21st of March, 2012
As part of my final duties at CSM, I went to the Resonate Festival in Belgrade, Serbia.
The festival itself had its fair share of rockstars - the lineup consisting of almost everyone who is anyone in my particular field. We'd decided to take some of the students along with us as they were perhaps more into it than I was. Ultimately, it was aimed at them. Most of the talks were rehashings of things I'd see before.
On the first day, most of the talks took place in a small room that had nowhere enough space, let alone chairs. The Guardian gave an interesting talk about streams and how we digest information these days and the written images guys gave an interesting talk, even if they were a bit scared. Overall, it was somewhat annoying sitting on the floor and not actually being able to see very much. I didn't really learn very much but I the tour of the city of Belgrade was a little more useful and fun!
On the second day, we were determined to actually get a decent seat. Jurg Lehni gave a very interesting talk, as you can see from my face below:
I dont mess about when I've had a bad experience! Big seats certainly make talks a lot better. Jer Thorp gave an interesting talk and Field.io showed off a lot of their very pretty work which is always lovely to see. After about 5pm though, things just got a little boring and the city began to call instead. I decided not to stick around for DJ Spooky and worked on a project instead,
So overall, was it worth it? Well, Serbia certainly is a fun place to visit and Belgrade has a lot of energy. The weather was great and I took plenty of good photos but overall, I'd say such events are more rabble rousing speeches that mostly consist of "look at us, aren't we cool" - Its something I'm not a huge fan of and if anything, its galvanised me to make more stuff which is a result of sorts but not something I'd actually expected.
I think, the next conference I go to, I'll need to be presenting. Otherwise, its just not really worth it. But there are plenty of opportunities for Great Photos
Also, how can one be glum when you get to visit the Nikola Tesla Museum :D
