Today I made a trip to DeMontford University to attend their one day conference on the Future of Creative Technology. The morning kicked off with a technology workshop with Jerry Fishenden from Microsoft. He seemed to have a bit of an agenda to push Surface, which seemed unnecessary given the audience, but he did demonstrate something I hadn't seen from Microsoft Research, that allowed 2D space to be plotted into navigable 3D space, in this case Modern art works. But there was no information given on how the data was extrapolated or an envisioned uses of it were. It lacked the crowd computing factor of Photosynth as it used a single image source.

There was a discussion around institutions versus individuals; with the idea of individuals walking away from luddite institutions to setup their own businesses. However I felt this view was rather naïve. It waswas also suggested that institutions are broken, with no offers on how to "fix them". I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't think it achieves anything to point fingers and run off.

This conference was different from any other I had been to, in that the twitter stream was projected on the wall during the conversation, resulting a two tier take on what was going on, both my own responses to what was being said and also an interpritation of what was going on from the audience as a whole. 

There was a questioning of the concept of “digital natives” and the notion that the younger generation intuitively know how to use technology. Like any skill we need to learn how to use technology, and while it might be ubiquitous that doesn’t mean an innate understanding; we still have to learn to read after all. The difference between generations is really how they will use that technology, as with other media types.

There was a lot of discussion of social networks and the value of data within its context, which relates to my thoughts on recommendation. As we increase our social interactions through technology how will interfaces change to create a more emotive experience? We are beginning to see more sensory based interfaces. Gaming has had this tactility for some time with force-feedback, tilt sensitivity and vibration; perhaps we will see more convergence for hardware interfaces.

The afternoon was made up of three sessions; on Web 3.0, Cultural Analytics and finally an examination of using social tools in a learning environment.

The Web 3.0 presentation from Jim Hendler didn’t really tell me anything fundamentally new, but it offered a good way of to explain what the Semantic Web means, touching on Geo-Location, ubiquitous computing and the idea that there is loads of data, but it was the linking of the data that is significant; data is more valuable in the context of other data.

Cultural Analytics talk from LevManovich didn’t interest me until it incorporated data visualisation. However it was unclear if he was presenting the data visualisation as a cultural movement; which I would take issue with. Or if he was using data visualisation to try and improve the data around cultural analysis, in which case it was unclear of his intended significance of the data. I have seen an interesting example in this TED talk by Ursus Wehrli. Perhaps it all just went over my head.

The last talk was a little academically focused for my tastes, as it was more about attention bartering in a classroom through social learning tools. There were some good points made about the lack of reward for innovative teaching and that teachers now compete for attention with the Internet where previously it was the student’s imagination (although I disagree that the scale of the challenge has changed). However it didn’t really go as far as to look at how the educational system is broken or alternative methods of learning, e.g. through games, so it reminded me of quote from earlier in the conference: “We love disruptive technologies when they disrupt someone else”.

For the most part the conference was surprisingly accessible and not too academically focused, although the majority of attendees were researchers and lecturers, so it had an unavoidable bias. Some stuff did go over my head, since there is a tendency for academic posturing at these events and sometimes it creates an unnecessary barrier as I sat trying to translate what was actually being said – even though I understood the principles. However Jim Hendler was an outstanding speaker in his clarity and ability to explain without prejudice. Overall worthwhile and I hope they run it again.