Because my TechBox and livestream setup is remaining in the East Midlands, I take with me tech to play with and tech to test.
People often imagine that my annual retreat to Treshnish is three weeks completely away from work. Not quite! It’s where I relocate and rest. Only select work accompanies me.
Accompanying me this year… On July 10th I’m supporting a Viv Gordon Co online event following a Zoom bombing incident I was called on to manage previously, which arrived and was swiftly averted. I am returning to protect!
Stop All Participant Activity is a click I will have ready again to invoke. All the usual preventative measures did not stop this persistent troll who purposely pushed and made it through the defenses.
Back in Nottingham, thank you to Dave Kirk for stepping forward to learn the ropes and support the continuity of Beeston Tales livestream while I’m away. I am tuning in. Dave will be Zoom in the Room for July’s Beeston Tales. I get to be audience. Yay! That’s July 15th and always the 3rd Wednesday of the month except August. Grab a ticket and join me.
As a podcaster, host, engineer and producer Dave already understands the rhythm: Plan. Prepare. Capture. Edit. Review. Publish.
Livestreaming subtly changes that rhythm.
Plan. Prepare. Setup. (No Opportunity To Edit) Stream. Pack up.
Beeston Tales also presents an interesting technical challenge. There is no internet connectivity at the venue, so for the last three years we’ve relied entirely on a mobile hotspot to broadcast live over Zoom. So my hotspot phone remains behind too.
Why Zoom rather than a dedicated streaming platform like StreamYard?
Audience.
I want people in the room with me. Zoom also brings accessibility features that matter to me: closed captions, translation, audio description and sign language options.
While I’m away, Apple of Discord runs again. This time round I have to sit this one out in the digital wings, supporting via WhatsApp. The CCTV loop using VDO.Ninja has been documented, tested and handed over. The backstage team continues under the wonderfully named “Hands of Fate”. Apple of Discord runs 20th-24th July.
Casting has begun for a Music Stands and Meteors version of Composing the Heavens. The fixed-dome 360 immersive production in the works, bringing STEM a little closer to STEAM infusing 18th Century (1760s) chamber music aligning the literal stars being about the celestial legacies of Caroline and William Herschel.
Meanwhile another challenge arrives.
Spatial reaches its end later this month, meaning CyberiaXR and Androidica lose their friction-free browser access. Browser-first entry into shared 3D spaces has always been important to me. We adapted when AltspaceVR closed. We’ll adapt again. During my retreat I’ll be exploring the next generation of accessible XR spaces.
Thanks to WeAreEpic’s Nudge Fund I’ve been able to dedicate real thinking time to that work, developing practical skills with GitHub, Unity and Obsidian along the way.
My Treshnish essentials:
Computing
iPhone 13 Pro
M1 MacBook Air
Windows laptop
iPad
Quest 3
Infrastructure
HDMI and USB adapters
Extension leads
USB power blocks
Mini travel power station
Creative kit
Small projector
Bluetooth speaker
Apple keyboard and mouse
Folding laptop table
Headphones and earbuds
Stage manager essentials
Black gaffer tape
Black LX tape
USB clamp light
Mini disco lights
It’s a weird collection.
The projector is one of the things I’m most looking forward to experimenting with. I’m desperate to develop entry-level mastery of projection mapping. A couple of mobile apps released over the last year have caught my attention and Treshnish is the perfect place to experiment.
My usual compact tripod is with the streaming kit. I didn’t want to bring a full size tripod that would take up precious space. I packed instead an iPad tripod I’d bought for another project turns out to be the perfect compact stand for the projector too. Sometimes the best discoveries are accidental.
I travel with backup provision almost by instinct.
Once a stage manager, always a stage manager.
My role has morphed and expanded over the years: Company Manager, Technologist, Audio Engineer, Operator, Show Caller, Project Manager, Associate Producer and occasionally Executive Producer.
Here at Treshnish it’s me time.
It’s time to relocate all of my spoons.
This collection of technology isn’t about gadgets for their own sake. My tech evolves to solve problems, remove a barrier or help people participate. On that front I live by the adage “Don’t add technology to the way you do things, change the way you do things once you know what the technology can do”
The ongoing battle is with the algorithm.
When I support productions, communities and other people’s projects, the audience isn’t mine. To the algorithm I look inconsistent. To me, the work is the content. Invariably somebody elses content. I’m usually too busy making the thing happen to document my activity while a job is happening.
Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.
More often than not, the documentation is forever paused once the gig is complete.
So this post isn’t really for today.
It’s for the record.
A marker that I was here, still experimenting, still supporting, still making things happen from my retreat on Mull.
Algorithm be damned.
If you’re reading this, thank you.