The second auditorium, aptly  named The Immersion  Chamber played host to one of  Plutopia 2011’s latest world  premieres, namely the first ever  presentation of a new 3D music  project called XCHOX developed  by Xavior of Xavior FX  Creative 
Arts, XCHOX unites  musicians, engineers,  mathematicians, poets, singers  and more into an exploratory  collective of precision artisans. It  creates a new paradigm in linear  cognition and enables DJs to build music from multiple songs at the same time, by finding common relationships between beats, rhythms, chord progressions, styles, narrative, etc. Demonstrations were given by DJ Kid Infinity as well as a detailed, rather complex explanation of the process by Xavior himself. The project is supported by Austin companies: Music Computing Inc. which displayed state-of-the-art touch screen mixing consoles; and interactive media specialists, Glaze Studio, both with experts on hand to enable the audience to better understand the breadth and depth of the XCHOX project.

Anglo-Chilean outfit, Intimate Stranger, who are currently everyone’s darlings and were recently voted one of the top ten bands to watch by the Austin Chronicle and the best live rock show currently in Santiago.  They drew the biggest crowd of the night, maybe because their avant pop music is more accessible and the title track and single from their current album, Under is radio-friendly, so frequently on the airways. However, on this occasion, the reason they were chosen to participate in Plutopia  2011 was because of their work with Chilean super videographers Telefunken, who have worked with Radiohead and Queens of the Stone Age and added live 3D projection, which when seen through 3D glasses made the image from the stage pop out to about 8 ft in front of the viewer. This was a really cool, hard to achieve holographic effect, which was made possible by the use of a 10,000 lumens projector and Telefunken’s proprietary software.

We were also lucky to have Intimate Stranger’s sound guy Rob  Elliot working the whole show in The Experiment, as he is world-class  and also the sound-guy for The Cure, David Grey and Gomez, having  arrived in Austin, a couple of days earlier directly from the David Gray  tour.

The Playground went way beyond the quirky and what Pop 17’s Sarah Austin, whose team video streamed a live show directly from Plutopia 2011, called admiringly  “Geek Freak”. Ace tech reporter Veronica Belmont covered many of the latest future play elements in her video (link above) that was added to the opening section of this report, but it worth again describing the excitement, interest, experience and sensory engagement that this section of The Playground created.

In this section, we must start with yet another world premiere at Plutopia 2011, namely Sphero, which although only in prototype form is due to be launched to the market later this year.  Sphero is the first robotic ball controlled from your smart phone.  Sphero uses Bluetooth and is a very flexible plaything, which can take on any number of personas.  As Sphero themselves say: “The beauty of Sphero is that the function of Sphero isn’t determined by the physical device, but by the software that is controlling it. For instance, a RC car is always a RC car, but Sphero could be a game of Sumo, a game of Office Golf, or even a wrecking ball knocking over augmented reality glass towers in your living room.” Pretty cool, very  imaginative and lots of fun.

Together in an exquisitely lit open-sided tent in  the center of The Playground, were three  new inventions that fundamentally change the  possibilities of social and action play. The first  of these were the Sifteo Cubes, being  demonstrated by David Merrill and one of  his staff. Sifteo Cubes (originally named  Siftables, which are marketed as “The Future of  Play” and “The alternative game system for  truly hands-on play” were invented by David  and Jeevan Kalanithi, whilst at MIT Media  Lab.

Each cube is a 1.5-inch gaming block with full color screens that respond to motion, and interacts with the player and each other as they are moved around . Each cube packs a full color LCD, a 3D motion sensor, wireless communication, a peppy CPU and more. Your computer connects to the cubes via the included Sifteo USB wireless link. Great fun for the Plutopia 2011 visitors and truly central to “The Future of Play” theme.

Perched in the tent, next to Sifteo was David’s MIT  colleague Eric Rosenblaum from MIT Media Lab’s  Lifelong Kindergarten, demonstrating the  fabulous Singing Fingers and showing videos of many  of the other exciting inventions from the Lifelong  Kindergarten collection. Singing Fingers is a new  iPhone app that allows you finger paint with your voice.  With Singing Fingers, you can see music, hear colors,  and re-see everyday sounds for the beautiful playground  that they are. As though planned, Singing  Fingers received its commercial launch two days after  Plutopia 2011.

Not to be outdone by MIT, Austin’s UT AI / Robotics  Department under the auspices of Plutopia friend, Peter  Stone, an avid and very competitive soccer colleague who  developed Robot Soccer arranged for one of his team, Brad Knox demonstrated a “punish and reward” computer program that learns to play Tetris. The research displayed was part of the artificial intelligence subfield of learning agents — computational entities that sense, decide, and act while learning from experience. Brad used trainable agents to demonstrate his research, while also discussing his lab’s soccer-playing robots, that often use similar learning techniques.”

The Futures Lab, Inc. has recently opened an office in Beijing, China

The Futures Lab, China offers comprehensive futures studies consulting, as well as futures research, Frontline Panels and consumer focus groups and is able to create customized business development plans and to establish successful long-term platforms on which to base entry into the Chinese markets or to create leapfrogging opportunities for existing companies.

The Futures Lab operation in China is led by Lisa (Xiaofan) Zhang, who holds a double degree in  International Business and English and is a fluent English speaker with over 8 years first hand experience  in multi-national business environment, extensive experience in working with multi-national  clients/MNCs. Amongst our first clients are AKZO Nobel and Philips.

In addition, The Futures Lab, Inc’s sister company, Plutopia Productions, Inc. has established a long-term cooperation with Beijing entertainment company, Maybe Mars and D22, to foster trans-cultural artist and production exchange between China and the USA, particularly with respect to progressive culture and emerging art forms. This follows the success of bringing Beijing electronica artists, White and experimental performer Zhao Han to Plutopia 2010 and the inclusion of China’s foremost experimental musician Zhouwang from Carsick Cars to Plutopia 2011.

Ignite derekwoodgatefinalreduced

Derek Woodgate spoke at Ignite Austin during SXSWi on The Future of Entertainment: From Sensation to Imagination. The presentation was Pecha Kucha style with 20 slides of 15 sec duration!

Unique, amazing, cool, interactive, special, thrilling, insightful, the best,  fantastic – these are just a few of the epithets applied by the press, artists  and visitors alike, to this year’s Plutopia 2011, the 4^th annual official  SXSWi event under the Plutopia umbrella of signature events.

Of course, this is what we strive for with all of our events and the two later in the week  are no exception. So, let’s start with Plutopia 2011, which took place at the Emma S.  Barrientos Mexican American Culture Center, (MACC) in Austin on Monday  14^th March 2011, it covered nearly 30 performances, installations and techno-cultural  manifestations in four areas of the venue, ranging from an hour-long rarely performed  experimental musical piece by Text of Light, led by Sonic Youth’s Lee  Ranaldo in the main Auditorium (The Experiment); Sphero mobile device operated  robotic balls as well as future play installations from MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong  Kindergarten in The Playground; audio-visual wizardry from Portugal’s Video  Jack (Nuno Correia and André Carrilho) in a second auditorium called the  Immersion Chamber; and interactive biomechanical plants from France’s ScenoCosme in The Hanging Garden, all centered on the theme ‘The Future of Play”.

Plutopia 2011 was rich in converging technologies and science with the arts and entertainment. The 1000 plus visitors were invited to experience a diverse array of interactive entertainment, performances, talks and installations which included a wide range of emerging technologies, social and behavioral change, and affective processes. These covered everything from sensory engagement, smart materials and architectures, robotics and augmented reality to interactive, socially and location-aware installations, gaming and stage performances.  In addition, there was stellar food and drinks abound and as in  previous years, Plutopia ensured through its collaboration with Green Fern Events and Wandering River Recycling, ensure the sustainability angle was optimized.