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Node XX

vvvv beta question
#1

After a long week of meetings, greetings, patchings and partyings at Node08, here comes the time for critics and wishes…Feel free to participate.

-I wish i learned more : advanced workshops (on the same principle as the beginners ones) would have been nice though…
-Reconsider prices, it was really too expensive…I guess many users didn’t visit us because of that…
-Please choose Berlin next time :)
-And reconsider your way of thinking vvvvinissage…Or visit the club before to be aware. LINK

Of course i had a great time there…Couldn’t met all of you…its on my list for the next time…
See you in XX!!

#2

hi evvvverybody.

Learning more is good. next time i think we would have more beginner workshops but then also really heavy stuff for the pro’s in smaller groups.

concerning the prices. a full week of heavy input for 111 is not much. including a lineup with reas, debatty, franke etc… i see that there have not been enough of those tickets though.

I want to keep it in Frankfurt. Maybe do a festival called LINK in the years between NODE which could take place always somewhere else.

the velvet club was not the place we have planned to do the node. it was a last minute solution where we have got the best out of it i think. i have a list of things to improve the next time which is quite long. but the first topic is the location and the partners. be sure i have that in mind.

thank you desax for beeing with us. i had a great time even though i might have looked like a zombie most of the time :-)

#3

Good to know, and I almost forgot to say you did a great job David :)

#4
  • I wish i learned more : advanced workshops (on the same principle as the beginners ones) would have been nice though…
    i’ve heard this a couple of times from different people. can anybody elaborate on this? what workshops exactly have you been missing? it seems difficult to me to offer generic advanced patching workshops.

would we need more shorter specific workshops where people talk about individual sollutions to specific problems? or should we do longer (2-3 days) workshops with a specific goal, where groups of people would work together on realizing a given project?

maybe its a bit early to think about improvements for the next node, but i’d really appreciate specific feedback to the workshops while your impressions are still fresh.

#5

First of all:
GREAT work of the organizers.
keep in mind that they weren’t eventmanagers until now…

Let me quote
Regine Debatty:

Just back from Frankfurt where i participated to the marvelously organized and well-attended Node08 Forum for Digital Art conference.

Paul Prudence:

With lectures, workshops, patcher kutcha’s, exhibitions and installations concerning the visual programming video toolkit VVVV, NODE08 really was an inspirational event.

of course there are some things to improve:

*the DMXworkshop was meant to be advanced. it was communicated that one should know about DMX/ArtNet.in fact most of the visitors didn’t know this so the workshop turned to be a beginners one. sorry for that. more advanced stuff next node.

*people working honorary from morning until late in the night have to pay their drinks and their food? IMO this is a no-go for the next time. working without wages is somehow ok, but you can’t bring money with you.

*better raise prises then. 111€ is more a joke than a price. other software workshops raise multiples of this for only one day.

*don’t keep techriders of artists hidden. avoid surprises.

*perhaps one week before LUMINALE. i didn’t have the possibility to visit the Light&Building Fair which is in fact the most important fair for me. hotels are cheaper then too.

frankfurt btw. has several advantages:
@MSBERGER and his company supplying immense amounts of Video,PC,Audio equipment is around. if they hadn’t sponsored the node, prices had to be around 5x as high i assume.

#6

Even me, I would like to see some more Pro-Workshops and whats about intermediate?
-And actually sometimes workshop descriptions was kind of confusing. At one, I was expecting something different turning out to be.
-And it would be good to specify versions of software you are supposed to use. Same same, workshop description… Or may be a specific thread in advance at 4V board to clarify directly with workshop leader. To keep it simple.
-An other point for me was, that I could visit on two days only, as it was mostly in weekdays. But beginner stuff at weekends.
I was sent and paid by my company and I would like to see and visit more, but its quite hard to get a whole week off. But at weekend - with private engagement - there were no interessting workshops for me to see.
I guess most of beginners are students, so they are more free to go at weekdays, dont they?
-Frankfurt is nice. Why always Berlin? Its annoying. I really dislike this Berlin-hype.
-And together with Luminale is cool. So, for 4V exhibitions a good way to get visitors outside the quite narrow field of nerds.

And at last, for me, it were really inspiring and rich days with nice people and much stuff to see. Thanks to all contributors and organizers for that.

#7

@kalle and Cat : the DMX workshop was fine (i assume that some people were lost when Catweasel was patching :)…) ; but would have been better in restricted groups ofc; for practical and technical issues…Anyway, it was a interesting in-between beginner and advanced ‘atelier’…
Longer workshops with specific goals sounds great, even if the goal isn’t what you’re looking for, it’s always interesting to solve specific problems…So for the next time i’d suggest that each intermediate or advanced workshops description must be linked to a project to achieve
About the location, Berlin was just a thought…Would have bring more external peoples and been easier and cheaper for accomodations and such…But on the other hand MarkusBerger’s team provided so many stuffs we can’t afford somewhere else…And the idea of an ‘in-between’ node linked event is also cool; just needs highly motivated people (and i’m sure there are many around) to spread the concept all over the world…I know some french guys around who are thinking about it since a while…So let’s go :]

#8

Ho hum … some answers worth adding to david’s from the organizer’s point of view:

  • all venues, like david pointed out, were the result of our first venue being cancelled at very short notice. Finding alternative and still suitable spaces wasn’t easy for such a thing like NODE08. Remember, this is Frankfurt, not Berlin ;-)

  • The Luminale always takes place during the time of the Light+Building trade fair, trade fairs in Frankfurt raise accomodation prices ridiculously and make budget options scarce. There were genuine reasons to couple NODE08 to the Luminale and accept several due trade-off’s but, next time we’ll take care of that problem and choose some off date.
    Moreover, if you compare prices to, say, the Transmediale or SONÀR, NODE08 has been very budget and affordable with the Fan Passes–unlike other related events, we were sadly not municipally or stately funded. With a different venue in the future, we should also be able to offer more tickets of course and hopefully get some proper funding too.

  • Berlin really is no option and I fully ack Frank with being annoyed by the Berlin hype. We wanted to do this in Frankfurt and, living here for a long time, this place really deserves a lot more attention :-D and activities ;-)

On a side note, the picture posted by Desax must have been from Friday night, not the vvvvinissage on Saturday. Friday night was a regular event by the Velvet and had nothing to do with NODE08 except for the excellent VJs … nevertheless, I’d agree in having the finishing night in a less posh place, with bouncers who know folks like us and less pricey drinks at the bar.

  • The line-up of workshops was intended to guide someone from being an absolute beginner on sunday, to being an at least intermediate by mid-week/end of week’s time. That way, it makes perfectly sense to stay the whole week (and party with those you got to know at the end). Also, it is not unusual for pro workshops and trainings to happen during the week.

Just like vvvv, NODE08 is/was a beta, will always be, and is a very good one too. You never know, quirks and issues always pop up and ask for workarounds. If it wouldn’t have been for all those hard and for free working folks of the community, some who have also posted here, this would never have been possible in the first and last place. All that support and generous sponsoring (like kalle points out, without mentioning his very versatile help during NODE08), sometimes vvvvery last minute, was overwhelming and often enough made our days.

I like to give shouts & respect, a huge thanks y’all, in front and behind the scenes,
you’re NODE08 ;-)

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