Almer/Blank Labs

I spent most of my time at Adobe MAX 2009 at the FITC Unconference. This year placed in the middle of the exhibit hall, and with a stellar lineup of speakers including Ralph Hauwert, Robert Reinhardt, Phillip Kerman, Joshua Hirsch, Grant Skinner, and Joa Ebert (among many more) -- and featuring free Influxis beer -- turnout was excellent and the vibe was really cool. I'm sure FITC will be posting some pix of the event soon, but I took a few myself and posted the album on Photobucket (what's this with monthly limits on Flickr?!?! I've posted two albums there in my life, but made the mistake of trying to post a third right after the 2nd -- lord knows that's the last time I'll be trying that one). Oh, and my talk, Hearing Pictures with The Ludi Machine went really well. Because of IP-ownership issues, I can't post the work I showed (I don't own the sound files I used), but the code wasn't the important part anyway. The 25 minutes of talking before getting to the code was the really fun part. I started out with 2 people in the audience but ended up with a full house, including at least a dozen standing by the entrance. I don't want to post the slides yet. This was a first shot at something -- using a funky platform like the Unconference to try out something new -- and it worked out well, so I want to invest more time in making this a meaningful lecture, at which point I'll start making parts of it available online as well. I've included a totally-unfulfilling snapshot of a Ludi-powered sound-board in action, translating a snapshot from the Hubble telescope into 'music': Kudos to Shawn Pucknell, Erin Kelly and FITC for running such a great event and Kudos to Adobe for giving him the platform to do it right in the belly of the beast.