mushon zer-aviv wrote a great review for pixelsurgeon about the offf-festival in valencia. much more constructive than my angry blogs here, yet just as critical in a subtle way …
mushon, who’s talk about his own project the web is a living organism was – along with the hi-res! presentation – one of the two very inspiring highlights of the festival, manages to convey the atmosphere quite well in this maybe a bit lenghty report, by picking out some artists and describing their talks or their work.

me, i mostly just got pissed off about what i witnessed, but it may be generational. i just dont understand the “internet generations” laziness when it comes to discourse and critique. i see their coolness, their “whatever”-attitude, as merely an act of posing. i feel mostly fear lurking behind that act, a deep existential fear that leads them to an opportunism i can’t respect much. and whats confusing me even more is that their politics mostly are right on. with the heaps of talent this generation has to offer they could really move something…
but thats just me.
read mushon’s review, much much more constructive!!!!

day 3: design is stinky - we dont work for them – future yuppies - phlunk studio
and yes: i am so not constructive in my criticism…

is offf totally off? no, but its def not on either. the thing is listening to people bragging about their work is just just not that interesting. if i want to see their work i can do so online, i dont need them to click me thru it. questions that would interest me are: where do they get their inspirations? how do they work? what rocks their boats? how do they feel about working for corporations? what about politics or ethical guidelines they follow? would there be jobs they refuse? wheres the line?

the closest to making such a statement were design is kinky. they said they dont work for corporations, but when asked why, they remained totally vague about it. they said: its fine to do so, we just dont. then they totally spoiled things by throwing merchandise from the stage. like feeding the groupies…
the job of the organisers would have been to narrow things down a bit, to present a focus. if you give these people an hour to talk without a thematic focus it will just turn into a bragfest. and especially the americans will be excellent at this particular type of activity. and everybody else will strive to imitate them..
boring.
so all i have seen so far at offf is a sad self-celebration of the internet generation. anything goes taken to its patehtic extreme. but is it really all so fucking blah?

the following are quotes from jackson tan of phunk studio/singapore:

“we like to incorporate our faces into our work because we like to get invited to partes” (i actually heard him say: “… because we like to get laid” but monkeypunk insists he said this. comes down to the same thing in the end, no?)
“for some reason mtv really liked us, eventho we did not know what we were doing. we always worked for them because it was good money”
“then we started to get bored so we drew ourselves some more”
“next we did a fashionshow, because we wanted to get all the models to come so we could check them out and see which one would work, so that was really cool”
“for us everything is about fun”
“this is an image of heaven, you know, theres always a starbucks in heaven”

now these statements are pretty transparent and almost too honest. it was funny because in the room you could feel this tension building, only we laughed out loud, everybody else seemed shocked, almost like they wanted to shush them up.
all you need is code, one speaker said.
all you need is to get laid, and being a stardesigner really helps..

edit: today finally an interesting talk. mushon zer-aviv talked about his project isaliving.org, and he said among other things, “since i moved away from home google probably knows more about me than my mother does”.
and then we also learned that in the phillipines they eat immature ducklings inside their eggshells, heat up the eggs and slurp them out… outch inksurge. “the philippines may look ugly from the outside but the people there are really nice. if you come visit you will see many things you will never forget”. like ducklings slurped and such…

some quickñrough linkage:
the tree situation is quite lovely..
pixelegg
vienna vegetable orchestra

curious to see offf the day: hi-res

day 2: valeeeeeeeencciaaaaa con tus flores und mujeres….
i have not seen many flowers yet, seems somehow too dry here, many women tho, niammie ones too, so the rumour has confirmed, valencia is rather nice. except in the hotel this morning the fire alarm went off at exactly 6:37. and it kept going for half an hour. so that sucked ass woke us up inna good mood. in fact the hotel stinks is not such a good idea with its walls made of paper. but right, i am avoiding the subject here. argh. the offf festival in valencia. so far offf has been one big dissapointment, i m afraid. location: way out from the center of valencia in some crapy run of the mill conference center in the middle of suburbian hell nowhere. the bus taking us there makes tons of illogical loops to get there. the hall where offf is held is kept completly dark and decorated like a cheesy lounge. toy cars and pink blowup mattresses are scattered around the floor. people smoke everywhere. there are some installations worth checking out, but the exhibit is not that well done.
in various “rooms” presentation and discussions are held. in others music and videos are shown. the problem is, these “rooms” have no ceilings. so if you try to listen to a presentation, you also hear the performance of some adventurous electronica outfit in the next “room” – the sound of blenders doing the nasty.
then the presentations. its brag brag brag so far. i did this, i did that. look at me, nerd-sexy mofo me. a playah. *yawn*
then ami fran..whateverhername from futurefarmers was suposed to speak. some nice shy woman announces *drumroll* the futurefarmers. but instead some guy from mediatemple speaks and lets us know just what a cool project mediatemple is and how they host the bestest stuff. like duh.
turns out ami, who is really smart and witty – have heard her speak at ars electronica a few years back – could not make it to valencia. some last minute thing. so instead we get mediatemple brag.
the logistical scandal: no wifi. no decent workstations. no ethernet cables for peops with laptops – in otherwords: everybody. i am offline! at an internet festival! constrained to using crapy pc s in smelly rooms. i dont get it…
es fatal. ¿what else? pieceoBlog – where you can hear me bitch and moan…

curious to see offf the day: design is kinky

day 1: just got here, cranky, sweaty, confuseled. first impression is a bit tainted. its dark here. and theres no wifi. people lay around on the floors. the women are gorgeous. ¿but where is what? ¿and what is this? lets go have some tapas and wait what futurefarmers will have to say. ¿i already wonder, what will listening to designers speak about their work trigger? ¿whats the focus? ¿is this gonna turn into a collective backpatting session? i hate those… ¿wheres the friction gonna come from?
lets see how it goes… oh yes and we are in spain so the ¿-key is way up hirearchically.. ¿¿¿

curious to see offf the day: futurefarmers

ARRRR TEH EXITEMENT IS KILLING ME…
we gotta hit the train inna minute to catch our plane to valencia.
i’ll try to blog it hard but i have no clue how my online situation will be.

and a small anim by miss punkah .:. july issue: