So, there I was on Tuesday night, with an invite to go to the inaugural mo:life networking night and feeling very resistant. Mobile phone content producers? I knew it was important to keep in touch with the industry and the person organising it is someone I really like (she was the producer of Sounds like Techno). But I was worried it would be like the early days of the multimedia industry and the get-togethers we used to have in East Sydney (that’s how I originally met Richard Fidler, because his partner is a multimedia artist and they used to go to it). It’s not that I didn’t used to enjoy it: I did. But I’ve changed. Or at least I’d like to think so.
Anyhow… I went. Partly because I thought it would be good to touch base for use in my teaching, partly for old times’ sake. I was keenly aware that I was no longer the editor of a magazine that would make use of this networking; that I was not a freelance journalist likely to cover it; that I am not myself a content creator in this arena.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed myself. The space is great – Keren lives there as well as it being a funky artspace. And there was a very interesting presentation by some people about a closed pilot for a mobile/broadband series called Girl Friday.
But it does call for some serious examination here: if this is no longer ‘my industry’, what is?
And then when that was done, drjon and I played my first game of Scrabble with my grandfather’s old Scrabble set. That was very, very good.
And last night, I caught up with jonckher for a drink and conversation that meandered everywhere and back again. That was good too.