Nearly gave up with finishing up this summary, but here I am! This was the last day of the forum, when the enthusiasm is still thriving but struggling to stay awake. Well, for me, it was. I still hadn’t recovered from the previous day’s madness. Who’d have thought sitting down in somewhat un-ergonomic chairs for hours on end would be so exhausting? We had free copies of Dumbo Feather, Pass it On on our seats; I had to make sure I picked a seat with a back issue that I didn’t already have (!).

Agnete Enga

Agnete is part of Smart Design. She established FemmeDen to “save good women from bad products”. It was interesting how she criticised the way products are biased towards the male target audience, when companies ought to place even greater precedence on women, who actually influence 80% of consumer products. She demonstrated the “differences” between the genders through a rather crude experiment—2 men and 2 women from the audience were asked to volunteer to come up stage, and both sexes had to hold hands. Once with the opposite sex, and once with the same sex. They were asked how they felt. I think the all-boy couple said it all with her “erms” and “ahhs”. Despite her emphasis on catering to different mindsets and biology/physicality, I think there was still a certain amount of generalisation in amongst the differentiation that still fails to recognise how diverse we (by that I mean both women and men) really are. It’s why androgyny is the way to go! I also didn’t like how it remained a Eurocentric point of view (I mean, I know the design firm tends to deal with a Western audience), but it would have been interesting to know what Asian, Latin American or African cultural perspectives on gender in design are.

Stuart Campbell

This guy reminded me of Mouse from The Matrix. I don’t know why. Maybe it was his surreal, sci-fi futuristic animation that reminded me of The Animatrix, or his rather youthful, grungy and sporadic mannerisms. Anyway, this guy has an amazing portfolio of motion and interactive graphics, but I love how he collects snippets of elements from his real-life experience and incorporates them into compelling narrative motion work.

Dean Gaylor

There was an arrogance about this man that I didn’t warm to; that said, (ironically) his lighting designs were quite stunning in their simplistic beauty.

David Lancashire

I felt rather humbled by David; his work encapsulates a whole part of Australia that our nation just “conveniently” chooses to gloss over, or worse, trivialise.

Rachel Dunn

While I admire the overall “spirit”/sentiment of Girl Director, it just didn’t seem credible to me as a valid philosophy; I don’t know, what I’m trying to say is there was something cheesy or insincere about it. Plus, my feminist sensibilities sort of flared.

Simon Taylor

I love the landscaping job he did in Kobe, Japan; this man is no Jamie Durie, and quite frankly the way Simon describes his job is exactly how I imagined a landscape designer to be, his personality came off as nothing above down-to-earth (oh, am I dripping with puns today or what). The gardens he designs are the stuff that dreams are made of.

Andreas Uebele

Andreas seemed to epitomise all that is German about German design. Actually, my poor eyesight led me to believe I was watching a copy of Erik Spiekermann, but that’s not to discredit either party! His innovative use of Futura (which he doesn’t even like) through pattern for labelling the various storey/levels of a building was quite probably my highlight.

Rob Galluzzo

Kind of a bizarre way of presentation, but it was engaging for the most part. By the way, this is the man responsible for completely “uneducating” everyone regarding the origins of the Great Wall of China and that entire dynasty in general (Nasi Goreng much?), with the infuriating (but almost endearing) Telstra/Big Pond ads.

Alex Ritchie

Well, this is one architect I could tolerate, but perhaps it was his wee Scottish accent that had me entirely enamoured.

Gerry Wedd

Mambo much? Gerry’s portfolio is really diverse; I particularly liked his ceramics

Sonny Day & Biddy Maroney of We Buy Your Kids

This partnership had me entirely intrigued; I mean, what kind of name is that! Biddy’s personal aesthetic and particularly her inspiration/sources resonated with me, given her love for trashy publications/graphics and kitsch, though I personally was never blessed with a plethora of inherited comics or magazines from my parents (Dad regrets not keeping all his Chinese Communist propaganda pamphlets and ephemera though; so do I!). Their working relationship is clearly a strong one; their strengths lying in not only their work ethics but also

Paul ‘Moose’ Curtis

This guy is phenomenal. What he does is basically “clean up” grafitti to produce new graffiti—he scrubs/bleaches the dirt and grime that’s accumulated over time on public monuments and displays, creating a new layer of meaning or message. Ironically he still gets in trouble for it, though all he’s doing technically is cleaning selectively to make a mark. Some remarkable results ensue.

Conrad Bodman

Conrad is curator of the upcoming Tim Burton exhibition to be held at ACMI. I AM SO. SO. SO EXCITED. OK, perhaps mainly it’s because there’s gonna be Batman stuff included, but come on, this guy isn’t overrated for nothing. His madness of vision just sucks me in like nearly no other director (not even Terry Gilliam). We got to be first to see an exclusive preview of the ACMI promotional advertisement for the exhibition. Can’t wait!

Alex Alvarez

By this stage my exhaustion was fully kicking in; mid-way through his (speedy!) speech, I struggled to maintain my attention. What Alex does is highly technical (he certainly made it out to be, anyway) but with incredible results. He showed bits of his involvement in films like Avatar and Star Trek, but he mainly went through his design process, from concept to 3D development to finish, which was infinitely more fascinating and productive, albeit heavy on the technical side, as I mentioned.

Verdict

Overall agIdeas 2010 was insightful, as it usually is, with some strong and inspiring speakers, but with just as weak and asinine ones (OK, so my main issue is from day 1. See corresponding blog post). What matters is what I personally got out of it, which certainly wasn’t nothing.