11 Oct Atlanta: The Perfect Blend of Right and Left Brain

October is a busy month for most everyone. It starts to feel like fall (usually…), school is in full swing, businesses are heading into Q4 while also planning for 2018, and it’s conference season once again. The spring and fall generally hold many professional events and this year is no different. What is different is the growing crowd and caliber of events in the Atlanta creative technology space. Last week in Atlanta was a busy one, full of locals and visitors to our great city, who migrated to multiple conferences and events. These particular events showcased a blend of creative thought with technology, which I like to call the two halves of Atlanta’s brain. Left brain referring to the logical and analytical development (technology) and right brain nods to subjective and intuitive production (creativity).

Futurus directly participated in two of these events, but there are others of note that prove and support Atlanta’s continuing growth in the tech/music/gaming industries and the hybrid of thought that makes our city great.

FutureX Live

FutureX Live had an emphasis this year on “engineered consciousness”, which refers to our “newfound powers to architect realities.” This fit right into Futurus’ line of work producing virtual and augmented reality programming. FutureX Live invited me to participate in the Atlanta Alternate Realities Showcase on stage, to discuss local initiatives, both professional and community-driven. With the newly merged Virtual Reality and Hololens meetup groups, it was the perfect stage to announce the union, which is now known as Virtual and Augmented Reality Atlanta (V/AR Atlanta). We also had the opportunity to publicly premiere our new video (if you haven’t seen our behind the scenes post, click here).

Futurus exhibited with other local developers and studios, where we educated attendees on technology and use cases for virtual and augmented reality. Throughout the day, we showcased our virtual reality demo, experienced on the HTC Vive with MSI VR One backpack PC.

SuperNova South

SuperNova South had a surprisingly large amount of VR/AR content this year, which was a great benefit to attendees. From “New Realities – AR, VR & MR” to “VR Training: Why Major Brands are Getting Onboard”, there were 7 panels, sessions, and events related to VR/AR over the course of the conference. Futurus participated on the “New Realities” panel alongside Skignz, Trick 3D, and O’Neill Communications. We discussed uses of the technology, heavily focussed on a marketing audience and provided both virtual and augmented reality examples for brand storytelling.  I highlighted the point of the two technologies eventually merging and becoming one seamless wearable, and we also discussed Magic Leap and whether or not we believe they will release a developer product over the next few months.

The conversation was intimate and we had a fantastic Q&A session with the audience. While the location of the conference was spread out, the content was solid and the audience was engaged.

SIEGE

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to participate in SIEGE this year since all of these events occurred within the same week, there was only so much we could do. I want to bring SIEGE into this conversation because it is the largest professional gaming conference in the south. It has grown year-over-year and proves that Atlanta continues to rise in talent and production for the gaming industry.

A3C

While we didn’t participate in A3C this year either, it deserves to be on this list. When talking about digital entertainment and media, music is at the forefront and Atlanta has always been known as an industry epicenter. The best part about A3C is that it’s not only a festival but a conference that brings together industry leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, producers and other creatives and has grown to be known as “Hip Hop’s Family Reunion.” Events like this in Atlanta continue to grow both the Atlanta image and economy in regards to digital media.

It was a busy week and for those who participated, thank you for helping our city evolve into a tech hub that has blended creativity and design with technology. Not many other cities have a hybrid of the left and right brain like we do. Let’s keep up the good work!