Posts Tagged ‘SXSW 2011’

Tidbits from SXSW 2011

Monday, March 21st, 2011

SXSW was held March 11-20 and for those who don’t follow this all out music, film and interactive blitz in Austin Texas, you’re missing out.  Here are a few bits from Austin that caught my eye and ear.

This year’s interactive awards recognized some well deserving winners.  Let’s start with Chris Milk.  His name may not set off sirens in your head, but it should.   This music video director and photographer has made some hefty contributions to the interactive world over the past year and is connected to two extremely interesting projects one with The Arcade Fire called the wilderness downtown.  This interactive, data-driven, Chrome Experiment uses HTML5, video, audio, and canvas.  It made several waves across the social universe about 8 months ago and won an award in the music category.  Milk also built the winner in the art category that you can visit here.   Milk is a talent to watch in the upcoming years and his vision will help redefine the interweb.

Another stand out piece of design and interactivity was in the motion graphics category.   It is not so much that I enjoy this game or its functionality, but I adore the fantastically creative concept.  Much applause for the Bell Brothers who created a cleaver mash-up of hip music, some simple DJ skills and children’s stories in this must see visual experience.

The Breakout Digital Trend winner seems to be an interesting time saver, but since I haven’t had a work trip or night out with a substantial crew since I downloaded it, I can’t say I’ve thoroughly road tested this app.  GroupMe is a free service that allows group texting, or SMS, and allows users to maintain relationships in clusters as well as one-to-one communications.  Basically you can easily broadcast text messages to your group to make plans for dinner or to meet up at a bar.  You can create these groups easily and then go dark (meaning you should not be contacted) or simply delete the group when you are done with the evening out, work trip, or vacation.

P.S.  Besides Jack White’s  bus stunt, I couldn’t let an opportunity slip by to recommend some of the new music coming out of 2011 SXSW so here are four picks from this year that you should check-out ASAP.

Guadalupe Plata – Guadalupe Plata – Serpiente Negra

Ages and Ages  

The Joy Formidable

Yellow Ostrich

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