LAMP VI hits the spot
We’re currently in the midst of running our sixth LAMP cross media prototyping residential in Freycinet, Tasmania. It has been a very lively and challenging experience with creative teams taking part from a wide range of backgrounds with a dynamic team of mentors and developers. We’ve been very lucky to work with Tony Walsh, a Canadian creative developer who has done a lot of work on alternate reality games and teaches a games course at George Brown College in Toronto. Also Paul Bennun from UK cross media company Somethin’ Else has brought insight and energy to the workshop with expertise in games, radio, web 2 and theatre. We are also working for the first time with Lisa Romano who brings years of experience in iTV production at XYZ and ABC New Media to the workshop. She is currently working for the new ABC Innovation group. And of course all our regular mentor mainstays are back for more, a full list can be found here.
The strength of the LAMP workshop is the collaborative production and brainstorming experience resulting from the interchange between a diverse group of people working intensively for a five day period. It really is like going into another zone when you take this time out from your everyday life to immerse yourself in the process. The energy of creative interchange, particularly between people from different specialisation areas, is inspiring to watch and is truely the fuel of innovation. Thinking outside the constrictions of your own area of specialisation is a necessary first step to rethinking creative media production so it’s relevant for a rapidly changing global media environment. In an age of distributed media it is going to be the nimble producers who can transcend the restrictions of particular media platforms who will be successful. We start out the LAMP workshop by looking at the major paradigm shifts taking place in the media and our objective is to engage creative participants to take up this challenge in their own work. The next stage that is needed is for commissioners, content providers and funding agencies to invest in content that goes beyond the confines of formats that we already know.