Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Photo source: www.emerce.nl
While searching the web for outside thoughts on Hyper Island, we stumbled over Netherlands based Lee Feldman, CCO of Blast Radius. Lee related his experience at the Vancouver Film School to Hyper Island and we were curious as to why:
When you list Hyper Island as similar to your education at Vancouver Film School, in what ways are you thinking they are?
- Experimental
- Collaborative
- Open-minded
- Empathetic
- Global
- Selective
If you would choose a couple of words to represent what you think Hyper Island is, what words would those be?
- Experimental
- Open-Minded
Based on your experience working in Japan, with Swedish IKEA and now in Netherlands, what learning experiences from different cultures do you value the most?
My personal and professional interests are around what common, shared values exist between cultures and conversely, the excitement of what makes us different. The theory is of the insider-outsider- that everyone today lives a contradiction of belonging but never fully belonging, as Groucho and Woody (famous insider-outsiders) once said, "I'll never belong to a club that would have me as a member."
I believe that most young (post-baby boomer) people are living this contradiction expressing their individuality AND being constantly connected- a beautiful contradiction! This also plays itself out on the global-local scales.
I was in the jungle in Cambodia and I see kids watching 50 Cent shtupping 5 women in a McMansion on MTV- hello Contradiction? What kinds of values does this create for the future? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the world we are creating? What are the opportunities and challenges?
Where do you find inspiration?
From science and science fiction, from urban planning and architecture, from the social sciences, processing art, machinima, and from the emerging areas of green-tech, sustainability, the slow movement, and nature. Bicycle design and culture and other human-powered systems are my real passions. Places like www.worldchanging.org provide a lot of the content and ideas that get me excited about life in the 21st century.
(5) If you were to tell the future - what new ways of marketing do you think will be big?
The mashup of social networks, analytics, location awareness, user generated services and data visualizations delivered on mobile devices = future
Any piece of advise for up and coming digital media designers/programmers/managers?
Figure out how to do number 5
Finally, we of course want to know more about Blast Radius. What can you tell us?
We are trying to do number 5 and we are only part way there. I believe we have all the ingredients, but need new examples, ways of thinking and doing, and people who represent a new mindset- the balance between logic and emotion- to help us change the world. Interested?
Thank you Lee!
