An Interesting Day 2018
Each year Bakken & Bæck , a digital product studio from Norway, hosts a one-day conference called “An Interesting Day”. They invite interesting people from the tech and design field to talk about their projects, random daydreams and serendipitous strategies.
I was lucky to receive an invite this year, so I though: why not write a few words about my experience.
This year the event was at De School, a former school building in Amsterdam West, which now functions as a nightclub, restaurant and event location. Each attendee received a tote bag (and patches!) with the conference illustrations by Oscar Grønner. We also received a complimentary issue of Offscreen magazine, which focuses on the human side of technology, a perfect fit for this type of conference.
Inside the building there were art installations with video games, musical instruments and performance art. Not exactly my kind of art, but it sure was interesting 😏.
There was a talk by Ida Tin, the co-founder of Clue, the menstrual and reproductive health tracking app that refuses to be condescending. Joy Mutai talked about Block by Block, a UN-Habitat programme where Minecraft is used as a community participation tool in the design of public spaces all over the world. Both very interesting topics, but my favourite talks of the day were by:
Anna Holmes
Anna Holmes is an award-winning writer and acclaimed editor. She talked about her work, from starting Jezebel, a liberal blog geared towards women, to launching Topic, a digital destination for visual storytelling. Her talk was full of sharp observations on gender, race and culture
Tracy Ma
Tracy Ma is a graphic designer and the visual editor at the New York Times Styles desk. I knew the work she did for Bloomberg Businessweek and really admire her original and experimental designs. I thought her talk was very funny and I enjoyed seeing how far she could take her weird and perhaps sometimes ugly-on-purpose designs. Here’s her portfolio.
Zach Lieberman
Zach Lieberman is an artist, researcher and hacker dedicated to exploring new modes of expression and play. He showed a wide range of experimental digital work, like a low-cost eye tracking system that enables paralysed graffiti artist Tempt1 to continue to create art. I really liked his AR-art-piece that allows you to record sound in space and play it back by moving through it. Check out his generative art on Instagram.
But let’s not forget about the awesome hosts running around the stage! Simon Panrucker gave each talk a musical rap-intro, and together with Pasquale D’Silva made it a really fun event. And the food was amazing too!
Thanks Bakken & Bæck!
