Ab­strac­tions II

Maps and Sched­ules

The schedule tool on ab­strac­tions.io wasn't bad, but I found it a little hard to use. The biggest issue was the map, which did not con­tain a legend.

I used this schedule picker (quickly thrown to­gether by Think Co.) and made this im­proved map 👇. This was also thrown to­gether, but felt a little easier to read.

For what it's worth, a little con­fu­sion on the layout of the rooms was NBD con­sid­ering the small crew at Code & Supply that was re­spon­sible for man­aging this in­cred­ible con­fer­ence! I re­ally en­joyed Ab­strac­tions II!

Set­tling In...

The C&S people got a lot of flak for the NFC (near-field com­mu­ni­ca­tion) wrist­bands, but they were hardly an in­con­ve­nience. The con­fer­ence center is so beau­tiful, and was such fun to ex­plore. I also snuck into the Ar­cade for a couple min­utes and played some pin­ball and Cen­tipede . Somehow the high score on there was like 400k!

Having never played some of these OG ar­cades, I was re­ally amazed at the bright­ness and sharp­ness of the pixels on those old CRT mon­i­tors. Up­date. I fi­nally made it on the score­board, but was still miles be­hind "DBH". Holy shit. How do people get that good at videogames??

They had Galaga, Ms.Pac-Man, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, half a dozen pin­ball ma­chines, and a re­ally dra­matic media art in­stal­la­tion with a pro­jector and a kinect (al­most missed it!). There was also a "silly hat" making con­fer­ence (that's al­ways open), and an­other room next-door that was ex­clu­sively for playing board games.

Be­sides Games... LOOT!

I went to a lot of in­cred­ible talks, and I'm def­i­nitely looking for­ward to the next con­fer­ence. There was tons of con­fer­ence loot. If you like stickers, pins, koozies, and other free­bies you walked out a king. It wasn't a mas­sive con­fer­ence, but there was still a ton to do and see.

Ab­strac­tions con­fer­ence loot ga­lore! Stickers, pins, and more! Follow on Twitter for more.

Closing Thoughts— Ab­strac­tions III??

Hope­fully the money and hype that this year's con­fer­ence gen­er­ated can help go to­wards even bigger-name guests at Ab­strac­tions III! That's not to say that this year's guests weren't phe­nom­enal. The day-two keynote by Si­mone Giertz about her journey from am­a­teur maker to YouTube-star was in­spiring and prac­tical.

Ad­di­tion­ally, two of my co-workers, Remy Porter and Jordan Par­sons, gave some won­derful talks. Remy showed off his im­prov and synth-building skills, and Jordan talked about his ca­reer in media art, dig­ital fab­ri­ca­tion, and de­sign. The C&S crew did a great job of mixing local flavor with some big names in soft­ware and dig­ital de­sign.

If you'd like to see more of the talks, checkout Code & Sup­ply's record­ings of the talks on their YouTube channel. Sorry it took me a month and a half to do a more in-depth recap of the con­fer­ence; I hope to see you there next time.