For the second time in three years, the annual Plutopia extravaganza was reported as “the best SXSWi party to date.” In 2008, it was the Austin Chronicle’s columnist, Stephen Moser, who proclaimed this, and in 2010, Jean Russell, global community visionary and “thrivability” author.  Plutopia 2009 was hailed as a mega success on a mega scale. While we don’t like to think of our experiential spectacle as merely a party, we are extremely happy that our audience had so much fun.

Not surprising, given that the audience was presented with a manifestation of captivating, future-forward performances, including a world-premiere from DJ Spooky – which expertly wove together science, music, film, culture, art, sensory immersion and entertainment – as well as an all-local, artisanal foodie fest from Edible Austin and cutting edge mixology from the Tipsy Texan Cocktail Bar.

Plutopia 2010 (an official SXSW evening event) was held on March 15th, 2010 at the Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin, a spectacular statement of modern architecture that boasts an amazing hi-tech auditorium and a large-scale plaza overlooking Lady Bird Lake. This year’s audience numbered around 1200 people throughout the evening, made up of international entrepreneurs, the tech community, art and culture aficionados, and the general public. About 75% were between 20 and 40 years old.

This year’s theme, “The Science of Music,” explored the role of technology, sound and digital media in changing the landscape and narrative of music in the information age.

The science ranged from the expanding of audio boundaries and experimentation, to new forms of instrumentation, sampling and remixing and emerging creative processes, to integrated multisensory systems and interfaces with intelligent networks, to the transformations of aesthetics and the changing rhythm of nature.

The theme was aptly presented both through the spectacular shows in the Auditorium as well as through the exhibits and interactive installations on the Plaza.

If headliner, DJ Spooky’s riveting world premiere of a 60-minute piece based upon Brian Greene’s Elegant Universe (which he performed with a four piece woodwind orchestra), was the highlight of the Auditorium shows, there is no doubt that the simply stunning projections and spectacular lighting, especially designed for Plutopia 2010, by Interactive Entertainment Systems delivered a mixture of awe and amusement on the Plaza. The system featured the highly interactive Synth-A-Beam, which allows the user to interrupt light beams to trigger cool sound/music and lighting projections onto the side of the building and across the plaza.

Plutopia Productions, Inc. is about creating what we term the Sense Event - an intense, interactive experience through augmented ambience, multi-sensory engagement and immersive technologies, fueled by fun and all-round well-being. It is our mission to deliver sensation, an experiential adventure, whether it is through the performances, the immersive installations, the social interaction, the unusual or experimental arts and cultural phenomena, the food and beverages, or simply exposure to the new and unexpected. Whatever the theme, we always endeavor to create a brief encounter with the future. And once one realizes the creative potential of the combination of unique perspectives and skills of the Plutopia core team - comprising the futurist, the cultural strategist, the technology visionary, and the theatrical producer and anthropologist, supported by 70 or so volunteers – one cannot fail to understand why Plutopia events are so spell-binding.

Plutopia 2010 had sensation in abundance. From the opening words of wisdom from world-renowned American science fiction author, Bruce Sterling, to the closing rhythms of Chinese experimental electronica duo, White, one of most acclaimed outfits in the Beijing new music scene, the event was a tour de force.

From our post-event research, it is easy to understand what made Plutopia 2010 a resounding success. Yes there were moments of magnificence beyond DJ Spooky’s performance, none less that the finale of Chinese experimental guitarist, Xiao He and his magic sound box. Xiao was recently voted one of the coolest rock stars in Beijing and his mixture of Chinese folk, jazz, experimentation, improvised performances and action art was surreal and scintillating.

Then there was the first glimpse of those eight (seven 6 foot tall females and one 6 foot man) futuristic-clad exotic dancers, led by their shaman, Maranda Pleasant, spicing up the Black Pig Liberation Front’s Erotic Raga. Their performance featured text, electronics, turntables, film, dance, explosive tonal attacks, and beautiful flowing erotic atmospherics, creating sacred zones and temporary communal spaces in time. White kept the auditorium buzzing until midnight, While Dr. Strangevibe (David Demaris) kept the juices flowing between headliner sets with ambient sound and video works that featured sound, words and images by luminaries spanning the worlds of science and art.

On the plaza, besides the amazing interactive installations by Interactive Entertainment Systems, the audience had great fun with the sound and lighting design installations from Darkstack Media, an electronica test area created by Switched-On, a variety of AI and robotic installations from members of the Robot Group, led by Dr. Conrad (Marvin Niebuhr) and his team with The Giant Brain, as well as Plutopia regular, John P. Funk’s remote art robots, as well as Toy Joy and Bazaarvoice’s hipster playgrounds. We even offered old school oil and water psychedelic projections!

Of course, much of the activity on the Plaza was centered on exploring the amazing food and beverage offerings. As Dave Dart of Dart Music International said “Tonight I tasted the best cocktail on earth (Treaty Oak rum with jalapeno).”

If the individual moments were magnetic, the overall experience generated at Plutopia 2010 was not just sensation-al, provocative and inspirational. True to Plutopia Productions’ vision, we also focus on ensuring that we optimize the ecological effect of the event, both by minimizing energy consumption by using LEDs and magnificent projections that illuminated every surface of the MACC, as well as making sure that we maximized the event’s recycling potential. One of our sponsors, Green Fern Events together with Wandering River Recycling, made certain that we not only walked the talk, but had the metrics to prove it. Consequently, we can report the following sustainability success:

- 200 lbs of recycling

- 80 pounds of food waste to local composting facility

- a total of 400 lbs of waste, which represents a 70% diversion rate from landfill.

That’s pretty good and means well over half of all the waste for Plutopia was either recycled or composted.

Last, but definitely not least we want to thank our sponsors, not just because without their generous sponsorship monies and services the event would not happen, but also because they all entered into the Plutopia experiential adventure, both by providing exciting content and fascinating interactive experiences. They helped give Plutopia 2010 its cutting edge.

All in all a spectacular night, an extravaganza that merited the epithet “the best SXSWi party to date.” At least until Plutopia 2011!

View an excellent photostream of the event by Menelaos Prokos Photography here.

And on Austin360.com here.

Plutopia Productions, Inc. in collaboration with Dart Music International and CARITAS Chile are holding a benefit show for Chile at The Parish in Austin on 23rd March 2010. This stellar event is a continuation of Dart Music International’s Embassy Night at The Parish. It  will feature three bands from Chile, namely The Ganjas, Intimate Stranger and Casino and DJ C Funk, all of whom also performed at the wildly successful Plutopia Productions SXSW Chilean Showcase on Saturday 20th March at Maggie Mae’s.

The funds from the benefit will go to helping The Ganjas singer and guitarist, Rafael “Pape” Astaburuaga

Pape lost his house, his parent’s house and business in the earthquake, but will play at this event, before returning to Chile. Funds will also benefit CARITAS, Chile.

This performance is also the first gig on a month long tour for the Chilean bands, who will continue without Pape.

Shou Wang, leader of Chinese outfit White, who will be  the closing act at Plutopia 2010  has been doing a series of gigs in Beijing with a new drummer, Wang Xu, who will perform with White throughout SXSW. Tonight, (Saturday 6th March) Maybe Mars, the label behind the Chinese bands, who will be part of the Chinese Invasion at SXSW including Plutopia performers White and Xiao He held a send off show in Beijing to an audience of over 1000 fans.

Experts believe future entertainment systems will satisfy much more of our recreational needs. I agree with is statement and interestingly, I see the role of interaction and immersion within simulated environments as one of the major changes we will see in the near future, as techniques from gaming, 3D worlds and military simulators take on a greater influence in TV program making, whether it is in reality shows, sports, documentaries or feature films. The ability to be an avatar, or interact with an avatar or simulated environment will significantly change our sensory involvement and appreciation of programs. When couple with sensory and cognitive enhancement technologies, this immersion will be even further augmented.

In his web article, “Views of the Future,” my friend and  colleague, British Telecom futurist Ian Pearson predicts by:

2015 – TV, computer, and phone converge into a wall-size, interactive, 3D screen, delivering entertainment and information tailored to our wishes. When idle, it displays beach, forest, or other scenes so real, we think we are there.

2020 – Nano-size electronics inside “active contact lenses” receives TV, video games, Internet, and phone calls; and displays images directly onto the retina. Tune program with pocket keyboard initially; later with thought control. Watch TV; browse the web, or video-phone a friend; all with eyes open or closed.

2030 – Microscope-size nanobots communicate with the brain creating simulated realities indistinguishable from the real world. Download a program like “Star Trek Holodeck” and dive into the action. Any scene your mind imagines becomes real for you.Re-live when you first met your mate, or create a reunion with family members. Your imagination becomes reality. Change and end program with voice control.

2040 – Author Raymond Kurzweil believes human and machine intelligence will meld. We can “re-create the world” and enter environments as amazing as in “The Matrix” movie.

Simulated reality describes an environment impossible to tell from “real” reality. But immense computing power is required to create and download these huge programs to your brain.

Will this future happen? Experts say yes. Hewlett-Packard, Nantero, and others are rushing to develop vast memory systems required for simulated reality, and the Allen Brain program promises faster understanding of how technology interacts with neurons.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom poses an even deeper thought. He suggests our world may not be real at all – we could actually be living in a simulation. “Given sufficient technology,” he says, “it is possible to simulate entire inhabited planets, including everyone on them.”

I am excited by a new project being undertaken by Pattie Maes’s group “Fluid Interfaces Group” at MIT. Titled  ”ioMaterials”, it is an umbrella project encompassing a variety of collocated sensing-actuation platforms looking at various aspects of dense sensing for humane communication, memory, and remote awareness. Using dense collocated sensing actuation and sensing, we can change common objects into an interface capable of hiding unobtrusively in plain sight. Relational Pillow and TextureWall are instantiations of this ideal. In the visual below, we see Recorded writing: Playing back the strokes of the sender.

XTual Healing was created in the early days of 2006 by Paul Notzold and has become a collection of interactive public projections and performance formats that encourage creation of dialog through text messaging from mobile phones. Whether interacting with custom digital signage, or live performers TXTual Healing builds community through public story telling via the mobile phone. It is a continuing project, adapting as new technologies and communications approaches emerge.

Recent  interfaces for artistic expression have included:

Gesture Recognition

Smart Tags

Gaming Interfaces

Max/MSP

IPhone

[PDA, GameBoy, PC, MIDI]

Virtual synthesisers

Haptic Feedback/Touch

Relative position sensing

Gravity

Space Invaders: Art and the Computer Game Environment
FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L14DQ www.fact.co.uk
Preview: Thursday, 17 December 2009, 6.00pm – 8.00pm
Booking: rsvp@fact.co.uk

FACT explores the increasingly blurred boundaries between videogame spaces and real spaces with an exhibition featuring artists including Bill Viola, Blast Theory, Aram Bartholl, Cao Fei, Ludic Society and more, alongside playable, commercial games that push the limits of the medium. Space Invaders is part of a season of gaming at FACT which includes interactive games events, competitions and a game-themed film programme.

Gallery 1 & 2, Media Lounge, Public Spaces and online, FREE entry
Space Invaders is open to the public from 18 December 2009 to 21 February 2010

Opening Night 8-Bit Performances
Music shaped by computer game culture selected by Cybersonica; Firebrand Boy(Glasgow) and the Kittenrock label use gameboys, Nintendos and other consoles to get you dancing! Plus a special Marching DS Orchestra with kids, siblings and parents led by Ross Dalziel of SoundNetwork.

Then follow the 8-bit music over to Chameleon for an afterparty:
8.00pm-9.00pm, Soundmatrix – a Liverpool-based musician who makes glitchy, 8-bit beats on a Gameboy running LSDJ
9.00pm-10.00pm, Syphus – a UK-based demoscene and chiptune musician who has been composing and performing for most of his life

Maurice Benayoun and Jean-Baptiste Barrière play the maps of the emotions extracted in real time from the Net. On stage a big screen displays the mixing of the maps of different emotions.

They also have  Strozzi – an art installation turns the map of world emotions into a music score

The World Emotional Mapping - real-time maps of world emotions from the Net maps made up of words, words as big as the number of hits related to the 3200 biggest cities emotions around the world.

Mixing-by-Watching

When in the installation, visitors use VR binoculars to visually explore the maps, from inside the globe. They select-by- watching the zones of the world that will reveal their emotional states of minds. And watching, through observing the world, becomes a way to mix up feelings and produce a euphoric, enigmatic, or pathetic music from it.

The Installation

binoculars, and two screens

Screen 1 shows the map of the world, where words are displayed, according to the emotions, that the watchers spot.

Screen 2 presents the globe from outside, increasingly covered by the words, and the never-ending list of the emotional rating of the 3200 cities.

e-Spotting 9/11

The maps watched by the visitors are the maps built on 9/11 2007, by scanning the news on the Net. Six years after, they give an interesting interpretation of how it feels this day through 11 emotions:

Mad, outraged, shocked, terrified, bad, sad, nervous, glad, excited, proud, satisfied The emotions are spread all over the map like obscure data scrutinised as paradoxical feelings waiting for being deciphered by compulsive spotters.

Music by Jean-Baptiste Barrière

Software: Brigit Lichtenegger, Sofiane Souidi

Curator Franzizka Nori, La Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi,

Then there is the Emotion Vending Machine – Maurice Benayoun, Jean-Baptiste Barrière (musical design) (France) Development: Evolutie (Brigit Lichtenegger), V2 Lab, Artem Baguinski, Paul Girard, Adrien Mazaud.

Emotion Vending Machine looks like a beverage vending machine, where users can select a range of emotions, shaped as dynamic cards, updated in real-time with web data. Users select three from a list of nine emotions, such as “fear”, “joy” or “ecstasy”, and validate their choices. The machine, built around a search-engine application, browses the world network and displays the result in the shape of words representing the previously selected emotions, accompanied by sounds composed by Jean-Baptiste Barrière. Users can then connect their USB flash drive and collect their musical emotional cocktails, each of which is prepared in real-time and therefore unique. This new version of the Vending MAchine provides Ringtones that can be used on cellphones.