
Ah, sweet dreams of Mac tonight.
-Lisa
One week on since new mobile service Mippin officially launched on Thursday, 11th October, and yes, it is official – the world is Mippin it!
Can't share exact stats just yet, but people everywhere are accessing
Mippin.com via their mobile browsers and using it to get a much better look at
content on offer from the mobile internet. Don't take my word for it - plenty
of other experts in mobile have been Twittering, Facebook'ing, and blogging
about the new service and their own opinion about using it.
The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss had this to say about Mippin.
Over at emerging culture blog BigShinyThing.com they gave Mippin's design some critique, along with spending time testing it all out here.
Robert Andrews got to Mippin it for Moconews.com & PaidContent, all in between coverage of the MipCom conference in France last week.
Ewan
McLeod of SMStextnews.com, avoided
tasty cakes at the tempting sneak preview in London last week, but filled up on
Mippin, as he describes here and here.
And
Lloyd Davis who pens the blog Perfect Path enjoyed chilling out at the library
room of The Soho Hotel in London, while considering Mippin, here.
Shiny Shiny’s Kat Hannaford, editor of TechDigest.com, got the dazzle dose of Mippin and liked it as seen in the photo.
And many more have been Mippin it in the US + UK + beyond, as the Google trail keeps growing with the merriment of Mippin.
OK, as the PR on Mippin’s launch, working in unision with mobile marketing maven Helen Keegan, aka Technokitten.com & head of BeepMarketing.com, and Cathy Pittham-Wiley, and the fabulous Kate Risker aka Miss Risk, we all deserve to blow our own horns on this one, along with everyone from Refresh Mobile (Prashant, Justin Baker, Flashy and plenty more) + Accel’s Judy Gibbons, as our teamwork pulled off some fantastic exposure. I've really enjoyed being part of helping Refresh Mobile start their newest chapter in helping millions of people better explore the mobile internet. In the rush, crush launch-time excitement I can pretty much say that (OK we are talking smaller scale here, but hey, its my blog and I can be OTT again if I want to) I personally felt like I was working on the new Netscape story of the mobile internet – and it was really exciting!
The whole Mippin launch experience had that kind of similar emerging technology, exciting tale to it, and I couldn’t help but give a thought back to wonder if some of the highs, lows and whoas – what’s going on again? – absolute exhiliration of it all, might have had the same kind of sparkle spark that the Netscape team got ignited with wwwaaaay back then in 1995.
What can I say, Mippin was infectious, addictive and warning label for all – utterly habit forming.
So Scott Beaumont, Co-Founder and VP Commercial, Refesh Mobile, had this to say about the Mippin launch this week:
“The response has been fantastic from the press, the blogosphere and all the people we’ve connected with so far who are trying out Mippin. We are really excited and have since launch-time added 300 new titles to the Mippin community, all some of the top links that people are searching for through Mippin.com.”
Behind the scenes the one little gem I haven’t seen picked up just yet about Mippin yet among media reports – is what and how exactly Mippin got its name. I first heard the story from Prashant, who explained that during development, pre-name sake days, the team kept talking about how what they were developing was a mobile internet publishing network –
Then someone turned around and said:
“You know that’s MIPPIN!”
Thus branding history was made, a new technology verb coined and Mippin started growing into it’s own identity – and is now just a wee baby folks, so it has some growing up to do, and as the saying goes - it takes a village to raise a Mippin, so do point your mobile browser to Mippin.com and check it out.
Let’s roll to the video tape:
*Mippin photos by Photo by Peter Corkhill.
Still Mippin it,
-Lisa
This week a new service called Mippin launches.
What's a Mippin? It is simply something that will make it much easier for all of us to surf the mobile internet with our mobile phones. (cellphones for you Americans!)
I'm giving all my blog readers a head's up about this sneak preview, a:
24 HOUR NOTICE
- to let you know that:
I'll be Mippin it:
The Soho Hotel, Richmond Mews, London, in the library room
When?
Wednesday, 10th October @ 3 PM
Why?
Come by to get a sneak peek at Mippin - and to improve your mobile life!
*Got a blog? Mippin will show you how it looks on the mobile screen.
NOT IN LONDON FOR THE SNEAK PEAK DAY?
No problem - just point your mobile phone's browser to:
www.mippin.com/preview
Mippin offers news, entertainment, sports, gossip and a whole lot more. Most interesting, I find, is that Mippin has looped in many niche blogs (more than 1,000 to to start), and other publishing partners including the BBC, that will now be easily accessible and viewable on the small mobile handset screen. In being part of the lucky early beta testers of Mippin, I've been catching BBC News headlines, reading the latest dish from Perez Hilton and enjoying amusing tidbits from Boing Boing - among others, and even friend's blogs such as Helen Keegan's Technokitten.
I believe Mippin will help speed things forward for everyday people like you - and me - who want to use our mobile phones to get information. It is pesky to try and get onto the internet on your mobile, and if you have tried to do it, you may have gotten frustrated with how many of the websites you try to visit appear poorly in your handset's screen. This is where Mippin steps in to rescue us from small screen annoyance. Mippin transforms content sites from the Web into attractive, easy-to-read, pages, leaving you to enjoy what is there to read rather than fool around with settings.
Prior to Mippin’s official global launch date this Thursday, 11th October, they want you to have a chance to check out the service before the rest of the world discover:
- How Mippin can offer surfers of the mobile internet an easier way to find and view content from favourite news sources, blogs and others
- How Mippin allows personalization of what content you receive via your mobile phone with ‘Mipplets’ and ‘MyMippin'
- How Mippin keeps you updated on the day’s most read headlines and content, through what is most popular in the Mippin community
-
Who's Mippin?
The folks behind Mippin are Refresh Mobile, who brought us Mobizines, and they are backed by Accel, the people who also bring us Facebook. The Mippin team's main players include Scott Beaumont and Robin Jewsbury, Prashant Agarwal, and Accel's Judy Gibbons. I've posted more about them below, and if you are in the mood for a more technical review of what Mippin is all about, I point you over to David Cushman's Faster Future blog here. David, with Emap, got one of the very first peeks at the service, and had a few things to say about it, including:
“I love the way I can use
Mippin on a Blackberry to keep me up-to-date with my favourite blogs and sites
when I’m on the move.” -Judy Gibbons, Accel, who is Mippin it!
“I love Mippin because it
introduces me to lots of quality content that I never knew existed!” -Scott Beaumont, Co-Founder and VP Commercial, Refresh Mobile, who is Mippin it!
Scott has over 15 years’ experience in the mobile
space. He began as an Equity Analyst looking at European telecoms during an
intense period for industry – the liberalisation of the fixed telecoms markets,
launch of mobile telephony and the early evolution of the Internet. In 2000,
Scott moved to T-Mobile to take on the extremely varied and rewarding role of
EVP for Business Development and was a contributor to the group’s Leadership
Team. In March 2005, Scott led the management buy-out of a trial piece of
software called NewsExpress and was part of the team that subsequently founded
Refresh Mobile. Scott is a graduate of the University of Sheffield
and currently lives in London. He enjoys trekking and playing sport, but is
currently coming to terms with having young children!
“Mippin gives me built-in content variety through my list of
Mippsites.” -Robin Jewsbury, Co-Founder and VP Development, Refresh Mobile, who is Mippin it!
Robin is co-founder of Refresh Mobile and the
inventor of Mobizines – an application written specifically for mobile
phones in Flash and Java. He previously worked for T-Mobile International,
where he ran the T-Zones Innovation Group that launched revolutionary products
such as the first multi-country, pay-per-event download platform – the
“International Download Centre”. Other career highlights include roles at Reuters,
where he created the initial prototypes for Reuters Messaging (based on MSN
Messenger), and Logica, where he consulted for several industries including
defence, telecommunications and finance.
“Mippin quickly displays the freshest content from my favourite
sites rather than trying to load the whole web page on my mobile.” -Prashant Agarwal, VP of Product Management, Refresh Mobile who is Mippin it!
Prashant has over 10 years’ experience in web and mobile products. Prior to joining Refresh Mobile, he held a number of senior positions with Yahoo! including European Product Manager for Mail and Messenger. He also launched Yahoo!’s first official Series 60 IM application and its official FIFA World Cup 2006 mobile application. Previous experience also includes roles with Dow Jones, CNET and Beyond.com as well as launching Techdirt Wireless – a popular daily blog.
If you get a chance to get Mippin it - wherever you are in the world! - please let me know what you think of the service. Leave me a comment, send me a note via my blog here on Vox.com.
& I proudly present to you...
More People Who Are Mippin it!
*More than 200+ received a sneak peek of Mippin during London's Mobile Monday,
8th October 2007, and others checked out the service during this last week for Mippin's sneak preview.
Looks like EVERYONE is Mippin it!
Are you?
mippin.com
This Friday, September 7th, London's animation rock band The Sancho Plan will take the stage at the premiere digital arts gathering, Austria's Ars Electronica.
They join hundreds of artists who make the pillgramage to Linz each year to experience and witness this massive showcase of the most cutting-edge performances, thought provoking artist presentations and mind-blowing exhibitions of art and technology. For The Sancho Plan to be invited to perform at the opening night's gala, it demonstrates that much of their extreme forward thinking toward entertainment is beginning to catch on among savvy audiences.
Frequently told that they are "ahead of their time" this band doesn't need to wait for the rest of the world to catch up with it - because as trailblazers among lukewarm pop acts, the road they are traveling will likely wind further and keep them druming their way along the path, far, far longer than today's blip-on-the-map tabloid favourites. Girls Aloud will be deaf grannies, their musical career long forgotten in the Google trail of the future, but 30 years from now it is a band like The Sancho Plan that artists and musicians will research on Wikipedia for inspiration.
Instantly engaging, understandable and universally amusing, The Sancho Plan, in addition to live performances, create audiovisual installations that invite all to join in playful, interactive musical adventures. Combining animation, sound and music, they express a fantastical world, with the only motivation being to present entertaining, memorable journeys for audiences to experience. You'll smile watching them thump on a collection of drum pads that respond visually, connecting a varied collection of animated characters displayed on a screen, and mainipulated in real-time. Sonically – each sound they create represents a new personality, emotional expression or humorous situation. Who are The Sancho Plan? They are a result of the award-winning work of animator and musician Ed Cookson, musician and technologist Lewis Sykes and game designer and computer programmer Adam Hoyle.
I rave about The Sancho Plan, who I've gotten to know personally over the last two years, not just because some of its members are mates of mine - but because the first time I saw them perform, I knew that I was watching the future of live music and entertainment. I first met the band's founder Ed Cookson in early 2006, through Cybersonica, and he attempted to verbally explain to me what exactly The Sancho Plan was. For a time, I got the name confused and kept asking him how The Rancho Plan was doing. This has been an evolving joke between us, with me always annoying him with stupid comments like "hey Ed, 'll bring along the dip when I come see the band, since The Rancho Plan will surely have the chips." And other dumb ass statements that make me wonder why he puts up with me at all! But I guess it can be good for genius like Ed to have someone around who can dumb things down for the masses a bit now and then.
The fact is - at first, it was hard to visualize what Ed was on about in describing his band - he was talking about cartoon-like creatures that come to life as the band members play drum pads, electronically triggering the unusual characters to move about across giant screens above their head in synch with the musician's druming. Yep, I was like huh? Whhhhhaaaat are you talking about? The Sancho Plan is absolutely one of those things you just have to SEE to believe.
In honour of The Sancho Plan's debut performance at Ars Electonica I dedicate this post to them, and their phenomenal creation. In addition to the performance Friday night, The Sancho Plan has been a favourite guest artist with Ars Electronica. They installed an interactive exhibition for the public last year, one of the most popular attractions of the Ars Electronica artworks on view. The festival adores it so, that I'm told they are keeping it on view for another year, and possibly longer.Below, I have posted full details about The Sancho Plan, and I encourage you to visit the band's website and check out their next gig, now playing mostly in the UK (they were guest artists for the 2007 Future of Sound tour, a new artist collaboration that is led by 80s electronic music pioneer Martyn Ware, a founding member of Heaven 17 & The Human League, and is responsible for the timeless song Temptation). The Sancho Plan currently performs occasional gigs in continental Europe, and they hope to tour stateside in the future, having been a big hit among an American audience when they staged random performances at Burning Man in 2006. Here's me hoping The Sancho Plan's fanbase expands globally, beyond Austria and the United Kingdom - so YOU can see them live. Be warned, viewing a show once becomes a real addiction.
The Sancho Plan Background
If Jamacia’s sound pioneer King Tubby worked with Germany’s abstract animator, filmmaker and painter Oscar Fischinger and Japan’s video game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, they might invent The Sancho Plan. This London -born group is rock 'n roll for the 21st Century.
A mix of musicians, animators, designers and computer programmers, The Sancho Plan presents audiences with an unforgettable, interactive entertainment experience. Immersive, surreal and emotionally moving, this rock ‘n’ roll band for the 21st Century invites its viewers to come for a journey, taking them: Through a dystopian alternate reality of parallel animated worlds that reside somewhere between 'Fantasia' and 'The Animatrix’.
With Oscar Fischinger, Len Lye, Wassily Kadinsky, Salvador Dali, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Toshio Iwai, Kruder and Dorfmeister and King Tubby as inspiration, The Sancho Plan’s creators have produced a fused representation of animation, music, sound, gaming, technology and live performance to produce real-time audiovisual experiences for modern audiences.
We see ourselves as part of a rich tradition of exploring the combination of distinct art forms to create a single work - in Wagner's words the "Gesamtkunstwerk" or the "total work of art"…fusing different media and genres into new forms of creative expression and transcending the boundaries between art and pop culture. –Ed Cookson, founding member
The Sancho Plan’s creative mission is to:
· Focus on the live environment – delivering entertainment through physical, skilful and carefully choreographed performance
· Explore real-time interaction between music, video and live performance and its potential for narrative and storytelling
· Use cutting-edge technology – but, integrate it in such a way that the complexity of the machinery is almost invisible to the audience
The Sancho Plan performed its first live gig at the prestigious National Film Theatre in London in Summer 2005, and have since been appearing at festivals throughout Europe. They have performed at Ars Electronica (in Austria), Martyn Ware’s Future of Sound tour, The Big Chill and Bloom (in Britain), were commissioned to design a custom presentation for the Umbro European Championship VIP event (in Paris) and were introduced to American audiences at Burning Man 2006.
How The Sancho Plan Magic Happens
Current works use a range of electronic drum pads to simultaneously trigger sounds and control a cast of animated characters and virtual performers on an evolving musical journey through The Sancho Plan universe, where you’ll find: Singing Baritone Snakes, Cartoon Kyoto Drummers, Performing Robots, Amusing Blow Fish and Ball-Shooting Storks.
Center-stage, classically trained percussionists and drummers (one who was recently named BBC Young Musician of the Year) orchestrate sound, direct movements of the on-screen characters and mix in original compositions. Intended to be a narrative story, as much as a musical and visual performance, the audience connects with the adventures of the animated characters as well as grooving to a great show.
The Sancho Plan performances are made possible through striking, audio and visual experiences through a refined synthesis of tightly integrated:• Sound design and music production
• Flash, stop-frame and 3D animation
• A custom-coded real-time control system that captures the performances of accomplished percussionists and musicians or input from the general public
The Sancho Plan’s Spacequatica
New works have become increasingly
ambitious in conception, realization and performance. In 2007, The Sancho Plan
have produced a new work for the Future Of Sound – a UK tour of innovative
artists organized by music legend and pioneer Martyn Ware, founder
of The Human League and Heaven 17.
Spacequatica is a 12-minute travelogue that immerses the viewer in an experiential, 3D, audiovisual journey in an imaginary underwater world. The piece was developed especially to accommodate Martyn Ware’s unique 3D audioscape facility – an immersive, multi-speaker, surround sound audio system.
Visually and sonically, the performance takes the viewer on a journey deep into a musical ocean. Viewers discover an underwater world where schools of small exotic creatures perform, much like xylophones are played. Pulled further, they find that deeper waters are populated by dark robotic sharks. Deeper still, in the world’s pitch black depths, all that can be seen and heard are rare, self-illuminating species, occasionally blinking in the darkness.
The Future for The Sancho Plan
Looking forward, The Sancho Plan plans development of its live performance potential – delivering audience experiences that involve a variety of vocalists, rap artists, dancers and choreographers, lighting, set and costume designers. We see:
· Deeper, immersive environments, performed as theatrical stage shows
· Customized instruments for use in performance
· Addition of live performers spanning popular musical genres
Investment will allow The Sancho Plan to create sophisticated experiences for international audiences that have commercial potential. With goals of:
- Showing audiences something they have never seen
before
- Presenting new, real-time applications for technology
- And putting on a damn good show!
-Lisa
Just getting back from the hip-hop loving Bloom festival, where I discovered that this music genre is thriving and alive in
Today Cellfish Media, teaming up with New York City's Hot 97 DJ Envy, goes live with mixtapes for download to
cellphones, putting a now legit stamp on what has continued to be a controversial music distribution tactic among urban music fans.
This is a first for the mobile entertainment content industry - and a first time for seeing entertainment companies seek licensing rights to songs for use with this mobile version of the mixtape. Here's some mixtape facts:
- Over 500,000 mixtapes are sold every week, mainly to 18-to-24-year-olds who prefer organic DJ stylings and hard-to-find remixes to traditional record label artist releases.
- New artists rely on mixtapes to gain credibility and buzz, including 50 Cent, who said in an interview with MTV.com, “Mixtapes are the entry level of hip-hop.”
- The mixtape popularity was an iconic moment in cult movie hit Napoleon Dynamite, who got passed a cassette mixtape by his brother's girlfriend...inspiring his unforgettable dance performance:
Napoleon Dynamite Dances to a Mixtape
Get the new hip-hop mixtape for your cellphone by visiting Cellfish.com and downloading the application at: http://envy.cellfish.com/, a technology that is developed in partnership with Boost Mobile.
Branding the Mobile Mixtape
Cellfish Media's marketing partnership with DJ Envy includes an integrated campaign of on-air and Web promotions on his Hot 97 and Sirius Satellite Radio shows in the US, advertising in leading urban music publications, an online viral campaign and a street marketing campaign. DJ Envy’s fans will also be able to keep close to him through the interactive page and community dedicated to him on the Cellfish Web site, which will offer prize giveaways.
On offer
are 7 mastertones
exclusive for mobile through Cellfish Media and DJ Envy. All 7 full songs
will be:
- On the physical mixtape that Envy creates and distributes
- Played on the various Envy shows on Hot 97, Sirius and Music Choice
- Played live whenever Envy DJs at parties, concerts and other events across the country
