Flash in the Class

A few weeks ago we had Simon Conlan in our class for a talk. Simon is associated with Flash in the Can. I have to admit I don't fully understand in what capacity he is involved but he is. He came in to talk to us about some things going on in the industry that he considered to be interesting and cutting edge. It seems like the big thing right now is motion capture. I'm actually surprised that our first semester of multimedia pioneering seemed to end up being about nothing but motion capture. Don't get me wrong, I do find it interesting and see alot of potential for this technology however I have a hard time believing that this is the only envelope pushing going on in the web/multimedia industry. I'm not saying by any means that Simon didn't show us anything interesting I guess I just feel a bit like I'd like to see something else new and exciting.

I will admit that having seen the videos of the set-up for George Michael's concert looked fantastic. The ultimate light show. I hadn't really thought of the application of this to live concerts. It certainly looked like it would add a new dimension to a live show.

A lot of what he showed us had to do with mulitouch screens and projections. He showed us a video of an interactive cocktail bar. This is something we had been told about when we were on our tour of GestureTek. I'm pretty sure this isn't the one they did but still from what we were told of it it's very very similar.

I think the application of motion capture in art is really fun and interesting. I've always been a bit fan of interactive art exhibits. I was really excited to discover the Tinguely museum when I was in Basel Switzerland. It would have been interesting to see what Jean Tinguely could have accomplished with motion capture technology! Simon showed us some work done by Brian Knep that looked really fascinating. I'd like a chance to see his work in real life, I think interactivity just brings another level to art. Another interesting artistic endeavour he showed us was Mine Control. It's again interactive art with a very strong biology influence.

As I said I truly do find the new advances interesting and important. But I'd really like to see what else is going on that will change the way we do things.