SXSW ATX, A Title Built for Texting
Austin, Texas; home of the hippybilly, partytown technogeek.
I visited Austin for the first time in 1994 on a riotous university rugby tour, characterized by the typical drunken misbehavior and pointlessly gratuitous nudity with which such jaunts are quite necessarily accoutered. The detritus of that disruptive wake, and of several extended visits since, have rendered me a component of the Central Texas landscape. I’ve liberally splashed my sweat, blood and snot on her dusty, sun-baked rugby fields.
An innumerable quantity of my brain cells have been destroyed (or, at least, forced on sabbatical) in Austin because of her unique opportunities for life’s libationary lubrications, such as Baby Acapulco’s Everclear Purple Margaritas and Trudy’s Mexican Martinis. Additionally, my arteries, inconsiderately bottlenecking in all the wrong places because of the superpolydupersaturated fallout from Dirty Martin’s cheeseburgers and The Salt Lick barbecue joint, funnel blood thinned by sweltering summer heat through muscles hardened by an otherwise deceptively vigorous lifestyle. Such visceral attachments formed a mutual fondness; I love Austin. And Austin loves me, probably a little too much.
The annual SXSW festival showcases the city; music, movies, games and technology draped in downright, down-home Austin cool. In the last few years, the festivities have grown from primarily music and movies to include an interactive technology and media trade conference in the huge and splendid Austin Convention Center, nestled neatly downtown in the entertainment district; nicely cocooned within the nearby bars, restaurants, hotels and coffee shops.
This year, I’m particularly intrigued by the ScreenBurn at SXSW Arcade, wherein the movers and shakers of the video game industry try to one-up each other in front of their fun-hungry fans. The “booth” that attracts me the most is Into The Pixel; the world’s only curated exhibition daring enough to flaunt video game art internationally. Such conceit is amply tolerable, however, because of the visually stunning nature of the work on display. Jaw-dropping is the word and rumor.
After Into The Pixel, while I’m still numbly reeling from realizing my own shudderingly brutal lack of talent, I hope to shuffle dejectedly into the Massive Black Inc./The Art Department’s stage area for a steadying sit-down and a fortifying cup of tea. Chances are, however, such ablutions will be deferred as the developers of God of War 3, Fallout 3: Transformers, and Bioshock 2 present their own breathlessly depressing cleverness for perusal. Iconic franchises such as these typify what is best about video games; the polygamous marriage of interactive story, movie, music and gameplay, striving ever onward until the day an integrated sensory amalgam will afford the player perpetual entertainment rapture, or perhaps even rupture (because everything that enjoyable always has a psycho-physical drawback built-in; some personal valve has got to pop. Equilibrium of the individual universe and all that stuff. It’s kind of a design rule, or a design flaw, or a design absence, or something).
The trade show is also a prime destination, because I love free stuff, and this, so I have been joyously informed, is where to blag a bagful.
Stopping by the Elance.com booth goes without saying. I intend to cast a stern glance at the people that deemed my The New Way to Work piece (a treatise of reverie and frothy zip that won me huge professional accolades) unworthy of even top ten recognition in a recent competition they were kind enough to host. But then, I know why; my wolfish charm, rakish swagger and winking cascade of whimsy occasionally confound even the most erudite of genius (much as I often bewilder myself). Oh yes, there will be a flinty accounting, gentle reader, of that have no doubt!
Nothing the gift of a cold beer can’t fix, you understand.
Elance.com is a global brokering site where tens of thousands of freelancers browse and submit proposals on projects posted by potential clients; from copywriting to programming, graphic design to manufacturing. It’s a fantastic resource I use quite often. They are at the forefront of the movement for the New Way to Work, where people who don’t need to go into an office, don’t. You’d be surprised how many people that includes; it more than likely includes you. As the world electronically interacts and shrinks, so does the physical workplace population.
Oh yeah, and I might catch a few bands. Maybe a movie or two. Y’know, while I’m there.
Text me.
I visited Austin for the first time in 1994 on a riotous university rugby tour, characterized by the typical drunken misbehavior and pointlessly gratuitous nudity with which such jaunts are quite necessarily accoutered. The detritus of that disruptive wake, and of several extended visits since, have rendered me a component of the Central Texas landscape. I’ve liberally splashed my sweat, blood and snot on her dusty, sun-baked rugby fields.
An innumerable quantity of my brain cells have been destroyed (or, at least, forced on sabbatical) in Austin because of her unique opportunities for life’s libationary lubrications, such as Baby Acapulco’s Everclear Purple Margaritas and Trudy’s Mexican Martinis. Additionally, my arteries, inconsiderately bottlenecking in all the wrong places because of the superpolydupersaturated fallout from Dirty Martin’s cheeseburgers and The Salt Lick barbecue joint, funnel blood thinned by sweltering summer heat through muscles hardened by an otherwise deceptively vigorous lifestyle. Such visceral attachments formed a mutual fondness; I love Austin. And Austin loves me, probably a little too much.
The annual SXSW festival showcases the city; music, movies, games and technology draped in downright, down-home Austin cool. In the last few years, the festivities have grown from primarily music and movies to include an interactive technology and media trade conference in the huge and splendid Austin Convention Center, nestled neatly downtown in the entertainment district; nicely cocooned within the nearby bars, restaurants, hotels and coffee shops.
This year, I’m particularly intrigued by the ScreenBurn at SXSW Arcade, wherein the movers and shakers of the video game industry try to one-up each other in front of their fun-hungry fans. The “booth” that attracts me the most is Into The Pixel; the world’s only curated exhibition daring enough to flaunt video game art internationally. Such conceit is amply tolerable, however, because of the visually stunning nature of the work on display. Jaw-dropping is the word and rumor.
After Into The Pixel, while I’m still numbly reeling from realizing my own shudderingly brutal lack of talent, I hope to shuffle dejectedly into the Massive Black Inc./The Art Department’s stage area for a steadying sit-down and a fortifying cup of tea. Chances are, however, such ablutions will be deferred as the developers of God of War 3, Fallout 3: Transformers, and Bioshock 2 present their own breathlessly depressing cleverness for perusal. Iconic franchises such as these typify what is best about video games; the polygamous marriage of interactive story, movie, music and gameplay, striving ever onward until the day an integrated sensory amalgam will afford the player perpetual entertainment rapture, or perhaps even rupture (because everything that enjoyable always has a psycho-physical drawback built-in; some personal valve has got to pop. Equilibrium of the individual universe and all that stuff. It’s kind of a design rule, or a design flaw, or a design absence, or something).
The trade show is also a prime destination, because I love free stuff, and this, so I have been joyously informed, is where to blag a bagful.
Stopping by the Elance.com booth goes without saying. I intend to cast a stern glance at the people that deemed my The New Way to Work piece (a treatise of reverie and frothy zip that won me huge professional accolades) unworthy of even top ten recognition in a recent competition they were kind enough to host. But then, I know why; my wolfish charm, rakish swagger and winking cascade of whimsy occasionally confound even the most erudite of genius (much as I often bewilder myself). Oh yes, there will be a flinty accounting, gentle reader, of that have no doubt!
Nothing the gift of a cold beer can’t fix, you understand.
Elance.com is a global brokering site where tens of thousands of freelancers browse and submit proposals on projects posted by potential clients; from copywriting to programming, graphic design to manufacturing. It’s a fantastic resource I use quite often. They are at the forefront of the movement for the New Way to Work, where people who don’t need to go into an office, don’t. You’d be surprised how many people that includes; it more than likely includes you. As the world electronically interacts and shrinks, so does the physical workplace population.
Oh yeah, and I might catch a few bands. Maybe a movie or two. Y’know, while I’m there.
Text me.
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