The programme for Marker creative workshops has now finished for the year, and finished on a high with a sold-out Solidworks to 3D Printing workshop on November 30th. There is currently a waiting list for the next one which I’m hoping to run in February, so please check back here in the new year for updates.

Other workshops in the pipeline include:

Augmented Reality workshop with Kim Newall as part of AUT’s Animation Revelations symposium in March. There will also be other workshops around that event (eg, Motion Capture in our new MoCap suite in AUT’s WG building!).

I am also working with Kim to organise a workshop using textiles and Lilypad Arduino, which will be great for fashion students and secondary school teachers to participate in.

There will also be a workshop in association with the Screen Edge Forum in April.

And of course many others to be announced in the coming months. There will be a slight shift from “hands-on creative workshops” to workshops that focus on using technology in education, and in business with a mix of seminars and short courses. I always welcome feedback and the opportunity to create a course for your company or organization’s specific technological needs.

The workshop programme for 2013 will be announced on this website so please check back in the new year, and have a fantastic holiday over the Christmas and New Year break.

- Rebekah 

The Creative Insurrection workshop was very different to the other workshops that have run this year through the Marker workshop programme, and I think this is a great direction to go in, in terms of hosting a few more ‘philosophical’ type workshops in conjuction with technology-focussed ones.

The session started with a conversation and examples of large brands jumping on the ‘revolutionary’ band wagon. Levis, Kanye West…  Trying to incite some kind of revolution, to run to their stores, buy their products, become a fan. Hmmmm whilst the examples provided were very well executed, they were definitely met with cynicism by workshop participants, which I dare to say was the desired response.

Next came an exploration of world-wide culture jammers and groups  who are challenging big brands and status quo. Shell’s PR Fail clip was an example (side note: put the world ‘FAIL’ in a hashtag or title and people will watch it).  Another example was the fabulous piece by one of  The Yes Men on BBC World News TV discussing the Bhopal Disaster pretending to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, and speaking directly to the camera about fully compensating the victims of the chemical disaster and closing down the plant. The journalist lapped it up.   Dow Chemicals’ stocks went down dramatically after this interview.  Genius.

There was also discussion around the concepts of  ’progression’ and the effect this has on people and the environment. Following this the 16 workshop participants formed into three groups to brainstorm what ‘progression’ really means and how we can challenge it, in terms of the economy, trust on leaders, environmental impacts, consumerism;  all that good stuff.

Ellen and Pedro worked with the groups aiding ideas and thoughts on how to stage a reaction to the current economic systems and ways of thinking. One idea was to “hijack” a real economic forum in the past tense and upload grainy clips of economists talking frankly about the world’s monetary system and reliance on speculation. Using look-a-likes to record the footage, and exploiting social media to repeat what they say, starting twitter hashtags, rumours and memes to highlight make-believe but probable thoughts by people in power.

Another  idea that came up was ‘The Great Kiwi Half-time’ where workers are encouraged to stop, have a break and have an orange; a healthy piece of vitamin C and chance to stop and talk to colleagues and friends. A break from being “busy”, and a chance to connect with others. I like the idea of encouraging a pause. Watch for the Facebook page coming soon.

Action plans were created to carry out these ideas, and a few lines and concepts will potentially appear in an issue of Adbusters magazine.

At the end of the 3.5 hours, everyone received an Adbusters magazine plus a few other mementos, email addresses were swapped and potential collaborations and contacts made.

Overall it was a very, very interesting morning, and thought-provoking start to the week. I hope to see more workshops like this in the future (as well as technology courses too of course!).

A final thank you again to Ellen and Pedro, the enthusiastic workshop participants, and Adeline from Goodfolk for connecting the Marker Workshop programme with Adbusters.

- Rebekah

Watch the interview here: Interview with PledgeMe’s Anna Guenther

If you want to know more about this new way to fund your creative projects, register now for our Crowdfunding Info Session at AUT University on Tuesday 3rd October. It’s free for tertiary students and only $15 for everyone else!

For those in the creative know, you may have attended one or more CreativeMornings sessions early on a Friday, arriving bleary-eyed but leaving inspired.

CreativeMornings is a global monthly breakfast lecture series that is free of charge and includes a 20 minute talk, plus free coffee (which is always greeted with affection at 8am on a Friday). The next Auckland event will feature Fiona Milburn and Mark Schafer from Unguarded Intersection, as they discuss their interactive artwork and game, Rollercoaster.

The event will be held at Digital Art Live, Level 2 of the Aotea Centre, at 8am on Friday 24th August. Tickets to CreativeMornings usually sell out within an hour but luckily there are 16 left (at 4:22pm) so make sure to snap one up!

Marker is sponsoring the morning, which is one of the reasons I am plugging the event on this blog, but it’s also a very cool and very inspiring event and I have been to enough to happily recommend them. Great coffee, great talks and great networking.

See you there!

- Rebekah

I recently had the pleasure of going to Vivid Sydney to attend workshops, and look at the inner workings of this popular 18-day festival that celebrates light, music, ideas and the creative industries.

Vivid Sydney was an extremely interesting and inspiring event; celebrating ideas and creativity with a keen eye on business and entrepreneurship.  As well as housing workshops and conferences (some by invitation only), there were many exhibits that were free and open to the public. The outdoor light sculpture walk was incredible, bringing crowds out into the chilly night to enjoy giant chandeliers, coloured cubes, and many quirky light displays. Vivid’s Facebook gallery, gives you an idea of the variety and spectacle on show in the sculpture walk.  Projection mapping was a key feature of the festival, with a projection on the Opera House of a girl rolling around on the outside of the structure, and the tiles and  geometry of the Opera House forming other shapes. Not to be outdone,  was the projection mapping on the Customs House with an animated story playing out over the shape of the building, with extremely vibrant colours, music and sound effects to give the story more life.

Workshops ran throughout the festival as part of the Vivid Ideas component. I went to the Crowdfunding Info Session, with social entrepreneur Tom Dawkins, co-founder of startsomegood.com and Pozible‘s Alan Crabbe. They gave thoughtful advice on the power of crowd-funding and tips on how to get projects off the ground (tip – creating a video for your project is key for getting people’s buy-in). I also went to an interview with the Vice CEO, Shane Smith, and saw the keynote speaker, Cory Dotorow, “hero of the open source and creative commons movement” discuss copyright issues and information sharing in today’s technology-focussed world.

It was interesting to note the intensive inclusion of social media in this festival, both at the professional events and the displays available for the public. Each post by each outdoor sculpture had Vivid’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, and YouTube URLs. The  public responded very positively, contributing  to these networks, and exhibiting a shining example of social media’s capabilities-  successful sharing of timely information and contribution to a wider community.  Many of the workshop Q & A’s  were questions that audience members had tweeted.

I also went to electronic music artist Amon Tobin’s ISAM, a visual spectacle where his DJ booth was incorporated into a giant cubist structure with 3D projection mapping, creating a kaleidoscope of images morphing  in response to bass-heavy electronic music. A short clip of the performance is here. Both of his shows sold out, and he received several standing ovations!

Vivid Sydney really felt like a celebration of creativity, and I was glad to be a part of it. The festival was warmly embraced by the public, local businesses, and industry  and I firmly believe we need something like this in New Zealand. It was a great portal for learning and discovery, whilst showcasing new technology and the host city.  Any takers for a Vivid Auckland?

- Rebekah

IE2012  is a cross-disciplinary conference that brings together researchers from artificial intelligence, audio, cognitive science, cultural studies, drama, and HCI. Areas of research also included are interactive media, media studies, psychology, computer graphics; as well as disciplines working on new interactive entertainment specific technologies.

Topics include but are not limited to the following four tracks: Playing Games, Playing Art, Playing Mobile, and Playing Education. Keynote speaker is Blizzard’s Brian Schwab.

There will be two workshops held on the Friday 20th, ‘Are you Game to Teach?’ with Edwin McRae, and soon-to-be-confirmed is a Mobile Phone Filmmaking workshop with Dr Max Schleser from Massey University.

Conference registrations are now open via: http://ieconference.org/ie2012/category/contact/

Workshop registrations will go live in June. If you would like to know more in the mean time you can email admin@markercreativeworkshops.co.nz

- Rebekah

Siobhan O’Flynn (University of Toronto) was in Auckland for the Screen Edge Forum last week, speaking in panels about Transmedia narratives. We organised a Marker workshop while she was here, on the 5th May, the first workshop for the year! There was a great turn out with 17 people from a variety of industries and careers all listening intently to Siobhan discuss examples and case studies of Transmedia stories.

It was an extremely interesting workshop with great discussion and pause for thought. Some of the themes that came through included fan participation extending the story, a great example of this is the creation of a replica of the Star Wars movie cut together with footage created and sent in by Star Wars fans. The whole film can be watched on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezeYJUz-84

The workshop also covered some interesting facts about social media – as a great way of developing communities around your projects and continuing the story, eg. central characters having their own Twitter accounts,  BBC’s Sherlock Holmes was used as an example, with the character John Watson: https://twitter.com/#!/JohnHWatsonMD.
And as much as some people detest Facebook it really is extremely useful for building an audience and community around your project, “If Facebook was a country it would rank third in the world for population”. That is a huge potential audience, and should not be underestimated. The rise of Pinterest was also discussed and it’s interesting to see that it is mainly women who have jumped on board with this new social sharing platform.

Another very valuable point that hit home for me especially, was the use of QR codes. I don’t know if New Zealanders have fully embraced the capabilities of this  technology and yet those black & white pixelated squares are everywhere. Siobhan’s point was to make them interesting and unexpected, not just a URL, they could take you to an image, character development, something that really draws you into the story or idea.

Other great examples of Transmedia narratives include:

The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris: http://thewhalehunt.org/
Beautiful and chilling documentation of whaling in Alaska. Users can navigate through a series of images, and use the photographer’s heartbeat as a timeline.

Highrise: http://highrise.nfb.ca/
An Emmy-winning, multi-year, many-media, collaborative documentary experiment at the National Film Board of Canada

The Interview Project by David Lynch: http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/www/#/about
An online series which contains interviews of random people across the United States, questioned about American life.

So, yes, a VERY interesting subject area and a big thank you to  CoLab  for bringing Siobhan to Auckland. For those who missed the workshop, Siobhan will be posting the presentation to Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/sioflynn.

Where to from here? I have already had some enquires about whether we will be running more Transmedia workshops and the answer is, YES.  Watch this space.

- Rebekah

Three workshops run through AUT’s Textile & Design Lab will be up on this website by Monday, ready for you to read and enrol. Very interesting areas using the cutting-edge textile printing, and whole garment knitwear machines. The workshops are:

• Knitted Accessory Designer
• Two day T-shirt Challenge
• Design your own Digitally Printed Scarf

Other workshops that are confirmed, I am just sorting the final details and they will be up on the website next week, are:

• 2 x Sound editing and processing workshops using Ableton Live
• Bring your Art to Life with Max/ MSP / Jitter
• Create an Online Virtual Gallery using Exhibbit

In the works:

• Transmedia ARG workshsop series
• E-textiles using Lilypad Arduino
• Solidworks to 3D printing
• 2 x Motion Capture (Body, and Facial)

Plus there are many other areas I am exploring. Marker will also be working with the organisers of  IE2012 (Interactive Entertainment Conference)  to run gaming-themed workshops on Friday 20th July.

It’s all go, and will soon be revealed on this website and the Marker social networks. If you have any thoughts, questions, ideas please feel free to contact me (Rebekah) at admin@markercreativeworkshops.co.nz and you can keep in-the-loop via our Facebook page, and @MarkerWrkshps on Twitter.

  – Rebekah

Live Park 4D Art Factory via www.thelivepark.com/blog/en/

[Story via DiscoveryNews]

Ever wish you could fully immerse yourself in an interactive world of virtual reality? If so, you might want to keep an eye on ticket prices to South Korea.

“Live Park 4D Art Factory” is a new amusement park/virtual museum that recently opened in Ilsan, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. The 10,000-square-foot space includes 65 attractions, several interactive displays and art installation.

Visitors wear RFID wristbands so that Kinect sensors can distinguish their movements, faces and voices. They are encouraged to create an avatar of themselves so they can interact with the attractions. Holograms, 3D video and augmented reality technology are used to enhance visitors’ virtual tour with an array of exhibits, such as:

“Live360″ is billed as the world’s largest interactive stereoscopic theater. Visitors can follow their avatar on a 360 degree screen while getting wrapped up in an interactive story line with multiple endings. At the factory’s “Live Square,” visitors play avatar games in a 492 foot wide projection square. There’s even an augmented reality stage where visitors use their avatars and holograms to put on a show.

The Live Park 4D Art Factory was created by new media art and entertainment company, d’strict. While the park isn’t a permanent fixture, its success has prompted the company to extend its time where it’s open to the public. The company is considering building more permanent installations in China and Singapore.

VIDEO: Live Park – interactive 4D theme park in Korea

Still from Interactive Starry Night by Petros Vrellis

I saw this article come into my inbox via the ISPR (The International Society for Presence Research) newsletter and had to have a look! It’s amazing.

Greek Artist, Petros Vrellis,  has created  an interactive template of “Starry Night” using an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding, called openFrameworks. Vrellis made a touch interface that allows the viewer to repaint the piece of art, and add motion and rhythm to a once static work. A touch interface allows a viewer to deform the image, altering both the flow of the particles and the synthesized sound, and then watch it slowly return to its original state.  Brilliant.

Is this the future of painting and static arts? Imagine being able to interact with famous artworks that have always been kept behind glass, in low light, with gallery minders sternly stating,”please do not touch the art work”.  I am a big campaigner for art becoming more interactive – closing the gap between the viewer and the object – and it’s great to see this being applied to a classic, iconic  artwork.

Check out the full story on the Huffington Post with a beautiful video of the animated work.