Town of Woodstock is Completely Digitized!

Digital Art Panel: Photo Courtesy of Marcin Ramocki

The weekend event of the year: the first Woodstock Digital Media Festival in Woodstock Vermont! The morning started the proceedings with two parallel panels: one on digital art (with discussants Christiane Paul, gallerists from Postmasters, Marcin Ramocki, and Mary Flanagan), and the other on digital media journalism, commerce, and nonprofits. Both were packed last Saturday!

The evening ended with a bang (or, a MOO?) at a working farm almost on midsummer’s night. Nullsleep played tunes that reverberated the classic post and beam renovated barn.

NullSleep in Vermont at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival. Photo by Sukdith Punjasthitkul, Tiltfactor.org

The town of Woodstock provided a perfect setting for locative media projects that explore space, place, and the negotiation of technology with these concepts.

A highlight of the event were works that dealt with locative media. Crowds gathered to explore the landscape with conceptual concerns about the landscape.

Crowds gather for a locative media tour in Woodstock VT, June 2011. Photo by Sukie Punjasthitkul, Tiltfactor.org

Tiltfactor folks were particularly impressed with the work of the GhanaThinkTank people, who ask members of developing countries to solve developed nations’ problems. This work is a reversal of typical aid efforts and helps provide a critical dialogue to issues of technology and innovation as applied to international development.

Dartmouth's mobile exhibition space, the PLAYCUBE, hosted mapping workshops by OpenStreetMap.org. Photo by Sukdith Punjasthitkul, 2011.

The event will likely happen next year, incorporating participants’ feedback. Stay Tuned!