Digital Minds: The Northern Light
Posted on Wednesday, 4th November 2009 by G.Rakusen
Haus Projects took a trip out to the Digital Minds: The Northern Light conference in Gävle, Sweden, at the end of October. The conference, little sister to the Thinking Digital Conference (which takes place yearly in Gateshead), was in its first year. Speakers included Matt Mason, Herb Kim from Codeworks, and Ingvar Sjöberg. Jim Terkerust from the Institute of Digital Innovation gave a presentation about the Digital City fellowships, from which Haus Projects was born back in February this year, and it was nice to bump into a few familiar faces.
Great to get a play on a version of the Reactable again, this time hosted by Moneeo. Haus Projects met the creators of the Reactable at Sonar Festival earlier this year. This kind of revolutionary musical interface is our favourite interactive tool of the moment. It strikes at the heart of anyone interested in play and exploration, regardless of their musical persuasion. It’s an incredible resource for teaching about sound, and for encouraging people to experiment collaboratively, and we want one permanently installed in our office!
The most interesting presentation at Digital Minds was by Ingvar Sjöberg, where we learnt about the Interactive Institute, a Swedish experimental IT-research institute that combines expertise in art, design and technology to conduct world leading applied research and innovation. It appears to sit half way between the amazing research going on at our very own Culture Lab in Newcastle and the enterprise focus of the fellowships at Digital City, Teesside. Hopefully, Haus will be visiting the Interactive Institute in Stockholm next year...
And lastly: Sweden’s One North East representative Gun-Marie Östedt-Axelsson announced ‘Project SEAGULL’ (our home page picture is just a coincidence), an initiative launched in 2007 to bring Swedish digital and technology businesses into the North East market, and vice versa. At present, there isn’t much information online about the project, but we think this could be a very exciting time for forging new North Sea alliances, and we want to find out more. Some helpful links below:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21742786/Seagull-Leaflet
http://www.establishingabroad.com/bazment/784.aspx
