CONIECTO

On my way out from the IBM press conference at the Merrion hotel, I noticed another butler stopping a taxi in front of the next entrance. I looked around to find out who was the VIP the taxi was meant for, to discover Gabriel Byrne! OMG!

My next stop was the William Buttler Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. Ever since Mark Leslie presented at the iHCI event in Limerick last year, I wanted to go there. Unfortunately, every time I went to Dublin it was for work, and there was no way to get to the city centre during the opening hours. Except now!

I had lunch with friends at NCI , discussing usability issues and the possible impact of virtual worlds on education.

And in the evening, I went to the Jean-Michel Jarre Oxygene concert at the National Concert Hall. It was an amazing experience. Playing electronic music on a stage is probably much more complicated than recording in a studio, and pushing buttons and switches less spectacular than playing a guitar. The performance was absolutely stunning - even if the original album is 30 years old and everybody knows the pieces - the lights, the instruments, the projections and a sort of mirror hanging from the ceiling and showing an image of the scene seen from above(as in this recording) - all contributed to it!

Recordings of any kind were absolutely forbidden, and I've seen the concert hall staff invigilating this request of the artist, but of course the next morning short videos were available on YouTube! (1,2)
I was particularly impressed by the sound of the theremin and the choreography involved in playing it. And already thought of next year's Introduction to Digital Media course!

Today, I also had the nice surprise to discover a video made in Dublin by Jean Michel Jarre on YouTube!

Labels: events dublin exhibitions