For those of my friends and colleagues who may not follow the Flash design/development topic area as much as I do, Flash on the Beach was last week. A well put together conference in Brighton, this one always seems to shine as a highlight in the conference schedule for a lot of designers. I have not made it to one yet. Alas. This year’s schedule had many of the very best and brightest designers on the speaker list, with a lot of them publishing their notes and slides on their respective sites. Some great content there for those of us who couldn’t make the trip.

Erik Natzke, Peter Elst, Aral Balkan, Keith Peters, Grant Skinner, the list goes on and on. Reading the recaps, including a statement by the conference’s organizer, John Davey, it seems as though one presentation stands out in it’s audacity, poignancy and message enough to really raise some hackles, eyebrows and maybe even a shaking fist or two. Jonathan Harris, designer of We Feel Fine as well as a few other online art pieces, had the last session of the show. Sounds like it was a doozy. Take a look at this shot:

In short, it seems as though Jonathan characterized the bulk of the work in digital art as being “tinkering” or “experiments”. It did not make many of the attendees happy, understandably so. Here is a bit of an outsider, crashing the party with some disheartening words to close a great conference attended by some of the most talented Flash using designers around. I would agree that many of the things I see out there are just that, too… however, the notion that something has to be heavy on message or ideology in order to be important or able to be fully enjoyed seems a bit pretentious to me. Much has been written on the topic, with an excellent post at Peter Elst’s blog featuring comments written by many of the aforementioned Flash talent as well as Jonathan himself. I’ll mention that you really should go check that out, as much of it is very thought provoking.

I have had conversations with a few people in the last several years that result in the same sort of conclusion for me when discussing heady topics like this. Why overanalyze what makes you happy with the work you produce? Sure, self progress and pushing a medium or message are certainly good things to aspire to, but they are not the only things that determine success in your work. We Feel Fine is cool, but is it any better than Joshua Davis’ fine compositions and now equally amazing textile work? How about Natzke’s brilliant stuff? Robert Hodgin’s amazing Processing sketches? A particularly well done Flash game or interactive museum installation? Will any of it have lasting appeal in 25 years+? Well, I think that if anyone asked that before they produced the work, would they even start it?

Probably not nearly as often, and that would be a shame. So with that, please continue your tinkering. I know I am.

Posted on October 7, 2008

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