"MGFest (Motion Graphics Festival) continues its tour of the US, opening tonight in Austin, Texas. The conference is still $7 total for all the live events and the conference itself. For the workshops, you add $240 a day (bulk discounts available) – but that means that, if you’re low on change, you Texans can absolutely go hit this.
A number of highlights:
- Conference events, including iPhone/Wii game development, code alongside design, and music topics (yes, even Ableton Live) alongside the visual stuff
- Prototyping with Microsoft’s Expression Blend workshop, even before it’s available (you sign an NDA)
- Installations and performances
- Something really cool-looking called the “Open Collaboration Summit,” which I hope will be the start of more music + motion + code-focused events in other places (read on if you’re interested in that, even if you’re not in Texas, as we may bring it to you)
Some interesting-looking live audiovisual stuff, via our friend Troy:
Init String (a live electronic music trio)
Entranced by Monstrous (an interactive music psychedelic game experience)
http://MGFest.com/09/Austin/performanceart.phpPaul Baker (analog and digital visual flavors)
Artificial Life Preserver (artificial life algorithmic abstract, glitchy downtempo music)
Gift Culture (music derived from DSP technology, analogue synthesis, non-linear editing, granular synthesis, spectral resynthesis, FFT/IFFT based spectral morphing and interpolation, etc. etc.)
http://MGFest.com/09/Austin/installationart.php
But the one event that really catches my eye is a BarCamp-style event for working on motion + sound + code at UT.
Open Collaboration Summit, May 17th
Sunday, 10am – 5pm at ACTLAB
Hosted by University of Texas, Advanced Communications Technologies Laboratory
All three threads again come together on Sunday for a BarCamp-style open collaborative workshops. Participants are encouraged to bring projects to discuss and work on with other participants. This Motion+Sound+Code BarCamp will be an opportunity to put the new skills acquired during the festival to practical use, cementing the knowledge and sharing the new possibilities.
This is exactly the kind of event we’re working to support more of on CDM. In addition to our New York-based Handmade Music series, we’re now working to do Handmade Music in other cities around the world (including Austin, I might add), and we have a new event called Global Hackday on which we’ll take up a project and work together on it in person and connected globally online.
I’m really eager to hear how this Open Collaboration Summit goes Sunday, so if you’re in Austin, do let us know.
MGFest Austin Texas on Facebook