The first screening was by Andrew with a bizarre mixture of acting, strange dialogue and weird 70’s images. He looked like a mad man playing around with projectors, screens, dialogue and the audience. It was undoubtably a very unique performance!

Bruce McClure gave us a stunning performance with a troop of modified 16mm projectors blasting B & W loops that creating abstract forms that slowly transformed into a circle with a 3D effect created by overlapping projections. The music was superb, brutal sounds and loud white noises that made my right ear numb. Well, after all Bruce used to play chess with John Cage, he must have picked something back then.

Next came Paul Sharits with “Shutter Interface”, a piece created by using two projectors that blended together twittering frames that seemed to dance into a perfect palette of colours. Together with the chaotic beeps and sounds it took me through a hypnotic visual journey of memories and ideas.

The festival was organized by Arika known for their experimental music, film and art events and festivals they are based in Scotland. Hope to see more of their great events and festivals in the near future!

Last week I had the pleasure to join the SMX event in London. Both days were filled with great content and tips, but the best part about it was Networking, I’ve got to meet so many fascinating and engaging people! 

During the week I’ve managed to gather a list of resources and summaries made by them for you to enjoy. I will be posting my notes in Spanish later during the week.

 

By Matt

• SMX London 2008: 25 Killer Tips

By Wiep

• Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques

By Rob

• SMX London Day One Recap

By Ciaran

• SMX London 2008: Very Brief Recap

By Andrew

• SMX London: European Search Marketing Challenges
• SMX London: Search 3.0: Video Search & Blended Results
• SMX London: Search 3.0: Local Search & Blended Results

By Richard

• SMX London 2008 - Day 1 “High Fives”
• SEO for Web 2.0 session - SMX London Day 2 recap

By Henry

• SMX London 2008

By Ophir

• SMX London 2008 - Day One
• SMX London 2008 - Day Two

By Tom C

• SMX London 2008 Recap

By Randfish (He was not at the Event but Jane was)

• How to Find the Spam You’re Linking To

By Hans-Peter

• SMX International SEO
• SMX - SEO for Web 2.0 Sites

 

Please let me know if you want me to add yours, or if I’ve missed any other interesting post. Thanks to Imran for some of his research. Check out some photos of the event here.

This year the Ad:tech was all about saving money on your online campaigns. The sales pitch: “It’s all about surviving the credit crunch”. Given that in the UK Online Ad spend remains on a rise and companies are still spending more money in online advertising, the place was packed with PPC Campaign Management Software solutions and other related products.

What really impressed me was the fresh new look of Microsoft advertising. Good to see they are finally investing on their marketing products. I really think they do have some great products out there but they just don’t know how add value to them.

Google University was back with their usual programs - Google Analytics and Website Optimiser, Google Basics and Google Master Class which remain largely unchanged, from previous sessions. The usual account managers were around to help us out with any questions regarding our accounts.

In short, the exhibition was quite good much better that what expected considering the rough times the marketing industry currently faces. You can see some photos of the event here.

It was great to join the conversation with Makoto Shinkai “The New Miyazaki”, at the British Film Institute. Some of his early work was displayed during the interview, most of it created with his laptop…

He talked about his struggles trying to become an manga animator while working in Falcom. He also mentioned the great influence of “Castles in the Sky” and the importance it had on his career. The interview ended with a brief explanation of his latest work “5 Centimetres per Second” which consists of thre three short films titled “Oukashou”, “Cosmonaut”, and “5 Centimeters per Second”. A love story told in three different perspectives concerning the adversities of time, people and space.

Once again this year, I am attending the Internet World at Earls Court London. Although last years exhibition did not have the best reviews, I still think that if you manage to look beyond some of the sales pitch you will be able to find some very useful conferences worth listening to. I am specially looking forward to BBC’s Kym Niblock regarding the “Commercialising of Content Propositions” and “Network Entry Point Expansion” by Dan Cohen of MSN.

London will be once again invaded by the loads of Irish residents most of them coming from Google, Double Click and MSN. Hopefully I will be seeing lots of familiar faces in the venue and at the nearby pubs!

My uncle stumbled upon some of my grandpa’s impressionist paintings on E-bay. His original name was Hans Mertins but he used to sign his paintings under his artistic name: Juan Mertins. He was a known artist in the San Francisco area during the 1920’s, he used to paint backgrounds for films back in Hollywood’s golden age.

The piece has all the characteristics of his early paintings and his name on the back. This specific painting was exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) 1939, which was held on San Francisco’s Treasure Island in order to celebrate the opening of the city’s two new bridges. The Fair ran from February 18 through October 29 in 1939, and from May 25 through September 29 in 1940.

He explores the beautiful complexity of nature creating miniature elusive worlds and fantastic landscapes using natural surreal forms. Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze perfectly uses abstract forms and delicate lines but maintains a very minimalist structure. A few of his of his etchings are now being exhibited in the TATE Modern. The etchings are located in the third floor in the 4^th room within the Dream and Poetry exhibition. I try to visit them twice per month, hoping they stay here longer.

The classic UK label Warpmart just revamped their website. I have been buying records here since the beginning of the 90’s. Their website has been created by the guys at Fail a small creative studio in the UK. It is strange to know that they did not use the services of Kleber, one of my all time favorite web design studios. They developed the famous Bleep.com download music site for Warp Records in collaboration with The Designers Republic.What could have happen?

Talking about online record stores, I must admit that I prefer the Boomkat website because of their great online cataloge, from Morr Music to Rephlex. I think they are one of the best user friendly online music stores around and believe me I tried a few, but this one is just straight to the point… they have nice functionality and some really rare compilations in MP3 and FLAC which is great!

The SMX is coming to London! The conference and exhibition will be held at the Hilton Metropole in paddington. The link above was provided by Imran Kanji from SEO Tutorials, thanks mate. Hope to have some photos of the event later this week.

David Lynch and Donovan discuss the creative process and how meditation has informed their work respectively in film and music. Sadly I could not book the tickets early but I plan to visit the festival this weekend. Especially interested in the Experimeta - Cutting edge cinema, artists’ film and video and the avant-garde. And Yes, of course I will be attending the panel event: “Is the Internet Killing the Film Critic?” - A thought-provoking discussion on the power of internet, film criticism and globalisation - looking forward for this…