The last 10 days have been full of cultural activities here in Austin due to the annual SXSW conference/festival. The town-city of Austin transforms, for few days, into a hectic place where people from different parts of the world (mostly from North America and UK) meet. The SXSW is an interesting crossroad point for entrepreneurs, artists, filmmakers, musicians, innovators, educators, and fans. During this time, a little bit of the diversity and energy of a cosmopolitan city can be felt in Austin. This year was my second SXSW and I had the opportunity of participating not only in the music and film festival but also in the interactive conference. I liked the experience very much but I also found it exhausting. Today, I have spent the whole day away of downtown avoiding any concert, film, or talk. It was a day for resting, for recovering after all the intensity, and for reflecting about what I saw, listened, and interacted during the past days. In these blog entry I am going to share some of those reflections.
One of the things that really impressed me as a person who lives in Austin, is the capacity of this town to host so many people and provide them with so much entertainment. It seems to me that there are not limits to the organizers of the SXSW and they keep expanding the conference/festival each year, making it bigger and bigger. Although this could be good for local business, service providers, and the organizers, it could also be a little bit overwhelming for the participants. I really got tired of running from one venue to another and then to other one, trying to catch a panel, a keynote, a screening, or a concert. Not to mention the getting in lines for everything, from entering restrooms to ordering foods. This could be fine for a couple of days but starts to get too much after your 5th day in SXSW.
The worst thing of getting in line for the SXSW events is that sometimes you cannot even enter the event you are waiting for. It happened to me for the film screenings of Iron Sky and Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies, for the keynote of Baratunde, and for the concerts of Santagold and Balkan Beatbox. The society of spectacle loves lines, it is like a performance of the multitude. Lines are like frozen walking crowds.
During SXSW one can experience in Austin the vertigo of the multitudes. Crowds walk the streets, not going to work, but moving in the search of entertainment. And there are tons of spectacles not only in the official venues but also in public spaces, streets, parks, backyards, coffeehouses, parking lots, you name it. Sixth Street in Downtown is, however, the most hyperbolic expression of the SXSW spectacle. During the days and nights of the music festival, the street is closed to traffic and opened only to pedestrians. The restaurants, bars, and clubs that are on the sides of Sixth blast their sound systems, while in the middle of the street many musicians and performers create improvised stages. There are also several carnival-like parades that tour Sixth promoting a musician, a new app, or a website, giving away t-shirts and bags, or doing a random choreography as the one performed by the decentralized dance party (DDP).
It is precisely during this time of the year that one can believe in the myth of Austin as the “live music capital of the world“. Indeed, there are many live shows everywhere during the afternoons and nights. There could be 20 different bands playing at the same time, or even more, so it is difficult to decide where to go. Most of the music events are organized as showcases in where different groups play for 40 minutes one after another. This provide the audience with an opportunity to listen to many bands and discover new sounds. Other shows are framed as special parties sponsored by major media companies where bands can play for the normal length of a concert (aprox 90 minutes).
It is difficult for me to review in this blog entry all the different bands I listened and liked. I will try to write about them in the future and share some of the videos and pictures I recorded. For now, I am just going to mention my favorite SXSW 2012 musicians. My highlights, with a little Colombian bias, are Ghostland Observatory, Dan Deacon, Apparat, Banbarabanda, Lila Downs, M.A.K.U. SoundSystem, Acollective, Monsier Perine, and Peelander Z. Perhaps the best show, and the longest as well, was made by the Ghostland Observatory, a local band from Austin who put together a performance with an impressive display of lights and a powerful sound.
As regard to the films I got the opportunity to watch, I really liked three documentaries. We are Legion. The story of the Hacktivists is a comprehensive review of the decentralized activist movement and features some interesting members of the Anonymous community and as well scholars who have been following its development. The film does a good job contextualizing the movement and its impact during the years it has been taking action mainly in the USA but also in other parts of the world. Another film I liked a lot was Grandma Lo-fi: The Basement Tapes of Sigrídur Níelsdóttir, a documentary about woman from Iceland who becomes a prolific musician at the age of 70. Plenty of music, this film follows the creative process of this grandmother who is not only very good at composing songs with a keyboard, but also is excellent at recording sounds, voices, and instruments with a simple home stereo and a mic. My third documentary is called La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus, and as it names says it, this movie tells the story of a school bus that migrates from the USA to Guatemala. The transformation of an obsolete vehicle into a useful means of public transportation, is told from the perspective of five characters which lives intersect due to their relation to the bus and to its changes.
Finally, I have to recognize that although I loved some of the music and film spectacles, several panels and keynotes of the SXSW Interactive conference were also inspiring and I liked very much. This is the first non-academic conference I go and I found it pretty exciting. The energy and positivism of the participants is contagious and it is great to hear and meet people who is making changes happening in the real world using networked digital technologies. Of course, there is also a lot of marketing and evangelism in many talks, and the buzzwords of social media, participation, and democracy, are cited over and over during SXSWi at risk of leaving them empty of any content. However, I have the feeling that overall, the good geek intentions of changing the world and collaborating wins. Learning about concrete social media projects and innovations is always great. For me, in particular, it was excellent to hear about the social innovation projects in Brazil such as the cultural producer network Fora do Eixo, the open data project in Chile Poderopedia, and the citizien journalism project mipanamatransparente in Panama.
After surviving SXSW 2012 the balance is definitely positive. Due to the amount of information and sensations one gets during a 10-day period of time it is quite understandable to feel a tired. It is exhausting but it is worth it. I am looking forward to assisting next year and putting together a panel about learning spaces, technology, and transmedia in education. Meanwhile, Austin will return to its reality of few pedestrians and no lines.
