Plutopia Productions Launched the Future of Play

AUSTIN, TX, May 13, 2011 (Press-News.org) The innovative entertainment and events production company Plutopia Productions, Inc. is a relative newcomer to the entertainment industry, but the wider experience - specifically cultural, futuristic and technical know-how - of its leadership has launched them to the forefront of integrative events formatting. Their fourth annual signature South by Southwest event Plutopia 2011 raised the bar once more in what has been called the most "unique" and "thrilling interactive experiences" of one of the world's premier music and media festivals held each year in the vibrantly eclectic city of Austin. The firm's other well attended and globally-attuned productions at the festival included the 2011 Chilean Music Showcase and Barbados Night, which showcased talented musicians and regionally-inspired ambiances from their respective geographic regions.

Plutopia 2011 was rich in technologies and science converging with the arts and entertainment, and revolved thematically around the future of play - specifically the concepts of sound play, social play, active play and emotional play. The more than 1000 visitors experienced a diverse array of interactive entertainment experiences, performances, talks and installations, which included a wide range of emerging technologies, social and behavioral change elements, and affective processes. Such event ingredients vary among sensory engagement techniques, smart materials and architectures, robotics, augmented reality, socially interactive and location-aware installations, gaming, and stage performances. In this way, the event cleverly melded together the various streams of performance and innovation its "Future of Play" theme, approaching the concept of play as fundamentally transformative.

More than ever before, Plutopia 2011 sponsors benefitted from their involvement, which went beyond mere financial support and brand association. Event sponsors were instead deeply involved in the creative visitor engagement process. Of these sponsors, several launched brand new and very exciting technologies and products from the platform of the experiential event.
Specifically, Sphero demonstrated to the their latest prototype of an innovative robotic ball and new gaming concept that turns your smart phone into a robotic controller, while XCHOX debuted an interactive 3D music. Meanwhile, Edible Austin ensured that stellar food and drinks ran aplenty, while Green Fern Events and Wandering River Recycling optimized environmental sustainability. Other sponsors included South by Southwest Interactive, Paradigm Nouveau Enterprises, ThinkGeek, Clarity Ventures, iCanMakeItBetter, Interactive Entertainment Systems (IES), The Futures Lab, Intellitoys, Texas Music Water, the Texas Department of Insurance, Blastro, QRANK and Whrrl. Event-oriented media partnerships also featured were with the Women's Online Media and Education Network, bOING bOING, Laughing Squid and Pop17.com. Through their contributions, all sponsoring organizations partner with Plutopia Productions to create an interactive experience unlike any other.

Despite competing with a myriad of other SXSW Interactive events on that night, Plutopia 2011 maintained a solid audience up until the last vibrant sounds from the world's leading 8 bit artist, Nullsleep, whose performance was supported by real-time video genius No Carrier from New York City. Keynote speaker David Merrill the CEO of Sifteo Cubes, fresh from the Sifteo product launch at CES, joined Science Fiction author and thinker Bruce Sterling to commence the event with a presentations related to the "Future of Play" theme. Bruce talked about the role of Design Fiction, 3D augmented phones, and even "mechanical poetry." David explained the strategy and technology behind Sifteo Cubes and how they are shifting the paradigm of gaming and learning. Other popular segments of the event included:

• Bodytronix - an Austin-based electronic duo comprised of Eric Archer and Erich Ragsdale - who create wild electronic jams with a couple tables overflowing with odd handmade electronic instruments and retro gear. Eric also built and uses a vocal synthesizer. They seem to have an appealingly wild mad scientist edge about them. On this occasion they were supported by an amazing video projection that caused their performance explode with color, both musically and visually.

• Playing with Fashion Show with DJ Big Face creative and directed by Tina Sparkles and also including designs by House of Space (Malissa Long, Chia Guillory, Laisa Chavez, Jane Clarke, Amanda Fay, Jen Delk, and Shauna Maree Smith). The show featured futurist fashion that boasted a number of items created from recycled technological waste and emerging materials.

• Intimate Stranger, a current music scene darling recently voted one of the top ten bands to watch by the Austin Chronicle and currently the best live rock show in Santiago, Chile. They drew the largest crowd of the night, and on this occasion were chosen to participate in Plutopia 2011 because of their work with Chilean super videographers Telefunken.. When seen through 3D glasses, the resulting images leaped out to about 8 ft in front of the viewer. The result was a difficult to achieve holographic effect, which was made possible by the use of a 10,000 lumens projector and Telefunken's proprietary software.

• Headliner Text of Light pulled in the true connoisseurs of fine experimental music and performance. The band, comprised of Sonic Youth guitarist and American avant-garde composer Lee Ranaldo, guitarist and writer Alan Licht, world-renowned saxophone player Ulrich Krieger, and percussionist Tim Barnes. This performance was created independently from the two Stan Brakhage films that accompanied it (Unconscious London Strata (1982) 16mm, color, silent, 22.25 min and Panels for the Walls of Heaven (2002) 16mm, color, silent, 35 min). The resulting hour-long piece drove the audience to euphoria.

• The world's leading 8-bit artist Nullsleep performed live visuals in real-time in order to delivery an eerily unique performance of power, rhythms and deep energy to close the evening. 8-bit, or chiptune music as it is sometime called, uses gaming hardware such as Gameboys and other handheld devices to produce real-time artistic presentations.

• 3D music project XCHOX, developed by Xavior of Xavior FX Creative Arts. XCHOX unites musicians, engineers, mathematicians, poets, singers and more into an exploratory collective of precision artisans. It creates a new paradigm in linear cognition and enables DJs to build music from multiple songs at the same time by finding common relationships between beats, rhythms, chord progressions, styles, narrative and more. A demonstration was given by DJ Kid Infinity.

• Switched On demonstrated and allowed the audience to trial an amazing array of new and vintage electronic music instruments, including BitVision, which is a compact visual synthesizer designed for audiovisualization. It creates a composite video output signal that displays a 32×32 pixel image using a selected 16-color palette. BitVision is available as an assembled unit or a kit for DIY assembly.

• Total Unicorn drew a maximum capacity crowd to the Immersion Chamber with their off-beat breed of spunky psychedelic mayhem. Complete with masks and swirling visuals, Total Unicorn amped up the audience's spirits to a state of crazy, wild applause.

• Video Jack, a collaborative project between Portuguese artists Andre Carrilho and Nuno N. Correia for audiovisual art and VJing. They have a heavy focus on pushing the boundaries of VJing and audiovisual art, which incorporates software development, exclusive digital interactive animation, visuals with integrated graphical user interfaces, networked performance, web-sourced content and audio-reactive graphics.

• Shouwang, a member of Beijing electronica outfit White and leader of Beijing's best-known band in the West, Carsick Cars. produced a virtuoso performance of experimental electronica on guitar.

• Richard Philips' Interactive Entertainment Systems presented heir excitement and fun-evoking Synth-a-Beam gesture responsive audio-visual installation, which is always a major hit with audience. They were given the task of lighting up the whole outside of the building with its myriad of surfaces and inspirational shapes.

• Other playful interactive installations included Dr. Conrad's Giant Brain, back for a second year, and The Edge of Imagination Station created by Johnny Villereal. Both were extremely popular, generated real excitement with the audience, and were kept busy throughout the whole event by the buzzing crowd.

• Sphero launched its prototype, which is due to be launched to the market later this year. Sphero is the first robotic ball controlled from your smart phone or other mobile device. It uses Bluetooth and is a very flexible plaything that can take on any number of personas.

• Sifteo Cubes (originally named Siftables), "The alternative game system for truly hands-on play," from the MIT Media Lab. Each Sifteo cube is a 1.5-inch gaming blocks with full color screens that respond to motion and interacts with the player and other blocks as they are moved around.

• Eric Rosenbaum from MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten demonstrated the fabulous Singing Fingers. Singing Fingers is a new iPhone and iPad app that allows you finger paint with your voice. With Singing Fingers, you can see music, hear colors, and re-see everyday sounds for the beautiful playground that they are.

• Austin's UT AI / Robotics Department Director Peter Stone, who developed Robot Soccer, arranged for one of his team members Brad Knox to demonstrate a "punish and reward" computer program that learns to play Tetris. The research displayed was part of the artificial intelligence subfield of learning agents — computational entities that sense, decide, and act while learning from experience.

• Scenocosme's installation titled Akousmaflore was a small garden composed of living musical plants that react to human gestures and to gentle contact. Each plant reacted in a different way to contact or warmth by producing a specific sound. The invisible electrical aura apparently acts on the plant branches and encourages response. The overall effect was a delightful plant concert.

Unique, amazing, cool, interactive, special, thrilling, insightful, the best, fantastic - these are just a few of the epithets applied by the press, artists and visitors alike to Plutopia 2011 by the event's end. "Our concept of the 'sense event,' in which an audience's full array of senses are engaged to create a more memorable and high-impact experience, empowered us to launch the most unforgettable event South by Southwest Interactive has ever seen," stated Plutopia Productions CEO Maggie Duval. In their feedback, it is apparent that the event's attendees heartily agree.

About Plutopia Productions

Plutopia Productions, Inc. was founded in 2007 in Austin, Texas after its founders created a popular Do-It-Yourself (DIY) home of the future installation at Austin's Maker Faire. The name "Plutopia" is a mashup of "pluralist utopias," a concept suggesting DIY, configurable, "maker" environments of the future. Numerous cutting-edge events later, Plutopia is now a full-service experiential events and entertainment production company that helps future-focused clients create their own interactive events for consumer engagement. The highly professional Plutopia management team has years of successful global experience in cultural development, the arts, entertainment, event creation and production, future studies, marketing and visionary strategic planning. Plutopians are international leaders in the experiential movement and produce enlightening events for their clients, while providing value through the delivery of both services and content. Visit http://www.plutopia.org to learn more about how Plutopia 2011 delivered fresh insights into the changing world of play.