Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Active Ingredient gets in the press and other stuff


Since getting the Nokia award I have been feverishly sending out press releases and attempting to get information out about Heartlands (which is the newest version of 'Ere Be Dragons). It is working and so far we have featured in:

Independent on Sunday Review (21/10/07) p.8 Trends
We are also writing a feature for The Broadsheet, a Nottingham website.

A copy of the press release can be found on at http://www.i-am-ai.net/ in the YOU section.

Other than awards, press and admin, things are relatively slow here. We started work on our new project Them and Us, working with (the also award winning) Michael Pinchbeck, writer of the play the "White Album". This development work will soon be online on our new website Active Imagination, which will track our ideas, be a place for people to be able collaborate with us and add their ideas, and generally play a bit more...


Friday, October 05, 2007

Winners Nokia Mindtrek Award


Award Winning Team
Originally uploaded by Active Ingredient
On Wednesday we received first prize in the Nokia Mindtrek Awards for Ubi-Media (meaning media embedded into everyday objects and activities). Cheesy grins for everyone. The event was held at the Hotel Scandic Rosendahl in Tampere, Finland. the second largest city in Finland and very close to the town of Nokia!
We had a great time and particularly enjoyed the little medieval trumpet blast that accompanied every winners announcement.
Our last day was spent site seeing. We visited the Lenin Museum ( huge building ,very small exhibition) and the Moomin Valley Museum which was great and brought back many happy memories of childhood. The adventures of MoominTroll , Snufkin and the scary Hattifatteners were all shown in original ink drawings and little dioramas of their adventures. Great. The only low point was as I was taking a picture of a Bronze statue of MoominTroll outside the museum a man attempted to beat me up. Thinking I was taking pictures of him ( although the camera was right in front of the statue). I missed a slap but he got a glancing kick to my arm. For a brief few seconds I thought he was an undercover cop and I had broken a sacred law regarding taking pictures of Moomins. Were they worshipped like gods? Was I stealing their soul with my spirit catcher? Then I realised I was hungover and he was clearly just a mentalist, not a guardian of Moomins.

Matt

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Misty day in Finland

It is morning in Finland. I am looking out of my window at the mist, and autumnal trees. Rumour has it there is a lake next to the hotel, but the mist is hiding any water. So far Finland seems to be mainly water and trees, although I haven't actually left the hotel yet.

Matt and Capra are out playing, testing GPS. Infact they just got back. Capra reckons he won, but he is so competitive he always thinks he's won. Supposedly the lake is beautiful, will go out once this is all done. Robin is asleep as normal, supposedly Matt snored all night and kept him awake. Leif is working as normal, in his room, keeping out of the way.

I have been named the queen of the geeks, being one of two women at breakfast. hopefully there will be other women at the conference, not that I am really complaining, in fact I am enjoying myself very much...

we are doing a demo this afternoon and then this evening the award party is happening at the hotel night club. woohoo. we have no idea what to expect. The hysteria has already started, me, matt, capra and robin all holed up in my hotel room winding each other up, matt farting... need to get out in the mist and get some fresh air.