… but not forgotten. Create World 09 kicked off to a very good start on Monday. Personally, I feel the conference has moved up a notch. There are more in attendance, and, if today was anything to go by, the quality of presentations and engagement are already way ahead of much of former years. Perhaps it’s a timing issue – the development and diversity of digital arts practice, its theorising and scholarship have reached that ‘critical mass‘ stage where there’s more of higher quality to offer. As one presenter said to me yesterday, ‘Create World is where I want to share my research and practice … musicians just yawn!’

The interaction this team has been working on for a couple of years is gathering momentum through the Twitter stream. We saw commentary and questions flow during the keynote, paper sessions, and workshop yesterday. Laptops (when the wireless chose not to drop out) and especially iPhones provided the platform for spontaneous feedback and commentary and quotes. It’s all still there for later reference – hashtagged #cw09 A couple of times it felt to me as though the hive mind were pouncing on key elements in a presentation and annotating. Food for further thought here on the nature of presentation and interactivity.

Audioboo on the iPhone is a boon for us podcasters. It’s quick and easy with none of the angst of post-production that bedevilled us last year. We got the interviews up within seconds of their completion, and they flowed beautifully through to this page. The latest will continue to be over there on the right. So far no vodcasts, but I daresay they will start to appear. Allan and Ian can do those as I was to have Athoman’s 3GS iPhone till it hit the deck yesterday morning (not me, not me!) Yes some iPods do die … I’m hoping Stephen’s won’t go into the bottom drawer of discarded things and bleed out all the psychic energy he’s endowed it with.

So maybe the success of this conference right here right now is the creative mobility thing … and perhaps it is a device. As Clay Shirky notes of the use of digital technology, it is only when a device is so ubiquitous that it is taken for granted, that it begins to have real traction in the world. Is the now-ubiquitous iPod the missing link in the resulting quality of presentations and conference engagement so far? Perhaps I’m drawing a long bow here but I think there’s some credence in my thinking. Your thoughts?

Kate Foy