Players and observers crowd the video game area of the second Jamaica Digital Arts Festival, held at the Knutsford Court Hotel, New Kingston, last Saturday and Sunday. - photos by Mel Cooke
A large part of the miracle of digitisation has been miniaturisation, as technology-driven devices have got smaller and more accessible to persons with lower budgets. So those who came to the second Jamaica Digital Arts Festival, last Saturday and Sunday at the Knutsford Court Hotel, New Kingston, expecting huge roomfuls of glittering gadgets would have been disappointed.
Instead, there were two packed rooms, one for displays and the other for workshops, one exhibitor each for video cameras and animation in the former among the main attractions, along with a few displays of goods and services. The most obvious deficiency was a display of digital sound recording (although that was the focus of the evening's final workshop with Dan McDowell), with the staggering number of studios in Jamaica using the technology.
It was the game corner, though, which occupied the attention of the vast majority of those, especially the younger people, who attended the festival on Saturday. There were slashes and smashes in Mortal Kombat and dribbles and shots in football, along with the reaction of the crowds watching the competitors in the early stages of the 'Best Gamer in Jamaica' contest.
The festival is put on by the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC), through its training arm, the Media Technology Institute (MTI), the theme being 'Unleashing Creative Potential Through Technology'.
Opening ceremony
The competitive beast, mostly of the macho variety, was put on pause for the festival's brief official opening ceremony at about 4 p.m, hosted by CPTC CEO Angela Patterson, Representatives of HEART/NTA and the Ministry of Information and Technology expressing their support of the festival.
All seats were taken at the workshops, with quite a few persons standing as Craig Phang Sang spoke about video camera technology (including the famed RED), Professor Michael Smith of the University of Trinidad and Tobago discussed animation and Dan McDowell examined audio-recording technology progression and the resetting of digital frontiers. In the last, McDowell gave a historical perspective of the development of sound technology, in the context of advances in computing.
In the process, he explained that in 1981 a number of keyboard makers combined to create Musical Instruments Digital Interface, himself, Ibo Cooper, Peter Ashbourne and Dr Aggrey Irons among those in Jamaica who first embraced the technology.
He later spoke about developments "ushering in the age of the laptop studio". Indicating his laptop case, McDowell said "right here in this bag, I have an entire studio. All I don't have is the speakers". So on a recent trip to the US to record a number of radio advertisements, he simply travelled with his laptop, used two blankets to construct a makeshift studio and did the job.
Mobile studio
It can be a mobile studio as well. McDowell said a former student of his does just that with dancehall artiste Mavado, recording dub plates on the go.
McDowell showed the MBox for his ProTools audio recording and mixing programme, as he spoke about the various levels of the technology and the associated prices. There was laughter in the room when he explained just how the technology can be used to make anybody be able to sing in a recording, as well as anybody with the necessary equipment to create music.
"People are making millions of dollars out of it, whether you like it or not. A lot of dancehall music, a lot of one drop programmes, are made with these programmes," he said. Among the developments which are not yet being utilised on a widescale basis in Jamaica is surround sound mixing.
In the end, McDowell said if the powers that be can see just where the fusion of music and technology can take the country, "I don't think we need Sunday horse racing and I don't think we need casino gambling."
Phang Sang