STRP BIENNALE 2017
COMMUNICATION FOR A FESTIVAL
BACKGROUND
Pronounced “strijp” (Dutch), or “stripe” (English), 'STRP' is a multi-fascited organization that's located in Eindhoven's Strijp-S neighbourhood. STRP works with the community at large, from school children to elderly people. They're also an agency that supports young artists, and they grant awards for creative technology. Their office is situated right across the street from the 'Klokgebouw' (an old 'Philips' factory building that today hosts large-scale events), where STRP bi-annually hosts a ten-day festival for creative technology, also known as 'STRP Biennale'. The STRP team is very small, but prior to the Biennale, they hire over twenty freelancers to help erect this festival; few of which, were my guides in this internship of communication and concept development.
INTERNSHIP
This page shows and tells about a selected portion of content from all that was produced during my internship; before, during and after it. The content produced, follows a visual language that had been created by an external studio.
Before the Biennale
The STRP office was where two months were spent focusing on animated GIFs and promotional images for Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and newsletters; all of which displayed similar content, but demanded an array of different dimensions and standards to follow. Also time-tables were made and shown online, and on screens and projections around the festival.
The biennale had three music events, two of which demanded complete online and offline campaigns; including social media images, animated GIFs that focused on each musician separately, a promotional video showing the entire line up, and advertisements of the events' curators that were shown on the city's largest outdoor screen.
During the Biennale
Throughout most of the festival, the camera was off only while it was charging. It occasionally took photographs, yet it mostly was used for video recording of different kinds.
Children of the Light's installation 'Warping Halos' and their three performances, were registered from different predetermined angles using rented professional equipment that had been requested by the artists. The video was later edited by the artists.
Several pop-up performances were live streamed on Facebook, while three were done by using a smartphone, the fourth used a computer with a webcam, while the audio was coming in externally.
In Steve Maher's tour around the festival grounds, each of the participants carries a metal detector and a pair of headphones that are programmed to play heavy metal music when touching. Using tie wraps, the camera was strapped to a metal detector to get a unique angle for a video blog.
After Liam Young and Mathew Barnes had performed, the camera followed them backstage and was balanced on some coins to record a spontaneous interview with them about a futuristic society and the exploitation of natural resources. Without proper gear nor time to prepare, color and audio correction were later needed. The interview also served as promotional material.
After the Biennale
The STRP offices had emptied and I've relocated to my home for the final phase of the internship. The biennale held a two-day conference that was filmed and edited by an external company, but from getting all the needed files, to tracking down all the speakers, to receiving their presentation files, to converting them to PC, to removing all the unneeded bits from the videos, to inserting all the speakers' slides at the right time, to exporting all of these videos, and then getting approval before publishing, took one and a half months to complete.
Part of my role at STRP Biennale 2017 was to look for a blind-spot and to conceptualize something for it. What I saw were over six thousand children that were experiencing “future visions” of people much older then them, but nobody actually asked them what their “future visions” are. As a result, I made it my project to go interview some of those children at their schools, asking them what they think about the future society. The information from the interviews allowed me to develop a study program for them, though unfortunately I don't speak Dutch and so communicating with the children required a constant translator to assist me in this project and so the project stopped. View the curriculum here.
