FITC AmsterdamX — My Story
I was recently lucky enough to enjoy the charms of the tenth anniversary edition of the world-renowned FITC Amsterdam. The self-proclaimed ‘Design. Technology. Cool Shit.’ event, took place Feb 20–21 and featured an interest-piquing line up of inspirational and educational speakers, as well as providing opportunities to try out the latest in VR, MR and AR tech. Splendid.
I thought people might enjoy a breakdown of the event and my trip, and I hope it might help solidify in my mind what I learnt and enjoyed at the event (and in the city itself) if I wrote it all down. So, without further ado, here is my non-numerical, non-hierarchical list of some of the stuff I saw, learnt, felt and liked during my time at FITC AmsterdamX.
Theme: We’re all in the same boat
Let’s start with the overarching vibe (urgh) of the event.
It seems that regardless of whether you’re working for a globe-spanning tech giant or a tiny boutique agency on the west coast of Scotland, we all face the same day-to-day desires to be as creative as possible, and the same pressures, panics and minor breakdowns caused — on occasion — by clients.
I’ve not been to a heap of these creative conferences, and it was comforting to be surrounded by so many likeminded individuals.
It got a bit schmaltzy there. I promise I won’t do that again.
Talk: The Tinkerer’s Toolkit
The opening talk (for me at least) was a charming and idiosyncratic love letter to mucking about with technology.
Consummately delivered by Stacey Mulcahy, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft Garage, it was a brain dump of all her favourite tools and software to fiddle with in the workshop, as well as some inspirational guidance to keep you enjoying ‘making stuff with no purpose.’
I loved this talk, and it spoke to several aspects of my personality — the one who trained as an electrician, the one who learnt to code (still learning!) and the one who enjoys fixing lamps and other broken electrical doodads far, far too much.
Check out Stacey’s library of cool stuff which she generously donated to the attendees: https://aka.ms/tinker
Theme: VR, MR, AR
Partly down to my choice of talks, but partly because of what was on offer, there seemed to be a suffusion of presentations about immersive experiences. ‘VR’ was never far from any presenter’s lips, even if ostensibly their talk had nothing to do with it.
There were some excellent examples on offer, such as Autodesk’s experiments for architects and manufacturing, as well as some thought-provoking…er…thoughts on applications for the tech, an in-depth walkthrough of the design process for a VR controller (Google’s Project Daydream) and a great presentation on storytelling for virtual worlds (see below).
Plus, I GOT TO PLAY WITH A HOLOLENS IN THE DEMO ROOM AND IT WAS ACE!
Also, the American Horror Story VR experience — https://youtu.be/PadfNX-KMpc
Also, Block Rocking Beats, which was sweet. I could have played on that alllllll day. Check out @blockrbeats.
[Ok, fanboy moment over]
Talk: What we can learn from Dungeons and Dragons
Oh, guys. Guys! I can’t really express you how much I loved this talk.
As a veteran of many, many worlds built of imagination, pen and paper (GURPS, Warhammer, AD&D, RIFTS etc.) this talk by Stefan Grambart of Secret Location hit me right in the feels. Plus, it was super inspiring and educational.
His talk focused on how new immersive platforms like VR need new types of emerging and evolving narratives. And as an employee of an agency obsessed with the value of storytelling, Stefan’s talk had some prosaic applications for myself and my colleagues.
I’ll definitely be using some of the points in this talk for future projects.
Apology…
It turns out I’ve got loads more to talk about than I originally thought, so I’m going to run this as a series.
Thus we bid farewell to part one and press onwards, brave adventurers, to part two…
[PART TWO]
