BT & Sonifi At Stream 09

I’ve just got back from 3 days at an event called Stream 09. It was organised by WPP, Mindshare’s parent company and was, quite simply, brilliant. Billed as an unconference it’s essentially a group of about 200 people who are invited to spend a few days discussing interesting things at a venue on the coast of Greece, just outside Athens. The attendees ranged from scientists to technicians to engineers to venture capitalists to journalists to magicians, and it really was a fascinating few days, as well as a lot of fun.

On the first night they held what was dubbed as The Gadgethon: essentially this was a Dragon’s Den scenario where people had to showcase the latest gadgets they had come across. There was also a section where people presented ideas for gadgets that haven’t actually been invented yet – I won that section with a device called Walk & Talk; I’m not going to try to explain it here, but ping me if you want the details. I have a feeling it’s unlikely to be going into production any time soon.

Anyway, the first section was won by a guy called Miles, who presented a really bloody cool iPhone app called Sonifi. It basically allows people to remix, mash-up & generally muck around with tracks just by doing things like tapping the screen & shaking the phone. Nice.

The tune that you can hear in that demo of Sonifi is Rose Of Jericho by BT which is, quite simply, what I believe is known in the trade as an absolute f*cking tune. It starts off with some vaguely alien sounding bleeps & blips, with a rather ominous drum ticking away in the back. After not too long it all builds up before rocketing in with an absolutely storming bass. I would imagine it would sound rather fabulous in a club – it sounded pretty damn good in a meeting room in a Club Med.

The photo at the top is of the wall of Polaroid photos taken by the guys at Stream. Can you spot me? If you were there, can you spot yourself? It was taken by Guido Van Nispen who took a load of amazing photos there. Thanks to him, thanks to Yossi Vardi & everyone at WPP for organising such a great event and thanks to everyone who attended for making it so interesting. Here’s hoping I’m invited back next year.

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