At TED
Last week I got a chance to attend and (very briefly) present at TED Global in Oxford.
Highlights of the event for me were:
- a surprisingly engaging and moving presentation by Gordon Brown
- a incomprehensible but very funny speach by Stephen Fry
- a brilliant performance by the Sudanese Rap singer, Emannuel Jal
- an extraordinary tale by of innovation by William Kamkawamba (he built a windmill out of scrap to drive a pump during the Malawi famine)
- innumerable extraordinary scientific, design and economic ideas.
As for RedBubble. We were very well received. People were a bit surprised that such extraordinary art was being created and shared on the Internet. It is a bit of leap for people to understand that the world of creativity is so much larger than the available wall space (or possibly even brain space) of the big commercial galleries.
I decided to focus on the work of 5 artists. I wanted to tell a story and felt that this was the best means of doing it. All the artists entered the challenge The Substance of Things Not Seen, the topic of the conference.
ToastedGhost had the winning entry in the challenge – and so got a special prize. His work is rich in courage and humor.
Ashanti Leshelle was my curators pick from the challenge (she also got a special prize). I love the story telling quality of her work.
Mel Brackstone reaches out with a haunting art.
Nathalie Chaput looks very closely at the world around her.
Rob A. Johnston finds the simplicity of the human form.
TED will probably post the talk at some stage over the next few months and I will be sure to let people know.
Tania Rose
I’ve been a TED member for a while now. It’s a very worthwhile tribe to be a part of
halftone
Congratulations on being chosen to present a talk, Martin! I’m honoured to be a part of it, and extremely blown away by the work of the other members you’ve mentioned here! Thank you!
DragonFlyer
What a wonderful selection of the most high quality art from 5 amazing artists! Congratulations to them and to Red Bubble for making it possible for us to view and share work such as this :)))
aglaia b
fantastic stuff ;-) xox
Matt Penfold
That’s wonderful Martin, you have chosen five extraordinary artists :-)
Simon Sherry
A fantastic selection of artists and work to show, and quite a coup – the TED website alone is pretty staggering in scope, and I’m looking forward to seeing the talk online.
Pilgrim
replied
Yes, not sure when it will be out. I hope I didnt stumble too much. I was nervous as hell but think it went well.
peter
Congratulations Martin and to the four fine folks featured in the presentation – any word on when we might be able to watch the presentation?
Pilgrim
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TED tends to put them out over the next 4-8 months rather than in a single block so we just need to be patient.
Delany Dean
Hey, this is amazing news, and wonderful! I am new here on RB and had no idea there was any sort of TED connection. Fantastic!
shanghaiwu
thanks pilgrim/such amazing work and a huge learning curve for me going through these images
Donald Cameron
Sounds like it turned out well, looking forward to seeing the presentation if it’s made available. The selected artists are very good, pity I didn’t make it in after coming in the top 10 of the challenge but nice to be up there anyway. Would be good to see more Redbubble challenges leading to exhibits in the real world, great way of spreading the word and like you say showing the level of talent that so many people are unaware is thriving on sites like this.
Pilgrim
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Donald. I agree and will be working on trying to make this happen. A lot of the groups are also working on this on smaller or larger scale. Eg the group from my local area is doing an exhibition in a cafe.
tkrosevear
Such exciting news for us all Martin, so proud to be part of this ‘community’ who support TED, our winning artists and those behind the scenes at RB ;) xoxox TK ♥
MuscularTeeth
great! and toastedghost is a god.
Pilgrim
replied
Peter
And when the video comes out you will see me there in my favorite T
Dave Martsolf
GReat news for all RB’ers and also my congrats to the winners all!
F.A. Moore
Wonderful!! How exciting too that you shared our RB world with so many who had “No Idea!”.
MuscularTeeth
lol thanks Pilgrim !