EUROPRIX TOP TALENT AWARD FESTIVAL.

Billed as a festival ‘confronting the issues of interactive media’, I attended the Europrix Top Talent

Festival with high hopes. I wanted to hear, see and experience the work of the best of the cutting edge in European multimedia design and execution. The festival is a yearly event, which began in

1998. Since then, the festival and the awards themselves have become the place in Europe for young multimedia talent to discuss issues and developments in the field with industry experts and

to gain a unique insight into the future of multimedia as an innovative and imaginative delivery

and participatory platform. The 2006 festival was held in the Palais Epstein, an impressive

building near the Museumsquarter and the centre of Vienna. During the first day there were

scheduled discussions with panel members ranging from previous Europrix winners to ‘Curtis

Wong’ – the Principal Researcher and Group Manager of Microsoft Next Media Research Group.

During the first panel session the topic ‘Does interaction equal interactivity’ sparked discussion

primarily focused on the Web 2.0 trend of the viewer (or user) becoming the creator. Most

notably, case studies included;

Damien Marchi – from Streampower, France – ‘CULT’ television series.This series was viewer driven. Although expensive to produce, CULT proved a hit in France and ran for 120 episodes. Viewers were invited to fully participate in the hour long live show, as well as driving the concepts, ideas and content for future shows via an interactive web-based portal.

Pauline Thomas – representative of INA, France – ‘ina.fr/archivespourtous’. This video archive website has become an invaluable resource for the French education sector. It contains over 10,000 hours of material which is freely available streamed online, and also as paid for high quality downloads. Later in the day, discussions regarding the increasing trend for multimedia users becoming multimedia producers continued. Whilst discussing the future of mobile technologies and their place within the Web 2.0 framework, Frank Nuovo, formerly of Nokia, and currently Principal Designer at ‘Vertu’ said that   ‘…it’s no longer about predictive text, it’s about predictive environment…’.

After the panel sessions there was valuable time available to approach the panelists and fellow

audience members. I found this to be one of the best things about the festival; that all the

speakers were willing to listen and comment on ideas and thoughts about the future of multimedia.

The second day afforded the nominees for the Europrix Top Talent Award 2006 the opportunity to

demonstrate and present their projects to each other and the other festival attendees. Peter Bruck – Head of Europrix, Austria – moderated the presentations and provided inspiration and ideas for the teams presenting their work, and the audience. The running theme being ‘how can you make this have a commercial application?’.

Each presentation gave a great insight into the developments within the multimedia sector within

the last year. With nine categories this year, there were plenty of projects to see and experience,

each of which demonstrated the trends for multimedia practice in the last year, and also set the

path for developments in the future.

The three projects nominated in the ‘Broadband / Online’ category all utilised video footage and

the broadcasting capabilities of the Internet to deliver specific content to the user. The three

projects nominated in the ‘Offline / Interactive DVD’ category pulled together a wealth of media –

from audio to video to interactive games to photographs. Each of these projects were highly

location-based (one about Benin in West Africa, one about Mozart and his work and the last one

about a fictional suburban neighbourhood). The theme of location and belonging seemed to be

quite strong throughout both of these categories and tied the content together.

The nominees for the ‘Mobile Contents’ category were truly innovative. ‘More for Graz’ integrates

traditionally available software (image recognition tools) with mobile technologies to enable a user

to photograph landmarks on their mobile device and receive a detailed text and image-based

description of the landmark. ‘Anna’s Secret’ has built upon the notion of location-based gaming

through the use of mobile devices and allows players to use a handheld device to navigate and

experience a physical space. ‘CabBoots’, the winner of the ‘Mobile Contents’ category, were a

physical pair of shoes which are controlled via mobile technology to ‘steer’ the wearer along a

predefined path.

The category ‘Games’ presented two nominees, the ‘Tulse Luper Journey’ which consists of a

series of 92 online ‘suitcases’ which each contain a game created by young flash designers

across Europe. By collecting 92 fragments of film (one from each suitcase) a user can reconstruct

a film about ‘Tulse Luper’s’ life. The second nominee was ‘Stoked Rider’ – a ‘traditional’

snowboarding game, but delivered in only 60MB and with advanced 3D graphics.

The ‘Interactive Computer Graphics’ category presented the ‘Ball of Bastards’, an interactive

Pythonesque take on the 2006 World Cup, a ‘Robotic Dancer’ which enables users to create 3D

creatures which react to music, and an interactive story in the form of ‘Neighbours’ – a hand drawn Flash neighbourhood.

The category ‘Content Tools & Interface Design’ offered three very different projects. ‘Recreating

Movement’ allows the analysis of video footage frame by frame and can allow a user to see the

past, present and future simultaneously. ‘FlashFilterLab’ allows users to create graphical

flowcharts to perform real-time effects on any content. ‘Shared Design Space’ enhances

meetings and presentations by offering a unique interactive projected table-top environment for

collaboration and interaction.

The ‘Digital Video and Animations’ category nominees were ‘Tadam’, a multimedia puppetshow

which allows users to create their own narratives using real world controls for virtual puppets.

‘If()then()else()’ asks the viewer to think about what is more real and convincing: home video

footage of an actor expressing his frustrations about not being able to act authentically enough, or

the apparently real documentary footage of a terrorist hostage which inspired him.

One of the categories to have only one nominee was ‘Interactive Installations & TV’. ‘Outerspace’

is a reactive robotic creature which explores its surroundings and reacts to light, motion and

human contact. This project epitomised the ethos of this years Europrix, and deservedly was

awarded the overall winner prize. It brings together people of all ages into one space and

encourages them to interact with both the installation itself and each other. This prize was

awarded on the last day of the festival at the evening Gala event.

In terms of media in the South West of the UK, the most exciting and promising thing about the

Europrix event was the number of people from Devon and Cornwall attending, with people from

Plymouth, Falmouth and Totnes being present. The future of multimedia in the South West is

bright, and it is important that we continue to go to events such as Europrix in order to continue to

develop our skills, knowledge and understanding of the multimedia sector in a broad sense.

Particularly with the awards opening up next year to include even more multimedia practitioners

(no longer will there be an age limit of 30 years of age), I am looking forward to seeing some

fellow South West residents being nominated for this prestigious award next year! The Europrix

Top Talent Festival 2006 was a great experience, I would recommend attending to anyone