I did enjoy the film festival part in weeks 1 and 2 as it provided a relaxing backdrop against discussions on issues relating to Dys-/Utopia.

Not being a YouTube afficiado I did not know any of the clips apart fomr WorldBuilder which I have uploaded onto our University Moodle site under the theme ‘Augmented Reality’.

When reading my online Magazin I was alerted to the Bitfilm Festival which is an international competition on Digiral Media subdivided into four main categories. With the sharpened attention arising from our own festival I’ve looked at a few of the top entries and found some which were highly artistic and of high quality, both technically and content-wise.

My favourites were Macchu Picchu Post , a light-hearted Voodoo analogy with  a nice story line and ample of coloration and (black) humour.

A second one was Shelf Life’ (part 1) a Machinima-based film on the futurology of neuroscience and cognition, much more on the dystopia side of digital culture. Interestingly the movie has been built using the HalfLife game engine, probably reflected in its name.
This illustrates the convergence of artwork as prevailing in Games and digital movie making.
Expect more and higher quality products over the next few years.