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SparkArts: Digital Arts Festival - Call For Submissions

category: general [glöplog]
 
The SparkArts Digital Arts Festival is an annual convention held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In 2007 it will be held October 12th-13th at The Salt Lake City Public Library.

SparkArts is all about networking. It's a place where graphic artists, musicians, and programmers can meet each other. For companies, it will be a great place to find talented new hires in a relaxed setting. For indie game developers, it will be a place to show off your game ideas and maybe get an artist or a musician excited about working with you. For students, it will be a place to learn how to get started, to improve skills, and to make friends with the same interests.


In Detail

SparkArts was formed to fill a void in North America's digital arts culture. There are many diverse, yet related art scenes, involving computer animation, 3d art, audio visualization, digital music production, and interactive arts. The primary goal of SparkArts is to bring together diverse talents in this fractured space, and "Spark" new growth and collaboration.

Along with speakers, presentations, and live performances, the festival will play host to many competitions, including:

* Animated Short Film
* Demo (as in demoscene, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene)
* Graphic Art
* Interactive (indie gaming and interactive art)
* Machinima (movies made with video game engines, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima)
* Electronic Music

We expect between 150 and 300 attendees, from all over North America. The venue will feature a movie theater style auditorium and plenty of room to network, mingle, play games, and discover. It will be close to the downtown area of Salt Lake City, within easy reach of hotels, restaurants, beautiful scenery, and Salt Lake City's thriving nightlife.

Check out the Demo Competition rules. Let me know if you need somebody to represent you at the event.
added on the 2007-09-11 09:43:44 by dilvie dilvie
Quote:
If your demo is longer than 4 minutes, we may cut your demo off early


This doesn't sound very reassuring.
added on the 2007-09-11 09:47:50 by Preacher Preacher
The four minute rule will only be exercised if we're pressed for time due to a larger number of entries than we anticipate.
added on the 2007-09-11 10:00:34 by dilvie dilvie
and how many do you anticipate?
added on the 2007-09-11 13:32:26 by phoenix phoenix
and why always Salt Lake City?
added on the 2007-09-11 13:48:23 by kb_ kb_
Seriously speaking, good luck with your party. It's just that compo rules that say such things aren't very inviting.. but I might try making something anyway. In that case, I definitely need someone to represrent me :D
added on the 2007-09-11 13:56:13 by Preacher Preacher
Quote:
Just remember that it's a really bad idea to bore the audience, and there's going to be a lot of stuff to watch. Keep it short and awesome.

And you're called SparkArts? Last time I checked art was not about pressing artists to make something in particular.
Quote:
Your demo should generate its graphics in real time. This is the whole point. Playing back a prerendered/prerecorded clip is LAME, unless there are some pretty insane mitigating factors (8088 corruption is an excellent example of mitigating factors, if you're wondering).

You're saying The Evolution of Vision the evolution of vision is lame?
Quote:
Demos must have sound. I seriously hope you didn't need to be told that, though.

Again the art argument.
added on the 2007-09-11 14:44:22 by xernobyl xernobyl
Good luck with the party... and I hope the wining demo by Northern Dragons is any good :D
added on the 2007-09-11 14:45:19 by xernobyl xernobyl
Salt Lake City because that's where most of the founders/organizers live. FYI, Legalized is not affiliated with SparkArts in any way, and the venue is awesome. It is the crown architectural jewel of Salt Lake City, and was intended to be not just a place to get books, but a place that would educate and entertain the city. There are places to buy food, and several large rooms for presentations, along with one of the best screening theaters/auditoriums in the state.

The Evolution of Vision is nicely done. Lame would be if the whole thing were just an AVI playing back. That's not the case, though, is it? The footage being played back is being manipulated in realtime to produce the cool glowing line-art effects that make it a fun demo to watch.

As far as the sound rule, that's in there because we've all seen our share of unfinished demos that didn't have sound because the demo maker didn't have access to a good musician. Those don't tend to be as entertaining. We also have a rule against simply inserting somebody else's music without their permission. They're pretty simple rules, and not likely to inhibit creative vision too much. =)
added on the 2007-09-11 23:12:34 by dilvie dilvie
Phoenix,

I can't predict the exact numbers, obviously, but the venue can probably support 500 simultaneous attendees, and this is the sort of place that could attract a pretty good crowd of walk-in visitors even with no promotion (attendance is FREE), so it won't be empty no matter what happens. For me, the real question is, how many out-of-state sceners can we attract to the party? I'm anxious to see some of my old IRC friends in person (again, or for the first time).

I encourage anybody who can afford to to make the trip to SLC. Along with the obvious demo show, we'll have some good networking opportunities (representatives from video game companies, for example), some live entertainment, a truly awesome venue, and maybe a chance to bump into some old friends we rarely get to see.

- Eric
added on the 2007-09-11 23:31:33 by dilvie dilvie
I also think cutting a demo in half is just rude. It really is. Boring or not.
added on the 2007-09-12 00:07:18 by kelsey kelsey
It's not likely to happen. I wouldn't worry about it. =)
added on the 2007-09-12 00:11:44 by dilvie dilvie
good luck with your event, sounds nice.
added on the 2007-09-12 03:05:09 by psenough psenough
lol @ xernobil
sorry to disapoint you tho, we might not participate. or maybe we could enter only real crappy stuff.
Gotta leave the spot to someone else from time to time you know, and we already have too many DarkDomains DVDs anyway ^^
added on the 2007-09-12 07:08:12 by BarZoule BarZoule
Quote:
It's not likely to happen. I wouldn't worry about it. =)

haha, well that is good news. :)

the party sounds great. you say you'll have many non-sceners, i suggest you do some quality demoshows. last time i were at an event where there was a demoshow, the people hardly stopped by. :(
added on the 2007-09-12 09:03:09 by kelsey kelsey
Quote:
The four minute rule will only be exercised if we're pressed for time due to a larger number of entries than we anticipate.
Yeah, that will likely be a huge problem. ;)
added on the 2007-09-12 10:35:03 by gloom gloom
Yeah, we'll be playing lots of great demos. In fact, I'm pretty sure that even if we did no promotion, we'd expose more locals to the scene than any other event has in the history of SLC, just from the walk-in foot traffic that the Library attracts. Keep in mind, this is a major cultural hub in SLC. People go there just to enjoy the stunning architecture, and then there's the art gallery, the little food cafes, free wifi, and lots of interesting events going on all the time. There's always a pretty decent crowd, whether there's a bunch of publicity or not.

At the very least, it'll be a really nice demoscene outreach event.
added on the 2007-09-12 10:56:01 by dilvie dilvie
dilvie: Don't misunderstand me - I love the idea and the effort, I just don't think your demo-compo will be overrun by entries. ;)

Be sure to take some pictures of the event!
added on the 2007-09-12 11:02:57 by gloom gloom
Gloom,

I have no illusions about having a bunch of groundbreaking demos in our first year. I intend to document the event well, though. I'll be snapping photos (I'm a professional photographer), and recording the performances, so you guys can get a better idea of the quality of the event. We've secured a really nice venue, and we're likely to get it again next year. I've also lined up some really cool electronic music performances. I think you'll be impressed.

We have been pretty quiet, and haven't really been promoting the event hard to the out-of-state demoscene, which is why I'm offering to represent people who want to enter productions into the competitions.

Coplan and I have been involved in the scene (at times quite heavily) for many years. Between the local BBS parties I enjoyed as a teenager, and my second home on #trax, I feel like I was practically raised by the demoscene. We're not a bunch of newbies who saw some prods last week and got all excited about throwing the next Assembly. ;)

It is really important to me that this event is a fun and memorable one for everybody involved. My biggest goal is to inspire some local kids to stop playing WoW all day and actually create something cool with their computers. I think it's a very realistic goal.

- Eric
added on the 2007-09-12 14:27:03 by dilvie dilvie
As I said - I love the work you are doing, keep it up. :) It would be nice to have some photos from it / info about the event as soon as possible after it is done, since I can use it in my demoscene outreach trip to San Francisco in the end of October. Mail me at gloom@scene.org if you want to set up contact.
added on the 2007-09-12 14:39:09 by gloom gloom
I'll probably have some photos online before the out-of-state visitors get on the airplane home.
added on the 2007-09-12 16:24:03 by dilvie dilvie
awesome initiative! good going, dilvie!
added on the 2007-09-12 21:11:02 by skrebbel skrebbel
For the musicians, I posted remix packs for the music remix contest.
added on the 2007-09-13 16:56:56 by dilvie dilvie
Schedule for SparkArts 2007

October 12-13 2007

Salt Lake City Library, Downtown Branch



Day 1 - Friday October 12th



9:00 am

Welcome Speech, Summary of Events



10:00 am

Salt Lake Scavenger Hunt Begins. (Staffed by 2600?). Information available at the 2600 Desk, the hunt will take you all over Salt Lake City.

Game-in-a-day competition begins.

Demo theater begins (this is a looped set of several hours of footage from demos all over the world).

11:00 am-2:00 pm

DDR Competition (the platforms would be provided by McKay and Adam, projectors [and playstation2s] provided by the library)

Guitar Hero Competition (The library has some controllers and some games)



Afternoon

Talks

Possible topics include: "How to write your own electronic music," "How to use OpenGL," "How to use DirectX," "Optimizing code," "The history of the demo-scene," "The history of computer graphics," "Reports from SIGGraph, the world's largest computer graphics conference," "Getting a job in the video game industry." Other past topics have included reports from the European demo-parties and "how to make your own Nintendo from scratch."

3:00 - 3:50pm

Eric Hamilton discusses and demonstrates digital photography techniques.

6:00 pm

Library Closes.

Game-in-a-day competition continues, if desired, outside of the library



Day 2 - Saturday October 13th



9:00 am

Doors open. Demo theater resumes.



10:00 am

Game-in-a-day competition ends

Game judging begins

Afternoon

Talks



2:00 pm

All submissions due. Judges begin reviewing submissions to check compatibility.


2:00-3:50 pm
Electronic music composers, A.Vanvranken, Pelpp, and Eric Hamilton present digital DJ techniques, including a live tag-team DJ set by A.Vanvranken and Pelpp and Q&A session with Eric Hamilton.

4:00 pm

Scavenger Hunt Ends.

Final showing of works, and voting. We show everyone all of the works, and the audience votes on their favorites. Voting is typically done using our temporary local web page & network (Ryan Petrie has announced that he is attending, and will likely set this up for us again).



6:00 pm

Awards and closing ceremony Begins -- Library Auditorium



8:00 pm

Awards ceremony ends
added on the 2007-09-23 23:32:43 by dilvie dilvie

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