Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Ben Huh, “Becoming One with Internet Culture”
Great talk on the ‘new pop culture’ and subversives vs. hackers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Tim O’Reilly, “State of the Internet Operating System”
The man himself speaks about the clash between the ‘new’ open Microsoft, Amazon’s cloud and the closed business model of Apple.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: June Cohen, “Ideas Worth Spreading: TED’s Transition…”
June shows the new TED translation feature that is truly impressive. And she’s just a great presenter.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Web 2.0 Expo SF 2010: Eric Ries, “The Lean Startup: Innovation Through Experimentation. …”
A bit hyped presentation, but still with a lot of good stuff on lean startup tactics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vocal: Kathrine Hesner
Bass: Lars Silberbauer
Guitarist: Mikkel Bøggild
Keys: Johannes Langkilde
Drums: Laust Orlemann
Title: ‘Black Coffee’

What is TodaysArt?
TodaysArt is a two-day festival with electronic music, video installations, art and dance. It draws mostly a local crowd from Holland and hasn’t got the same international atmosphere as fx Sonar in Barcelona.

Was it any good?
No!
Even though we experienced a couple of highlights, it wasn’t worth the money. The basic impression of the festival is that the event has been putting too much effort in promotion instead of creating great content. And that will not bring me back to Hague next year.
A couple of things were great but the rest will quickly be forgotten and I recommend saving the money and going to Sonar in Barcelona instead.

The good stuff:
Augmented Spaces by Pablo Valbuena
The best thing were definitely the video installation ‘Augmented Spaces’ by Pablo Valbuena. It was a really impressive installation that made a great use of the extremely white Richard Myers building. Great use of the technique and the two projectors placed on the corner of the big white building.
The only problem was that the installation ran for two nights and that was way too much. Even though it was impressive, it quickly became a bit boring and it was weird that they didn’t bring more content to the festival.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And finally, the strangest instrument ever. The lightning scratching device. Fun, but once you’ve seen it – you’ve seen it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

/Lars Silberbauer

The Sonar Experience
But I have to share the experience I’ve had this weekend at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona. I went with a colleague to get some ideas to our the next big project which is to create a very large scale video projection solution in and on the new Jean Nouvel Concert House in Copenhagen.

How can I describe the Sonar Festival?….
In a few words: an utterly mind blowing experience!!
If you don’t take my word for it, then hear it from Miss Dubstep herself aka Mary Anne Hobbs from BBC1 in this clip from Sonar Night 2008.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sound is of course terrible and can by no means give a real impression of the subsonic bass line which makes your nostrils spin – but the Sonar set of Mary Anne Hobbs, Flying Lotus, Shackleton and Mala is available on the BBC1 Sonar website or the direct link to the BBC1 Player. Check it out!!

What about the visuals?
There were a lot of visuals at the Sonar Night stages. I believe most of them were by Pfadfinderei which also gave a presentation at the Sonar Day Event about their work and methods for creating visuals. Great visual work with a big technical setup. The visuals worked great to enhance the musical experience. A small sample a recorded at the Sonar main stage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The visuals were combined with a great ambient light setting created by gobo lights. This is a small clip from early in the evening when it wasn’t too crowded.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But is Sonar just a big rave party??
No, it’s so much more than that. It is SonarDay, SonarNight, SonarMatica, SonarPro, Showcases and much much more. But its too much to describe all the events taking place but take a lot at the gallery and then just sign up for next year and get the full experience. I will definitely be there!!

This is the building that were occupied by squatters. Notice the red banner hanging from the 2nd floor window. A few squatters were walking around outside the building at this moment.

Squatters outside the building.

The police is setting up the perimeter.

More police arrived and began clearing the area around the building.

The squatters brought their own press. Notice the two guys carrying a camera.

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture, but the squatters tried to make a quick run for it but the police had them surrounded and arrested around 6 or 7.

To policemen with yet another squatter who weren’t running fast enough.

They were put in strips (handcuffs) and placed in a line on the ground (fut-tog in Danish).

After night fall, the police went in to search the building. Notice the red banner still hangs from the window.

The search team went going through the bulding. One cop standing on 2nd floor balcony.

“4th. floor – secured!”

Top floor reached.

The search went through the entire building.

The police came out of the building carrying the red banner.

A small crowd showed up to show some support to the arrested squatters.

The police in riot gear going towards the crowd.

A smoke grenade or fireworks were used (not teargas as one of my neighbours thought) and it was all over.

And that sums it up. There were some very good presentations and a lot of very competent people present at the conference. We experienced both entry-level courses in how to search on Google and African tribal dancing, and some of the best speakers on innovation in the world.

But the fact is, even though there were some bright moments, the overall impression weren’t that amazing. There was a potential for an amazing conference here, but now it kind of feels like the conference of missed opportunities.

A positive attitude and openmindedness is needed when you’re working in a creative environments, but creativity is also about making decisions and having the courage to kill your darlings. We have both been playing music all our life, and as a musician you know, that if you want the crowd to listen and give into the music, then you cannot let the audience down for one single moment. If you want the audience to participate and co-create an amazing experience, then you have to pick the very best tunes and leave the rest at home. You need to make a hard selection and to … yes a cliché – kill your darlings. (and we’ve heard that killing your darlings is soooo hot right now

In other words, the conference should have been more focused on quality instead of quantity.

The Last Keynote

Last keynote was given by Kirpal Singh from Singapore Management University. It was about management as a an important player in creating an innovational environment. What was interesting when listening to Mr. Singh was his opinion on how our notion of innovation and creativity were based western culture and on our fundamental positive values as progress capitalism, democracy and focus on the individual. From a non-western point of view, though, innovation and creativity could be seen as being disturbing elements in a stable society . An interesting observation and a very necessary cultural understanding if the goal is global innovation.

Our closing remarks

Will we attend the 11th ECCI??
Well, this answer must be a clear and confident: “It depends!”

Judging from our experience at the ECCIX, academics, artists and one-man-businesses may have a point attending ECCI to network in a very nice atmosphere. But for professionals working with branding, communication, new media and or web and who don’t necessarily need to expand their current networks, ECCI could be a waste of time. We would prefer a real creative conference with cutting edge designers and creatives instead.

But we would recommend hiring the LEGO RobotLabs team to take you through a great innovative exercise. And – did we mention – we really want one of those Mindstorm sets for christmas

And besides that, if you got the chance to hear Rob Austin, Scott Isaksen, Joe Tidd, Jørgen Knudstorp, Ernest Gundling or Kirpal Singh then go for it. They are really worth it!

This is Statler and Waldorf from ECCIX, signing off.

The most entertaining parts were definitely his stories from numerous safaris in Africa and rock climbing expeditions. No doubt that this guy has a drive to explore that we all could learn from.

This talk should have been a part of the Grand Opening. Col. Smith described the conference as an expedition we were all to participate in. But the keynote would definitely had worked better as a great kickoff at the beginning of ECCIX than at the near-end.