Sparkography

Today saw the start of Creative Sydney, part of the Vivid Sydney festival I’m covering for Tourism NSW. The theme for this first day was Creative Futures and consisted of 17 presenters delivering a whole wealth of insights and theories across five one-hour sessions at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I sat through the whole day, mesmerised by the styles and content of the presenters, and fuelled by copious amounts of coffee!

I’m sure you would have loved to sit through it all as well, but in case you didn’t, these are some of my key outtakes:

Session 1: Technology + Behaviour

• At Japanese fashion shows, you can instantly purchase outfits via your mobile by taking photos of the models as they are on the catwalk
• In Los Angeles there is a cult following for a truck that serves Korean BBQ in tacos and which can only be tracked via Twitter
• In China, mass groups coordinate and turn up at retailers to collectively demand volume discounts in return for not trashing the store
• Darth Vader has been plastered all over Japan asking who his boss is

• Book publisher McSweeney’s has a loyal following from its intentionally lo-fi approach to technology
• Collaborative consumption is a societal revolution that has truly arrived

Collaborative Consumption Groundswell Video from rachel botsman on Vimeo.

• The average power drill only gets 12-13 minutes of use in its lifetime so why buy one when all you actually want is the hole?

Session 2: Agents + Managers

• Never steal a mobile phone from Ivanna
• Drawing Book Studios‘ artists shine through from behind the studio’s mask
• The way you see your business is probably very different to the way that equity companies do

Session 3: Crowds + Collaboration

• If you’re an artist in Australia you need to join The Loop
• Crowdsourcing is an incredibly powerful resource
• The Detours and Destinations project held at the Sydney Opera House Studio, harnessed and channelled the creative energies of “at risk” kids

Session 4: Creation + Curation

• The Sydney Film Festival now gets Cannes entrants before Cannes does
• On average you have a 4% chance of getting your music played on Triple J’s Home and Hosed; otherwise you join the Pile Of Broken Dreams

Session 5: Networks + Clusters

• The “Catch and Release” project uses GPS to track artists’ movements in order to analyse where the new creative hubs are likely to be
• Marrickville could be the next Surry Hills…

Did you go to Creative Futures? If so I’d love to hear what your highlights were so please leave a comment!