Inspirational Ideas

BOOSTING THE GOVERNMENT’S efforts to put its new “digital economy” policy into action, the Commerce Ministry’s Department of International Trade Promotion is today opening the Thailand Innovation and Design Expo at the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre.
The show boasts more than 400 design projects from around the world, along with seminars on copyright issues and designing for the digital age.
The organisers at Art4d magazine are presenting their annual Bangkok Design Festival in conjunction with the exposition. They’ve arranged a seminar on Saturday afternoon called “Game On: The Power of the Digital Age”.
Saturday’s panel includes acclaimed video-game creators Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Japan, Trent Kusters from Australia and Thailand’s Nenin Ananbanchachai. The discussion will be about more than just leisure gaming, however – it aims to inspire ideas for using digital technology as a channel for business.
Mizuguchi and former Sega game developers co-founded the firm Q Entertainment to bring fresh enhancements to video pastimes. He’s engaged in a wide range of creative activities around the globe, including music videos and live performance, but he remains best known for dreaming up video games that emphasise interactive sound, such as “Space Channel” (marketed in 1999), “Rez” (2001), “Lumines” (2004) and “Child of Eden” (2010). Mizuguchi is also a research associate at the Sapporo Media arts lab and guest professor at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology.
Trent Kusters will talk about the League of Geeks, his independent game-development collective, and explain how Australian developers maintain a market edge through creativity, innovation, quality and technical skills. Meanwhile he’s investing in the industry’s future, mentoring young developers in his homeland, while also lecturing at the Victorian College of the Arts and advising RMIT University and the Digital Games Research Association of Australia.
Nenin Ananbanchachai is a co-founder and managing director at Extend Interactive, better known as x10. He’s another genius when it comes to innovative design, as seen in his popular Google online games “Monster Attack” and “LoveSim”.
The Bangkok Design Festival will be presenting a sneak preview of “Movies on Design”, with three films about creative minds, beginning at 2.30pm today with “Gamer Age”. Directed by Ian Santer, it’s an amusing documentary that takes a deep and comprehensive look at the gaming industry, from its humble inception to its current commercial success, and the impact it has on modern culture. The story treks from the old console games in the arcades to the dazzling capabilities of the mobile phone.
The next documentary, “The Startup Kids”, is about young Web entrepreneurs in the US and Europe, featuring interviews with the founders of Vimeo, Soundcloud, Kiip, InDinero, Dropbox and other websites. Icelandic tech entrepreneurs Vala Halldorsdottir and Sesselja Vilhjalmsdottir, who launched their first company just after their country’s economy collapsed, wield the camera with an eye to inspiring other young people to strike out on their own.
Directed by Jesper Wachtmeister, the film “Microtopia” assesses “micro-dwellings” as a means of downsizing your life and “living off the grid”. You’ll see islands at sea built out of refuse, tents hanging from trees, residential sleeping pods, tiny homes on wheels and experimental urban “parasitic architecture” – all conceived by successful architects, builders and artists.
The idea is to move humanity into housing that’s free of environmental consequences. Whereas a “house” has always represented stability, structure and permanence, modern technology and the increasing global population mean we can benefit from being portable.
“Movies on Design” will also be screened at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on September 25 and 26 and October 2 and 4, with two more films.
Francesca Molteni’s “Where Architects Live” visits the homes of eight world-famous architects, among them Zaha Hadid, Shigeru Ban, Mario Bellini and David Chipperfield.
“Koolhaas Houselife” by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine is the first product of the Living Architectures series and examines the Bordeaux House, an acknowledged masterpiece of contemporary architecture, designed by Rem Koolhaas and the OMA. In an engaging and intimate tour of the building, you hear the stories and witness the daily chores of housekeeper Guadalupe Acedo and other caretakers. The film has been described as pungent, funny and touching.