Adam Montandon's blog

Read my latest news and digital adventures updated every day.

HMC Interactive has picked up its first major international award – a bronze 2008 Summit Creative Award for “The Weller Astronomy Galleries”, which was installed at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich. HMC Interactive beat thousands of entries from 25 countries to be recognized by the 14 year old Summit organization. HMC’s work was selected by an international panel of judges from some of the biggest names in the industry including professionals from companies such as Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Project Collaboraters:
Production Agency: Newangle
Hardware:SyscoAV
Setworks: Machine Shop

Labels: awards

Today I was at the Palace of Westminster talking about creativity in the South West of England, and I was really surprised to see Mike Bailey, who you may recognise as the character Sid Jenkins from the hit Channel 4 / e4 show Skins, filmed in Bristol.

He's convinced that the biggest creative hit to come out of the South West is the Noel Edmunds show Deal Or No Deal. Mike Bailey is from Bristol originally, and he was spotted in Bristol, at his college, when the casting director Jane Ripley discovered him, and auditioned him right there.

Mike Bailey explained that Brian Earlsley the creator of skins wanted an all Bristol cast right from the start. Brian's son, who was raised in the city pretty much came up with the idea for Skins. Bristol has a young student population and an emerging music scene that really fitted the themes of the show. Skins shows it all, including the things that you don't want to talk about, all the drugs, sex, and stuff that just needs to be shown.

Mike Bailey says Skins shows the nitty-gritty-ness of the city. Most of the characters, the young people in the show were "picked up off the street" with the exception of "about a boy-boy". All of the actors are just like their characters. It shows real people as they are. Mike Bailey said "We didn't go to work all day to be something totally different". All the cast, all the extras and all the crew were Bristol based, and that allowed them to really get the most out of the locations in the city for filming.

Now that series two of Skins is all over, and a new cast will take over for series three, Mike Bailey is now looking for new opportunities. I am looking forward to the new series of the show, and also to see what the existing cast get up to in the future.

Hi everyone.
I have been invited to the Made In The South West event at Westminster Palace tomorrow at 12.00!

I am very excited. Its the second time I have been invited to Westminster Palace to talk about innovation and creativity in the South West. The event is hosted by South West Screen.

The South West of England is a hotbed for the creative industries, and has been highlighted as a national exemplar in the governments creative economy programme strategy. I am really proud to be part of the creative industries in the South West.

We are home to...
Aardman... Icon Films... HP Labs... The Pervasive Media Studio... Watershed Media Center... BBC natural history unit... Endemol West... Twofour... Wildscreen... Encounters short film festival... Knowle West Media Centre... Spider Eye... RDF Television West... E3... International Screenwriters' Festival... 3 Skillset Media Academies... 1 Skillset Screen Academy... Bristol Media... Plymouth Media Partnership... Gloucestershire Media Group... Wessex media group... Cornwall media Focus... Skins... Hot fuzz... Cranford... Lark Rise to Candleford... Bonekickers... Casualty... and more!

So we are in pretty good company down here!

So, at the moment in the UK petrol prices are going through the roof. At around £5 per gallon, thats about $10 US. There are lots of factors affecting the price of petrol, but the truth is eventually it will all run out. Because of this it will become slowly more and more expensive.

The rising cost of petrol has a knock-on effect to the cost of goods and services. It will be very expensive just to drive to work each day. Even if you cut down to only essential journeys, and share rides, you will still be paying out more and more each year. Even public transport like trains and buses will have increased fuel costs as supplies get lower.Its all very well putting high tax on fuel to discourage excessive driving, but sometimes going from point A to point B is essential and unavoidable, for example, travelling distances to seek medical attention or importing foods into areas that cannot grow them locally.

As time goes on we will see people driving less and less, and perhaps using technologies such as video conferencing and telecommuting as a way to get around the problem. Modern workforces will need to evolve new ways of getting teams to work together digitally instead of physically. This is a massive challenge that forward thinking companies have to deal with now. Currently schools and universities lead the way with online courses and distance learning. It could eliminate the school run entirely, but it wont do much for good social development.

One prospect I am very excited about is the idea of electric cars. There has been a lot of progress recently with battery technology for mobile phones and laptops, and that helps with innovation in battery powered vehicles. The reason I am most excited about electric cars is that you have the possibility of generating your own fuel. The idea of being able to place solar panels on your roof, or even in your parking spot at work means that you get to capture energy for free. This local power system will be amazing, as we will then have an abundance of power. When you can drive almost anywhere for very low cost we will see a massive increase in unnecessary journeys. When your electricity bill is close to £0, you can leave the lights on all day, you can become "wastefull" without creating waste.

I am sure there will be a short term energy famine in the next 5 to 10 years, and it is already hitting the UK hard. But once we get our act together and see more clean, renewable energy sources being used on a local level we will enter a new era of excessive clean energy consumption.

As a computer user, my livelihood depends on electricity. To be able to generate that for myself is amazingly liberating. If anybody is working on any projects in this area please get in touch as I find it very exciting.

Image from Wikipedia

I just found this amazing online video editing tool called Animoto where you can make a really nice looking video out of your pictures and music in about 30 seconds flat. Its so much fun to use. I loved it so much I ran out and brought a years subscription that allows you to download the videos you create as quicktimes. The videos are great for making quick presentations of almost anything, and the clever part is all the animations are synced to the beat of the music.

The full version costs just $30 US dollars, that's about £15, and it allows you to make as many videos as you like in a year. I have been playing with it all afternoon and already made 5 videos! Its so addictive. what's even better is you can now get $5 off the price of a subscription if you follow this link!

I have had quite a few e-mails asking me why I decided to start blogging again after a gap of 5 years. I used to run a hugely successful blog and website helping young students to get to grips with computer code back while I was at University. At that time the blog was so popular that I just couldn't keep up with all the questions and comments and it became a full time job just looking after the site. I had to concentrate on my studies and then later on my business.

Recently at the Ice08 conference I met the fantastically enthusiastic Rahaf Harfoush, who was just getting started with her career as a new media strategist in Toronto. She was working on the Live Blog for the conference, and it was great to watch the conference unfold right before our eyes, and also to be able to look over at her screen as she typed away. It was so amazing to see someone taking part in the real world and also taking part in the virtual world. She wasn't just copying and pasting bits from peoples biographys, or typing huge word-for-word transcripts, but picking out the best bits and sharing them with the online world.

At one point she got up to ask a question and then immediately blogged the panels reply. I have often seen bloggers that regurgitate other sites information, or that hide themselves away behind a diary style format. But here was a person living her own blog, and I found that really exciting. After watching her for a few hours it really helped me get myself in gear to begin blogging my own adventures! thanks Rahaf for the inspiration!

Labels: ICE08, inspiration

Here is a story in today's Western Morning News about one of the projects we have been working on called Penguin Academy.

A Plymouth-based company has completed a series of interactive experiences for the visitor centre at Torquay's Living Coasts.

The zoo's new Discovery Zone will feature a dynamic series of displays, created by HMC Interactive.

It will be launched in May and consists of three major exhibits: a website, an interactive floor and a "penguin training facility".

"Children will love this exhibit as there will be an instant interaction as things can happen under their feet even when they are standing still," said an HMC spokesman. "Visitors will be able to pull their ecological weight and have fun at the same time."

The penguin trainer involves touch screens which allow visitors to choose their own penguin to nurture, grow and teach a survival skill to. Four games will be available and they will work together to create a penguin lifecycle of feeding, breeding and evading predators.

Cyber Seaside is a floor which invites visitors to stand on virtual litter to clean a beach and stomp around fishing nets to uncover trapped animals. It is controlled by a series of motion sensors that track the user's movements and create a graphic illusion based on where people are situated.

Labels: Press

Join Cyborg artist Neil Harbisson at his exhibition of cybernetic colour-sound paintings and sonic art performance with Portia Winters at Madame Lillie’s Gallery, London.

OPENING AND PERFORMANCE:Tuesday 22 APRIL 2008 7pm

Exhibition continues until Sunday 27th April.

Gallery open from 11am - 7pm

Madame Lillie’s Gallery. 10, Cazenove Road. Stoke Newington. London N16 6BD

Labels: colourblind

I have added two new links to blogs that are related in some way to the topics that you'll find on this site.

First up is the blog Interactive Architecture by the very talented Ruairi Glynn. His blog took a break for a while but I am very pleased to see that he has been updating a lot recently. Ruairi and I studied together at the University of Plymouth and he has gone on to create some amazing projects, and his blog is certainly the number one place to go for interactive architecture in all its forms. Just spend half an hour on his site and you will realise just why he has won so many awards for his great work. I hope to collaborate with Ruairi at some point in the future, and its just a matter of time till the right project comes along.

The second is the blog of Andrew Jinman who works at Twofour and has the very unusual task of using virtual worlds in an educational context. His blog covers topics like Second Life and Little Big Planet and looks at how in the future schools might be built from pixels instead of from bricks.

If you have a blog about creativity and innovation and would like to trade links, please get in touch or leave a comment. I am trying to keep the blogs I link to relevant to all the readers here so please, no blogs about dogs in costumes thanks.

Today I am fitting the warehouse with our new, huge, 6000 lumen projector and speakers so we can run an absolutely huge screen up the walls for our movie showing tomorrow (Tuesday) at 12.

I will be showing a 1hr documentary on the future! It should be fun. Pictures to follow.

Labels: warehouse

From a story at New Scientist
Tracking people's every move using buildings packed with motion sensors is more effective than CCTV, and less invasive to privacy, say researchers who tried the technique on their own colleagues.

Two researchers used arrays of small, cheap motion detectors to watch over people instead, with their officemates as guinea pigs. They fitted their 3000 square metre office building with an array of 215 simple detectors placed along the hallways at 2-metre intervals.

Most techniques for analysing data from sensor networks depend on automatically detecting certain behaviours specified ahead of time, making spotting unexpected features difficult, he says.


This reminds me of my project Lacuna created several years ago now that tracked exactly this sort of thing for artistic purposes, rather than for surveillance.

Lacuna is an ongoing project that receives live data streams from an electronic skin of architecture at the University of Plymouth’s Portland Square building. The data is then transformed into a 3D virtual reality dataspace, allowing people to step inside a virtual construction. However, as the occupants of the building turn on lights, open windows, use computers or even flush the toilet they change and control the animations on screen.

Lacuna is written and developed by Adam Montandon

I will post my writings online shortly.

I am very excited today as I start developing the MediaLab:Warehouse project with Anais Van Delft. Its going to be my pet project over the next few months. It will be a huge huge warehouse full of the most amazing interactive instalations and newest concepts in interactivity. It will be the warehouse of the future, using new technologies direct from our imaginations.

The concept artwork is arriving on my desk with almost hourly updates, and I just cant begin to tell you how huge this is. I will be taking lots of photos as we go along. If you would like to get involved with this project then please contact me via the contact form on the HMC interactive website. Or comment on the blog page and leave your details.

Kane Andrews is a very talented multimedia artist who launched his Pirate Cinema this week. He turns up with a projector, laptop and radio transmitter to broadcast movies on the sides of buildings. You can listen to the audio by tuning in your radio. Its a simple and fun idea that makes digital content accessible in a new way. Its a great way to grab attention and subvert the use of public spaces.

Kane says "Pirate Cinema was launched last night, it went really well and the picture came out a lot better than I expected."


Kane will be joining the team at HMC Interactive later on this year.

I am so pleased to announce that I will be giving the keynote speech at the annual meeting for multimedia teachers in Denmark at Hotel Legoland in Billund. On Thursday 24th April.

My hour long keynote will be from 10.00am to 11.00am and I will be talking about innovation and creativity.

Throughout the rest of the day the participants will work in groups developing a multimedia concept and presenting the result. They will also hear how LEGO innovates with multimedia.

Bror Arnfast kindly invited me after I met him in 2005 in Austria. Its all part of the Multimediedesignerlærerforeningen and you can read more (if you speak Danish) on the website here.

Labels: TV and Live

Hi everybody.

As you can see I have been busy at work improving the website and it is really coming on. Most of the links and things are working now. I will be improving the speed that it loads, and fixing lots of little niggles behind the scenes.

I have been so pleased that already lots of people have left comments and visited the site. Please keep it up.

Also, if you have a website or blog of your own please feel free to link to this website. I will be putting up a little links page later on with photos of all the nice people that send the most hits my way. Yay.

Also, if you can think of any improvements or suggestions at all for things that I should add, then please tell me what you like and what you dont like by leaving comments!

Thanks

Please watch 5 News on Channel 5 tonight at 5pm in the UK.

I was interviewed this morning talking about the future of cyborgs.

Labels: TV and Live

Today I was interviewed by Jon Bayley for the Evening Herald and we were talking about some of the things that we were looking forward to in the future.

One of his questions was about the current "Credit Crunch" and how it might affect businesses. This got me thinking as to how creative companies respond to a credit crunch. I believe that creative companies will do very well out of an overall credit crunch, especially the smaller companies. Why? Because there can never be a crunch on creativity. You may not have as much money, but you CAN have as much creativity and innovation as you like. No bank can charge interest on that!

A credit crunch means that creative companies will have to extend their imaginative practices towards how they deal with their business. They will have to throw brainpower at a problem rather than money. They will have to think their way out of situations instead of paying their way out of them. Creativity can exist outside of capitalism completely. The stereotype of the poor starving artist endures throughout the ages. In fact, with less pressure from investors and financial backers, creative companys are free to do their own thing and create new and unusual business models.

Labels: business, creativity

I am so pleased to say that we have been shortlisted for best Use of Technology for the Museums and Heritage awards 2008. Alongside Newangle, Sysco and Machine Shop who all worked really hard on the project. We worked on all the software programming and it was so much fun.

Labels: awards, museum

I was very pleased yesterday to find out that I will be registering my first ever Trademark! Its for a really exciting new technology that I have been working on since November.

Of course, I cant talk about it just yet, but keep on checking back and I'll tell you all about it as soon as I can!

I have just seen the very first edit of a new TV show I have been working on for the past few months and it looks amazing. I cant give away too many details, but its an exciting, fast paced show. I was involved in the special effects creation and it was amazing to work on. I'll let you know when it airs shortly.