That Was The Week That Was — 19th May 2019

A week of travel. Firstly Dusseldorf for Beyond Tellerrand for a few days then back for less than 24 hours before heading to Moscow for OFFF.

The sold-out Beyond Tellerrand had a wonderful vibe about it. The posters I had made for each speaker were the first thing you saw when walking into the foyer and I was really pleased with how they looked as a collection. Even the legend that is David Carson came up to me and said how much he loved them, which made me smile.

The titles seemed to get a good reaction and it was great to see them on the large screen after working on them on a smaller screen by comparison. This was now the second piece of work I'd done in Houdini and so far I'm pleased I made the leap to begin to learn this wonderful piece of software.

I was lucky to have Lisa with me for this trip, and during the break we set up a pop-up Produced for Use shop. To be honest it was very quiet from a sales point-of-view, though as I knew would happen, as we started to pack up people wanted to buy stuff. As it was we sold a few things, but wasn't anything like the queue I had at OFFF the year before in Barcelona after the talk I gave there. Lots of learnings to take-away.

After getting back from Germany, twelve hours later I was back at the airport to fly to Moscow for OFFF. I was amazed at how quick the flight was — around four hours via Helsinki. For some reason I always thought Moscow was further away. After being picked up at the airport, I was taken to the hotel, stepping through a metal detector to get to reception — the first time I've ever had to do that.

The next few days in Moscow were fantastic. The audience were so generous and seemed to love taking selfies with me and the other speakers. The organisation was incredible — thanks Valery and team. We dined at the highest restaurant in Russia — and Europe. We talked about the Universe with James Beecham — fellow speaker and a particle physicist from CERN. We drank Vodka in a below zero Ice Room. Joshua Davis made a generative visuals at the after party then kindly gifted me his awesome midi controller. I experienced the wonder of the Metro, thanks to fellow speaker Burton Rast's recommendation, and we partied till 5am on the last night / morning with the SuperDeluxe team, watching the sunrise on the bridge opposite the church that became infamous through Pussy Riot. At the end of the three days I had made new friends and had fallen for this impressive city. I know I'll be back sometime to explore further.

This coming week I need to get a new piece of work finished as part of a corporate talk I'm giving in Heidelberg — a piece made from attendee data that will be printed and given out as a souvenir for the event.