Summary
The meeting focused on integrating Defrag (a multi-day event exploring cultural memory, AI, and network systems) into Chris's Future Proof Festival . Chris proposed that Defrag serve as the evening programming (6pm-midnight) during festival week, with events potentially on Tuesday (Oct 27) and Thursday (Oct 29) . The film festival would close out the week on Oct 30-31 .
Chris offered to help with outreach to Andrea, noting the festival story might appeal to Internet Archive's interests and align stakeholder objectives . Team emphasized importance of working with Louisa (on-ground operations) in addition to Andrea (who can be hard to reach) . Internet Archive and The Permanent had previously expressed enthusiasm in initial meeting .
If Internet Archive is unavailable for proposed dates, team will reconvene to discuss alternative dates or venues . Team agreed to iterate on planning and meet again in one week .
Notes
Transcript
Thank you. Yep. Cool. Yo Hello. Hi, Chris.
Hello.
You found us.
Yes.
Awesome. So yeah, we were chatting because Asha was not, I think, part of the messages. And so, yeah, we were moving forward to organize. Steph and Erika were saying that you offered to provide photographer and videos and then because of the dates you think now that there's a festival you want to organize and maybe we can all join forces. So tell us more about what you have in mind.
Sorry, what were you saying about photos and videos?
Oh, remember we had talked about previous to talking about the festival, me and you, Chris, around DFRAG. And you said if we got this grant from SFU, that you would sponsor DFRAG with your videographer and photographer.
Oh. Oh, I see. I don't remember saying that, but that's all right. I'm sure that's the case. Cool. What grant? Yeah. The five grants?
Yeah, so we got the funding, so we're moving forward. And then you said you have this idea of a festival and that would be like... You know, potentially something we could do where you could integrate the Defrag as part of the festival and so we wanted to see what your thinking is there.
Well, I'll start by saying I don't really even know what Defrag is. Like, I know that it was an event idea that Erica had for an evening event or one day event at the Internet Archive in April or whatever and then it sounds like it has expanded in scope but I still don't really understand if it's a community or if it's a party or if it's an interactive art exhibit or like what is Defrag? brag. Is one question I got, but--Okay, I can read the write up that we have one second. Where does that live? Is there anything on, I can't find anything online about Defrag or anywhere.
Yeah, so I have a Google Docs around like where I've been kind of building everything up. I don't know that if I sent it to you previously or not, but I can link you one second. Yeah, let's check some information. That's a good idea. So defrag, here's the Google Doc. I was working on context stuff, but that's not finished. But here we go. I'll share this. Happy link. I'll write in the chat. Nice.
Hissed. But I mean Yeah, so is it a community or a party or what is it?
Yeah, go ahead, Erika. ...de-frag explores how cultural memory is constructed, destabilized and assembled across network systems. So it's not specifically a community, it's a multi-day event in which there are some art focuses but also taking into account the Internet Archive as a location and doing some work within that. And so, yeah, the program is in the building, but it'll be indeed an exhibition. And then there will be some performances and, you know, sort of talk slash panels, all in the space of the Internet Archive. And then this intersection with AI and memory that Erika wrote about. Memory working well with what they do because that's what they do is to memorize data.
And then there would be a one-off a priori, but maybe if it works well, you know, the ground for something that happens every year at the Internet Archive. We see what they say. So we had just one meeting with them. They were enthusiastic. And then now we need to solidify dates and book. They ran their space most weekends, if not all weekends. So that's why it would be more of a weekday stuff, like, you know, set up on Monday, Tuesday, and then things on Wednesday and Thursday.
And then we moved it around. In terms of dates to the dates, we sent you precisely because the Van Eyh Amid Club was the week after and we didn't want to overlap. But if you're saying, oh, this week we do a festival and in fact it would be good if we overlap, then maybe. The other argument against that week was that it is Halloween week and we feel that people are super busy partying.
Yeah, but this is the party we want them to party at.
Right, exactly. So, you know...
We started these meetups like three years ago. Thanks for your post, Philippe. That was so nice this weekend. I really appreciated that. I wish I would have given you better photos because there's so many amazing photos you have to work with. But I appreciated you saying that. So, you know, Vancouver Meetup's been around for three years. It exploded. And then all these other subgroups formed. So we've started doing AI and education monthly events. Philippe comes. We've started doing AI ethical lab monthly events. We just participated in the federal national.
symposium on AI and culture through the AI Futures Lab. All these things are blowing up. So people have been asking me for a year because there's a bunch of shitty AI events in town. There's the AI Global Summit that we've done. There's the AI Summit Vancouver shit. There's a bunch of shit. But nothing's good. And I have long dreamt of doing an avant-garde business conference of the future, next generation TED Talks with music and art and learning and stuff like that.
In fact, it's very much why we started doing these meetups every month because I needed I didn't have any money and these things are expensive. So everyone keeps going like, yo, these events are kind of weak. These other kind of multi-day conferences, when are you guys gonna do something? And I'm like, I don't know. the pressure's been on. And so I figured out that these subgroups, the philosophy groups met 12 times, the education groups met eight times, they all have bonafide curriculum and tracks and talks and stuff that's emerging.
And so the idea of the Future Proof Festival is to string all that together into a week long thing that is distributed in location, Diverse. not just a conference in a business space and ties together all the kind of cool efforts and partners that are happening inside this big nonprofit or whatever. So That's what I sent you guys in terms of like the notion is like some of the ideas about how all the pieces fit together.
The film festival is on the 30th and 31st. That's the end of the week and then, you know, I have some ideas about how things could all fit together, but let me jump to the good part, which is, Depending on how well you guys wanna cut this, I would love for you guys to program like the, like pretty much do everything you wanna do, but have it be like the evening components of the nights that week. maybe like the Tuesday and the Thursday or the Tuesday, Wednesday and the Thursday, essentially have 6 p.m.
to midnight events or 7 p.m. to whatever or something like and so you know like the first day might be The AI life sciences track. The second day is gonna be the hackathon sponsored by Rival. Third day is gonna be like, you know, whatever. And the meetups that week as well. So anyway, the way it's shaping up right now is there's like, could be like 15 different events spread out over five days. And you could buy tickets to them individually or like a festival pass for the week.
So I started to just model all that stuff out and think about it. So that's kind of the idea is like... Figure out a way to figure out if we can all do this together. Yeah. OK, and then we would be-That was like the least articulate description of anything I've ever given. I'm so sorry. Thank you for listening.
Yeah, no worries. OK, I think I get it. And so we would be listed at one of the events that week. And so in that case-So you still have the AI Meetup on the 28th? Yeah. So maybe we would do the 29th and then the film festival will be the 30th and the 31st.
But I think I want you to do like the 27th and... Or the sorry that it'd be cool if you did like a Tuesday night thing and a Thursday night thing or something like that like I hear you want to do multi-track and you have a lot of great ideas and so I was just thinking that After people do whatever they're doing during the day, then we all get together and go to your guys' things at night or something like that.
And then the exhibition could open in the afternoon on the 28th as well, maybe. Yeah, if we have the 26th to set up, the thing is we probably need time to set up the space. The space comes really raw. You can't make holes in the walls. So there's a bunch of almost construction of planes and installation of screens that can be, we will anticipate, but we need at least one day for us to set up, I think.
Yeah, I think what I was looking at previously when we were talking about the Tuesday to Thursday kind of thing, that set up would be like Sunday, Monday, depending, and then we'd be able to rock and roll if we do three days. Tuesday to Thursday.
One quick thing, because I just want you to know this is here, is just to illustrate all the ideas, I threw together the website that's in the group chat that we're looking at right here. And so you can see there'd be Education Day, Life Science Day, Hackathon, Mac, Ethics and Film Festival. And then you guys would be the defrag events in the night or whatever. There'd be a meetup on the Wednesday.
There's some trainings going on that week. We're going to move our awards ceremony from December into October. Give the awards away at the closing party and have a job fair and stuff. So anyway, you can check this site out. It all works. Like I made this page here for Defrag, Creative AI After Dark. Two evenings of generative art, live performance, experimental AI from the people building computational creativity. That's you.
Yeah, I had done some early budgeting for what tickets may look like, which is on that doc, the Google doc. But that's not entirely fixed or anything like that. That was just some like...
And this all came about, Chris, because Asha and I wanted to throw an exhibition at Vivo. Vivo is collapsing and so we're not doing that. And so that's sort of Our way to get excited, me and Arsha too. And then Erica wanted to organize something and get back into curating and organizing events. And so we applied for that grant and we got it. So it's pretty cool.
Yeah, this is great. I mean, Erica also reached out to me like around the same time when the grant app was still out there. And I just said that we couldn't do it on the timeframe that she had in mind at the time, which was like a 25-day turnaround.
I was looking to do by the end of March wanted it to be part of the wrong digital art biennial but it that did not come into fruition for various reasons so yeah um not to say that this can't be part of the wrong uh for next year uh or for because in the in the fall i believe uh i can talk to david about that um and see if it cannot be still a satellite uh wrong under the wrong umbrella because it's nice to be part of something that is international like that um and it's with my past events.
I mean, one of the reasons I got into the New York Times for GIFS 3000 was because I was part of the Wrong Digital Art Biennial. So there is some good for having that involved as well. And I noticed in the chat, you asked, what is the ministry of next? So that's my creative lab that I've been building. And I mean, this is just a splash page, but there's not much on there at the moment. I was also looking at doing a defrag as kind of a launch event for that as well.
Yeah. Cool, so I think it's still coming along and yeah, we need to think if this Halloween week, but I think that could totally work. One more thing, Chris, about the overlap is that what we were also counting on, we're going to need the sound system back. And so I don't know if you were using it somewhere else in the festival, but we're going to need that and potentially screens as well to display some artworks.
Yeah, they would be making money off of bar. And we would take tickets, like door price, which can be a fairly standard deal with certain venues.
And so we need to-There's one thing that kind of doesn't work about the pricing, which is-and their expectation of taking the door, which is at my events, which are $40 to $60, it's open bar.
Yes. I remember talking about this with you, Chris, previously. And so, yeah, there needs to be. So I was looking at getting some food in there to help with that and potentially, you know, at least a drink. So that would be something that I needed to talk to Andrew about, you know, to have something like this to make it. So you're getting a bit more out of the event other than just having to pay. Because I know open bar is different.
Yeah, so I had IRL, which I actually need to get back to, but they had, I've been in talks with them. They were going to give me a little tiny bit of money, which could be towards free drink for certain people, basically paid through the IRL token. We'd have a little box installed that people could use. and then go to the bar and get whatever the drink sponsor, whatever thing is. So we're not paying for that, which is one way to kind of maneuver that.
I don't think it's like that. I think it's like... I have to get back to you on that. I need to wrap my head around it. I would expect that anybody who showed up at your event if they bought a ticket through me that I owed you some money somehow. Yeah, that's what I would expect. So I just haven't figured that part out yet. Okay. Okay, cool. I mean, we can just say that like... If somebody bought an $850 festival week pass, I would probably give you 50 bucks.
That would be the idea. Okay, I gotta just like say this. I said it kind of like, you guys are grossly underestimating how much it takes to get 100 butts in seats at $50. It's just... That is the challenge here. Yeah. And that's why, that's actually the biggest benefit I think to you guys to working with us in this way is like, I think I can fill your whole event up. And I think I can fill it up with interesting out-of-towners who are coming in to participate in a week-long thing.
And some of the artists would be night performances, and so that would work in that sense. It could be something if we do Tuesday and Thursday. So we set up on Monday. Tuesday at 6 p.m., you do 6 to 8. You do artist talks and presentations, and you open the exhibition.
I like that, actually. And now you just got a lot closer to a $50. If you're doing two hours of artist talks from, like you said, like six to eight or something, then starting a party from eight till midnight, that's pretty interesting.
So, yeah, let's, I think, you know, we'll talk. Yeah, let's think about it, talk about it. And then most importantly, let's ask the, Erika, I think you have everything now to talk again to Andrea.
Yeah, no, I wanted to before, because I wanted to, before I send the email, just talk to you, Chris, because I know that, yeah, it was just to see what their schedule is like for that timeframe. So that, because I would really like to do it at the Internet Archive. I could have pivoted previously and done it, like tried a different space or whatever. I kind of have it in my brain that I really want to do something with them specifically. So, like, yes, it's possible to do something with your festival if for whatever reason it doesn't work in that space, you know, to do it somewhere else. That's also possible.
The archive too and I want Angie to put her money where her mouth is and show up but she's just been not quite there yet, you know? And actually like, If you want, Erica, I would be very happy to help you kind of with this outreach to Andrea at this point around dates. Because like, I think the story, I think she's going to like the story of the festival. Because now all of a sudden Internet Archive and The Permanent are hosting Defrag that's a part of this bigger festival week. And she's a member of our organization and stuff. So I think that it, I think the storytelling around it like aligns everybody's interest in a way that might like get her excited.
Yeah, well they were excited like we had a meeting with them, they were on board but...
Yeah, they seemed very on board. I mean like but she seemed, every time I've talked to Andrea she seemed like super on board. It's just sometimes she's very hard to get a hold of. So this is why I think going through Louisa who's running the permanent, it's on the ground, it's really important, you know, like to not just use Andrea as our key point for this. I think that she's, as you She's in you know in Ontario. She's traveling around.
She's not always answering her emails like this You have to look at what you know people's ability to be that kind of linchpin in certain ways is and if it's not Like I want her involved like in a lot of ways, but if she's super super busy, then we kind of have to you know maneuver maneuver through that.
Plus I feel that she said yes already and now everything is gonna be dealt with with Louisa. Is Louisa the name of the other lady? Yeah, because Lisa is the one in charge of the calendar and everything concrete in the building.
Okay, cool. Anything else, everyone? And Asha, the change works for you, right? Because we won't be in Dubai yet. No, yeah, I think the earliest I will leave would be November 1st. So it works for me. Perfect. Me too.
Okay. I would love for you guys to look through this site that I sent you because it's like pretty robust, right? Like here's the actual week agenda with how everything fits together. Even with your stuff there and the nights or whatever, you know, and stuff. And you can like, this is like a little schedule builder. Yeah.
I hate when you give that kind of feedback. Because it shows me that you're not engaging with the type of material that I want you to engage with. Like, if you want me to make a spelling correction, no big deal. But I'm showing you a $50,000 website that tells our story and shows how all the pieces fit together. So please, engage with it beyond the spelling error. I heard you earlier 10 minutes ago when you mentioned it. And I hear you again now. I'll change it soon, man. And I'm sorry I spelled Erica's name wrong too.
It was just to mostly like get everyone thinking like about how it really all could see. Also, guys, I really want you to think about the pricing. You know, there's $200 a day day passes if people wait till the same day. And this would let them go to the conference during the day and your event at night or whatever. And so anyway, I just wanted you to have a look through pricing, the little schedule builder.
Like maybe, for instance, Philippe, the types of things I'm thinking is like on this schedule builder, The Tuesday is supposed to be the life sciences day, followed by your thing. But maybe it makes more sense to have it be hackathon. Like maybe you would prefer if you're... Tuesday night event followed the hackathon instead of following the life sciences meetup or something like that. Or maybe ethics day is the day you want to follow.
And in the day, too, like, I mean, this is another thing, Chris, like, because I don't, I have, like, some ideas around the artists that I am interested in, but depending if we're doing this for the specific festival and we have certain things happening on certain days, we can also curate artists that make sense for those things. So, like, you know, something that happens.
I think I would rather align behind you than make you align. You just tell me, like, what you want to do. I feel like I can help with the logistics and operations of like all the, like building the site, getting the promo out, selling tickets, making this shit happen. But I don't want to be, I don't want to really like curate nothing in the way that you do that you all do kind of thing, you know, like.
And there's a lot of stuff already on the site, Chris. So maybe we can take a-so Erika, you can try to-to secure the space, then we can all review that site and see If we can think of what you asked Chris, you know, feedback regarding our own piece.
I'd like to get some creation logos on here and Ministry of Next logos if you guys want to start pulling that kind of shit together. Yeah.
All right. So maybe we can iterate and have another meeting in a week. In terms of timeline, we want to launch that, announce things. In a few weeks, maybe, yeah. Heh.
Nothing like this right here to make it real. 134 days. Okay. I'm so nervous about this part of the conversation. I'm just like, oh, fuck, man. We actually have to do this. Um... Yeah. May 15th, soft launch. May Vancouver AI meet up real launch kind of thing or something like that maybe? That would give us like three weeks till we get a soft launch together and then like five weeks until we stand on stage and invite everyone.
That would just be like a stake in the ground. I think if you have one person locked down for soft launch and three people locked down for formal launch, that's all you need. You don't need the full agenda. Just one person's name for soft launch and three people's names for hard launch or something like that.
Yeah. We already know that we want to use some of the Meta Creation Lab keeps projects for something in there. We can just choose somebody from Meta Creation Lab.
Good. And then as soon as you have the date, solid, Erica, I will tell SFU that our timeline has changed to make sure everything is cool in the grant. And then once we have the date and at least that basic money, we know something is going to happen. And so we can solidify the program and start sending emails.
gates that could be this or could be that um all right awesome so same place same time next week i'll have to get back to you on that but do i don't think you sent me an invite philippe i think i sent you one Yeah, but just add me the amount. I'll try to be there next week.
Okay, cool. I want to do an outreach email to Louisa and Andrea about these potential dates and see what they say. Because that's important. And if for whatever reason that's not available to us, and we still want to do festival, we'll have to think about other locations for this. And then potentially we do the, if they're not available, we do the Internet Archive Canada thing at a later time. And this can be something separate.
Okay, cool. Yeah, if they're not available, the dates, then maybe we should have another meeting to decide, Erica, on an alternative set of dates that they would be available.