I had great fun presenting at the Gel (Good Experience Live) 2007 conference in NYC.

My interactive Whitney Music Box (in which the crowd made noises while host Mark Hurst controlled them with a knob) worked quite well. The audience of about 400 was game, and enthusiastically yelled “PI!” (or maybe “PIE!”) when their assigned numbers crossed the line, producing a pleasant cacophony.

The rest of the conference was awesome. My favorite presenter, I think, was Andrew, of “Songs to Wear Pants To”, a young songwriter who demonstrates that arbitrarily imposed constraints can be wonderfully productive for the creative process. Andrew composes short songs, on request, when his fans send him emails explaining what they want. His process reminds me a bit of the Dial a Song service, run for years by They Might Be Giants, and it seems to have similar benefits – Andrew has produced a cornucopia of sonic riches.

Urban Prankster Charlie Todd was also a favorite of mine. I spent much of the day yesterday playing all the prank videos on the Improv Everywhere website. I only wish I lived in New York so I could participate!

Douglas Quin’s recordings of Antarctic seals are highly evocative of synthetic sounds, and sounded like quotes from the Whitney Music Box.

I was especially jazzed to be able to brainstorm about nerdly things with fellow geek Robin Burgener, creator of the 20Q handheld game (and more importantly, the neural network that powers it).

Indeed, all the presenters had something really special to provide. There wasn’t a dud in the bunch.

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