March 16, 2009, 2:51 PM — The SXSW parties may not be as well publicized as the great music, cool new film previews and the tech sessions, but they're definitely the most anticipated. SXSW has become legend for these gatherings, and most often than not, these are not of the Keith Moon variety. The SXSW Interactive parties are wild and wildly creative.
The social scene with the Interactive attendees isn't necessarily about hooking up...even though it's a thought on most everyone's mind. I received a note from Simon Owens who sent me a terrific link to his blog. Simon's blog details the tweets coming out of SXSW with a hilarious filter. But the parties are clever in their own right with
themes that attract that certain element you'd expect at SXSW Interactive.
One such party held on Saturday night was "Dorkbot". Dorkbot is something along the lines of a science fair with lots of beer. This year, party-goers were treated to some magnificent attractions. The motto of Dorkbot is "People doing strange things with electricity," and they didn't disappoint. Hundreds of people stopped to grove along to ArcAttack, a couple of Tesla coils which fire in time with music. This video shows ArcAttack playing the "Imperial March" by John Williams and "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingley (or Hot Butter...I can't remember which came first).
Another curious invention on display at Dorkbot was the CNC Magic Screen Machine. This is an Etch-a-Sketch connected to a computer and will draw any image (as best it can) loaded into said computer. Being an Etch-a-Sketch enthusiast (but admittedly a terrible artist), this appealed to me on a personal level.
On the other side of appealing, Smule was giving out demonstrations on how to play your iPhone like an ocarina. Zelda fans were, quite naturally, thrilled. Everyone else pretty much gave this a miss.
NYCResistor, a think-tank collaborative from Tacoma (kidding) was present to demonstrate a very clever invention: a 3-D printer. Bre Pettis, the demonstrator, you might recognize if you're a fan of "Make" magazine. The 3-D printer was not only a nifty invention, but was also available as a kit that you could build on your very own.
Dorkbot wasn't the only party happening, by any means. Some sponsors, however, should attend Dorkbot or at least look up the term, "party". Heck, I'll do the work for you. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party. Mozilla: I'm talking to you. The theme of Mozilla's party was a design challenge to "make the web suck less." Okay, perhaps this could be a fun time. I would be most interested to hear from anyone that attended this party and please set me straight. Even someone who just likes this idea.
The last gathering I'll mention was one that sounded really good on paper (virtual ink) but probably wasn't anything like I would have expected: The Decider hosted an interactive party. Combine shoegazer rock (The
Lemurs...very cool) with Eugene Mirman (from "Flight of the Conchords") as an MC and you have a winning combination. So why wouldn't this be anything
like I expected? The sponsors for the event were The AV Club, a tremendous pop-culture website, and The Onion. Now, it should be noted that the Onion and AV Club are part of the same company. But anything with the Onion...one of the funniest, most cynical sites around...should have been more of a Monty Python gathering than a musicfest. But hey, who am I to judge.
