Blog
Additional Amsterdam #1 speakers confirmed
February 3rd 2012 / Comments (0)
Earlier today we sent out an email announcement to our Netherlands mailing list. In it we already mentioned one additional speaker: Edo Paulus (NL) who’ll talk about SonOrb. The program for Amsterdam #1 is completed by Claire Warnier of Unfold (BE) who will present on Kiosk. All details are available at the event page.
Announcing Amsterdam #1
January 30th 2012 / Comments (0)
After running over ten events in Utrecht, we are now bringing This happened to Amsterdam. In collaboration with Brakke Grond, our first edition will present a mix of Dutch and Flemish interaction design projects. Please join us for what will surely be a special evening.
Speakers confirmed so far: Tim Knapen (BE) on Godmode and Pieke Bergmans & LUSTlab (NL) on Res Sapiens. More speakers to be announced soon.
Pertinent data can be found on the event page.
Announcing Hamburg #2
January 21st 2012 / Comments (0)
We’re busy working on final details of the line up and really looking to see everyone in March 2012 at a great new location! Check out the event page for all information and booking.
Videos for Utrecht #10 up
December 6th 2011 / Comments (0)
We’re slowly but surely working to get our backlog of talk videos online. Number ten was kind of special for us, not only because it was, you know, our tenth edition, but also because we were lucky enough to have This happened founder Chris O’Shea over to present Hand From Above. The other talks were by Arne Boon & Mathijs Konings, Matthias Oostrik and Yuri Suzuki (who previously talked about Sound Chaser at London #5. Most of the work discussed that night was simultaneously shown at the playful expo of the 2011 Tweetakt festival, who were also kind enough to sponsor this edition.
Hanging out with Bernie DeKoven
October 20th 2011 / Comments (0)
In preparation for This happened – Utrecht #12 at the Playgrounds Festival in Tilburg we had a very nice serendipitous encounter with fun theorist and author Bernie DeKoven on Google+ hangout. I asked him if he was willing to say something to our audience (keeping up our tradition of guest appearances) and he more than willingly accepted with a personal message and a short version of his keynote presentation he gave at the 2011 DIGRA Think Design Play. Unfortunately we were unable to fully show it at the event itself, but we did promise to put it online for later enjoyment. So here’s the screen recording of the hangout:
Bernie DeKoven talks about playing well together on Vimeo
Getting ready for Utrecht #12
October 4th 2011 / Comments (0)
Sonia Collari completes #12 lineup
We are busy with the final preparations for Friday and can announce that the lineup for the upcoming edition at Playgrounds Festival is complete. Our fourth speaker Sonia Cillari talks about Sensitive to Pleasure, a performative electric-field sensing and sound environment.
Get a spot on our guest list
The event is open to all attendees of Playgrounds, which is already sold out. We still have 20 spots on our guest list that we can give away to our followers. Please note that a guest list spot does not provide you with access to the rest of the festival.
The registration is now open via this link.
Looking forward to seeing you all in Tilburg!
Videos for Utrecht #9 are online
September 30th 2011 / Comments (0)
So earlier this week we published the videos of This happened – Utrecht #9. Roel Wouters, Vlambeer, DUS Architects and John’s Phone… This was back in February but boy were they great. Numbers 10 and 11 will follow shortly!
Announcing Utrecht #12
September 23rd 2011 / Comments (0)
We’ve put up details for our next Utrecht event. We’re taking This happened on the road with this one, all the way to Tilburg for the excellent Playgrounds Festival. We’re still putting the finishing touches on the line-up but have three great speakers confirmed so far. Have a look.
New website
September 21st 2011 / Comments (0)
Today is the launch of the new website for This happened. Whilst it may not look so different from the previous site, there have been various visual tweeks, but all of the work has gone on behind the scenes. The last website was made up of static files, but the new website has a content management system. Every city now has their own login to be able to edit content and create events. There is also a new blog, where each city can keep us up to date with any news.
More features will be added to the site soon, such as browsing talks by tag or searches. In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe & let us know what you think in the comments.
Announcing London #10
September 9th 2011 / Comments (0)
Announcing the programme & booking information for London #10
Report on London #9
June 8th 2011 / Comments (0)
This report was written by Camilla Grey of Moving Brands, originally posted on their blog here. Many thanks!
Last night, MB’s Design Director (and original wearer of the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt) Campbell Orme spoke at London’s latest This Happened event in Whitechapel. Also speaking was James Wheare, creator of TwitShift – a bot which allows you to follow yourself on Twitter from a year ago. James admitted that the service was a unique form of navel gazing, but argued that Twitter is fairly self-absorbed anyway. He explained that users were able to see how far they’d come since last year, and recognize patterns in their own behavior and movements. I particularly liked the idea of people @replying to themselves and even unfollowing themselves. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, “I wouldn’t want to be part of any Twitter feed that includes me as a member”.
Campbell was up next, talking us through the process which led to the creation of a unique animation style even Jeremy Paxman couldn’t get his head around. Splicing animating, 3D characters then swiping the images through space on an iPad and recording them on a long-exposure resulted in an ephemeral stop-motion animation. The project, executed by Campbell while he was at BERG with the team there and Timo Arnall, aimed to encapsulate Dentsu’s concept of Making Future Magic. Of the learning curve surrounding the project, Campbell observed that “Sometimes we learned something on a Monday, which we’d use on a Tuesday. And sometimes we’d learn something on a Thursday we wish we’d known on the Tuesday”. Such is the fate of anyone striving to break boundaries through creativity, experimenting and, as Campbell termed it, “weirdy tech”.
The final speaker of the evening was Tom Taylor. Most widely known as CTO of The Newspaper Club, Tom’s talk was about his learnings and insights from failed photo community game, Noticings. His story about the dramatic growth and demise of interest – both from his users and himself – resonated strongly for me with regards to the Moving Brands’ “Brand For London pitch”. Tom’s surprise that “if you invite the Internet, they will come” mirrored the incredible response we experienced two Summers ago. As did the quick descent into feedback monitoring and troubleshooting, which goes hand in hand with any form of community organization. Tom shared four key learnings, ones which we too could have been mindful of,
1. Work out how to deal with everyone turning up
2. Work out how to keep experimenting and having fun
3. Not get new jobs in the middle of it
4. Turn things off properly
A huge part of being creative is to never avoid the opportunity to try things. As each speaker proved, giving things a go, even if they fail, is the only route to innovation.
New organisers of This happened London
April 20th 2011 / Comments (0)
This happened started in London in 2007 by Chris O’Shea, Joel Gethin Lewis and Andreas Müller. We wanted to start our ideal event that would cater to our interest as designers and practitioners, looking at process, how interaction projects actually get made. The London event has become very popular, with tickets being booked up within seconds. We are very happy that the format has spread to other cities such as Edinburgh, Utrecht, Limerick & Hong Kong.
Unfortunately we organised the events in our spare time, so as things started to get bigger, we found it difficult to concentrate on the event and put effort into the growth and global community of This happened at the same time. So as of 2011, the three founder will resign from organising the This happened London events.
From here forwards we will put our energy into managing the ‘foundation’ of This happened, its future directions, the online community and assisting others in starting the event in their cities. Hopefully this focus will allow This happened to grow into something much larger, more open and across the world.
This means that the London event is now organised by these lovely people…
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Russell Davies and Ben Hammersley. Welcome! We are proud to have you on-board and excited to come to your events in the future.
In February we all had a breakfast together at the Shepherdess Cafe to hand over the reins and our contacts. The new organisers are busy with their plans for the next event, so keep your eyes here.
Please note that London has its own Twitter account now, so follow @thishappenedlon for updates. The @this_happened account will be used for global news.
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