Talks

• Semitransparent Design are based in Tokyo and specialise in connecting the web to real spaces. They talked about a promotion for Bravia that enables people to change the colour of the Sony Building for real using a virtual dropper.

• Henry, Matt and Russell are building something to go in the window of the Howies shop in Carnaby Street. It’s a machine which makes postcards from images stuck in a flickr pool by Howies customers and delivers them via Heath Robinson pointlessness and delight to people in the shop. It’s a tale of weekends and evenings, thinking and tinkering, software and plumbing, long waits, quick spurts and splendid generosity. It’s called The Instorematic.

• Simon Oliver creates online games, exhibits for museums and is now working on a indie-game for the iPhone/iPod Touch for his micro-studio, Handcircus. He talked about how the game came about, the peculiar nature of the platform, opportunities for innovation and the ups and downs of creating content for a brand-new device.

• Brendan Walker runs Aerial, a design practice specialising in the creation of tailored emotional experience. Brendan talked about the evolution of Aerial’s Thrill Laboratory “a fluid organisation of scientists, artists, designers, engineers, and technologists all of whom have a passion for experimentation”, and his emerging role as a Thrill Engineer.