ArtCall Diary - June 30th or Bust!

ArtCall Diary - Entry 6/16/2000
June 30th or Bust!
Dr Fly - 3rd Convention Day - The whole city knew I wanted something!

Yes! It was a bag just like this one - That one would have done nicely

Streaming Media East was in full gear. Now that we had an ArtCall out on the second day, it was time to hand out tearsheets of all the awards presented. As I write this article, there are missing notes, for my reporter pad is at The Pink Pony over on Ludlow Street, and I have to go on raw memory. Very simply put what ArtCall wanted was to write up the convention items themselves. Heck, we had already done a bang up job on the promotion items. What was so difficult about writing up the convention items? Why did Bessie the press relations person have such a hard time with that? The NFL or any major sports organization would not treat its press so shabbily. Darn, they just give you the bag and know that you will carry it around as a treasured prize.

Aaron Wroe - Microsoft Technical Support - Day 3 - Streaming Media East 2000

Wandering down the aisles was kinda fun on Tuesday. We met Aaron Wroe, an Australian tech support person for Microsoft when we took a break from the floor. Winnov was the reason we were at the convention for they were the ones that let us know that the event was happening. Achim Strupat one of the good folks from Winnov had a good chuckle when he learned about how we wrote their pens up. He also is going to help ArtCall fix up its Winnov camera, as we need a new lens for the Webbittown Worldwide WebbCamm. (It had been dropped in a fish tank, for those of you tuning in late) Rich Stradtman from earthnoise.com answered the critical question posed in the last ArtCall about getting content digitized in the tape boxes. The answer was YES!

The best that shockwave can buy - moodLogic demo screen

The Spread at the moodLogic press conference - It was excellent - Even better than the China Club

We have learned that we are considered "unqualified" press. It means we aren't invited to the upper floor press gigs unless we happen to invite ourselves. However we did find invitations to the moodLogic press conference scheduled for 6:30pm. And as the afternoon wound down and we couldn't get a convention kit to report on, calmx and I wound up kind of aimlessly wandering around late in the afternoon. This was the conventions' low ebb for us. (calmx was still smarting from her tumble at the China Club) We got to the press conference site and did what East Villagers do best, pig out on the food. And pig out we did! I seem to recall we got to fifths this time around.

Georgio Gomelsky - Lived in Chelsea when nobody lived in Chelsea - Ran a Major BBS Georgio Gomelsky stopped by the press gig. He was covering for Harddisken DR, a Danish TV outfit. Almost anyone connected to anything in New York knows Georgio. He is a hard working networker. He reported that Jack Charnam had fled Brooklyn for Pennsylvania somewhere. We gave him our color tearsheets as he said he would do his darndest to get us a convention kit. Calmx and Georgio also played catch-up and swapped computer stories. An interesting, eclectic sort of crowd began forming. This event was turning out just what we needed to break the doldrums.

Kelly Sulzer - In an Anne Klein dress that obtained in Hong Kong

This paragraph will illustrate a little, just what can happen when things happen at internet speed. (In fact this edition of ArtCall will be edited a second time maybe even a third after it goes live) ArtCall and moodLogic were both started about the same time. moodLogic and ArtCall both address human interaction needs that were not met in the marketplace at various times in their creator's lives. Neither of the two companies face competition yet. That's the similarity, now here are the differences, ArtCall addresses a system deficiency, whereas moodLogic addresses a task deficiency. MoodLogic went through seed and first round funding quickly. ArtCall has still stayed in seed funding. Both launched a product on the same day. moodLogic launched their browser. ArtCall launched their Wireless Web service. Both will rocket to the top of the investment heap with just one advance - Streaming Media!

What moodLogic was missing from the demonstration was that when a song was selected a video window also needed to be popped up. (other than that this was a very very fine demonstration) What ArtCall needs is for phones to be able to pop up our listings in video. But phone video is a ways off. This illustrates just how internet speed works as these problems will both be solved in the near future. We noticed that VC's were making their presence felt at this event. Ascot Asset Management's' Barbara Badi indicated that her firm was ready to help moodLogic in their next funding round. Other VC's were crowding around Thomas Sulzer, the moodLogic creator, trading biz cards and making appointments.

It was a veritable feeding frenzy of information exchange occurred as wired.com, and other tech press all had correspondents in attendance. Hunter Madsen, moodLogic's marketing VP took the time to make sure we had press kits. (now the indie labels know where to get hooked into the database) And as the night wound itself down we took the time to make one last pass at the dessert table. We loved the little magnets that had all sorts of emotion expressions on them. We will use them in WebbCamm stills.

It was worse than we thought on Tuesday - And we got the right headlines at Ray's News to show for it

Networking done for the day, it was off to alt.coffee, at 139 Avenue A, for some local color and to hand out some of our conference goodies. The papers had the headlines right at Ray's News at 113 Ave.A as the early editions for Wednesday came out. It was worse than we thought, as we tried to get a convention kit to cover, and it was a cop out that we had been handed in not being able to get one. We went down to The Pink Pony at 178 Ludlow and sulked. We handed out more of the convention souvenirs so we could feel better and then went to headquarters where we feel dead asleep.

Wednesday was warm and muggy as we made our way back to the Hilton. The pressroom was a beehive of activity. Interviews and sales pitches were going off everywhere. Japanese TV had even entered the picture today in the form of Steven Mudrick and crew, of mado productions, as they sound checked their equipment in front of us. We ran into them later and did a spot on cell phones up on the 4th floor exhibit area. Mati Encarnacion and Eric Vidal of presenter.com (the best bag at the show) both answered a critical question about sound in their Power Point presentations, "Yes, you use a phone to add sound to the Power Point. And... it is free!." Now those are words starving East Village performance artists love to hear.

Lisa Hirschman - iclips.com - handing out canvas totes at Streaming Media East 2000

We kept the printer busy making more tearsheets to hand out. We took another turn on the exhibit floor only to find our Best of Show Award winner, Gregory Demetriades of Maxvu Media, deep in conversation and we couldn't get any more envelopes. Ami French of MeTV.com got a tear sheet for the Best Business Card Award winner. cidera.com loved their award and found another cup for my editrix (so she won't sulk now) and incanta.com pitched in another hat (so she is happy now). Back down at the escalator entrance we ran into Lisa Hirschman and Roger Carmien of iClips.com in an energetic state happily handing away canvas tote bags. IClips sponsored the breakfasts that were just too early for an East Villager to make.

Network Engines - Server Farm - The most awesome thing at Streaming Media East
Network Engines - Most Awesome Display at Streaming Media East 2000

We took our last spin on the conference floor and gave Yack.com our Logo Award Winner prize, and networkengines.com our Most Awesome Display Award. (It took all 3 days for the power of this picture to sink in) And promptly at 2pm they began yanking up the carpet from the floor. Back in the pressroom we struck a deal with someone for NetVideoNetworks.com for a stream feed for ArtCall, and watched Robert Merlo from exodus.net explain their service that monitors streaming media feeds. This service can tell you how a user is handling your streaming media feed and at what speed they are using. All in all a very nifty feature.

Now as the pressroom began to close, someone had really lost The Bag. Bessie, the press girl from streamingmedia.com, found a laptop in the room after it was closed. We suspected it was someone over at the dalet.com press conference where they were pronouncing the ability to stream 100 channels at the same time. dalet.com even did math and showed how they can deliver over 7 terra bytes a second! Now that is delivery power. And as we packed up over 60 pounds of press kits and convention promo items, a card appeared from Emily Pashman, the nextvenue.com girl. We knew we hadn't lost the card. Somehow they fit into the scheme of things, but we just don't quite know how yet.

We sat there in the hallway as the show began to break down. We were saddened that we had not gotten a bag. How had did we have to work just to come home empty handed? We finally gave up and lugged our stuff down to the main entranceway to catch a cab down to The Pink Pony for a confab with the editrix. We were resigned to having to have a really bad headline for this diary entry. We had a last cigarette before we got in the really long taxi line and just as I was putting my cigarette out, one of the doormen had spotted a bag next to a trash can and announced "Who's is this?"... We wasted not even a 1/10th of a second and said "Mine!'. Someone had thrown their convention bag away. We finally had our bag!

We had a happy cab ride downtown in the middle of rush hour. The ride seemed to take forever as the taxi took 7th Av. downtown rather than go east on 54th Street. Too much construction in the lower Times Square area is why. Finally at The Pink Pony my editrix got all her goodies and we finally got to decompress from the event although the Microsoft Technical Seminar, back at the Hilton, and TechExpo 2000 at The Digital Sandbox, were the next day. We were just plain worn out, had bumps and bruises and still had one more day to go.

Aaron Wroe - At the Microsoft Technical Seminar - June 15th

The Windows Media Books from the Technical Seminar - June 15th, 2000

Thursday was hot and muggy as we made our way back uptown. We met performance artist Dr. Fly on the way and the big WANTED headline greeted us. There were all kinds of things we wanted. A laptop, money, our katkitty, just about the whole world for that matter. Heck, ArtCall is the tinniest startup in Silicon Alley we need everything. But Thursday was about learning the jargon necessary to get streaming media up and running for the ArtCall artists and this was the place to learn it.

The seminar itself was very demanding. It did not help that the material in the notebook that they gave us was incomplete. They used a power point presentation that didn't match the handouts. Patty Krizowsky and Jeff Cheech from viewcast.com were my table mates at the seminar. Viewcast is a maker of the Osprey capture board, that the presenter recommended for streaming media. We gave them our ArtCall card and hope they send us a bunch of good stuff. We lasted until lunchtime, and after filling out our evaluation sheets, we got the obligatory T-shirt. We also got a good sized box lunch. Downstairs, we ran into Michael Ryan and Phillip Mereday of stockgroup.com also breaking from the Discovery Expo. We took a turn on their expo floor before heading downtown to TechExpo 2000. We wondered on the train down if Bill (Gates) was trying to get in our good graces with food and clothing as they are something we need. We also thought during the seminar, "This is the beginnings of the death of TV."

Bradford Rand - President/CEO TechExpo 2000 - At The Digital Sandbox

Anthony Matus - Local East Village regular from 2nd and B - Xceed.com

The Digital Sandbox sounds like it might be an incubator. This piqued our curiosity as we entered TechExpo. It was a very lively affair and Bradford Rand the CEO did his best to make us feel at home. We did all the tables at least twice. If you are in need of aa tech job, this is the place to go. They roam the tri-state area and visit New York about once every two months. John Deneen of sn.com had his web site company there. John started from humble beginnings in his home and is now looking for savvy web designers. Anthony Matus from 2nd and B in the EV modeled the Xceed.com long sleeve shirt for us and Amy Bee of NASDAQ was looking for all the skilled programmers she could get her hands on. NASDAQ CD holder - TechExpo 2000

NASDAQ gave away a nifty little CD holder and starmedia.com gave away shirts that were packaged in the shape of a block that looked like post-it notes. Investigation revealed the The Digital Sandbox is not an incubator, but a hi-tech place for media events. With all our new found tech knowledge, we trained it back up to the East Village and saw Mark Kostabi before he went back off to Italy for another couple of months. Mark Kostabi - Signing book for Ronald Feldman - 6/15/2000 - Kostabi World

Mark Kostabi - Signing book for Ronald Feldman - 6/15/2000 - Kostabi World

Unidentified art patron - Guernsey's Graffiti Auction - June 15th 2000

Kostabi World was a frenzy of activity as Mark was due to take off back to Rome the next day. He was furiously signing his newly arrived books to all his co-conspirators. Charlie Finch called and Mark and Charlie hashed out who the likely candidates for Mark's next column in Shout Magazine would be. Gossip about artnet.com was rampant as Thomas Hoving (formerly of The Met) has left the staff, artnet was going to take on another floor at their current location and they had gotten a second round of VC funding. Paul Kostabi called and asked that I get the unsold LAII's from the Guernsey Graffitti Auction the day before. Stash - Aerosol Uprising - bought for $1,000

Stash - Aerosol Uprising - bought for $1,000

We had to wait unitl the auction was through to get the works. Only about 1/3 of the works did sell. This was a dealer auction as opposed to a collector auction in that the dealers refused to bid causing many passes. It also leads to their trying to get work on the cheap when the auction is over. We did manage to get a catalogue that got all tagged up in the process. We found Jesse Bates in the gallery work area painting backgrounds on some collaborative work with Paul Kostabi of Follin Gallery that is soon to hit Ebay. As we left the gallery we found Robert Arihood holding down the local beat on Avenue A as several disturbances broke out on the extremely warm night. One incident was at The Odessa restaurant at 117 Avenue A where a girl was into it with the wait staff that had over a dozed of New York's finest involved before it was over.

Friday came and it was wash and rest day. Editing for this article started and we were glad we could spend a day here at headquarters. It had seemed as though we were in a different part of the country (that's what going above 14th Street will get you) for all of the 4 days. It felt great to be back in the good 'ol East Village and getting ready for Headquarters Housewarming!

Nest Issue: Headquarters had a house warming party.

Jottings: The ArtCall at Clayton Performance Space 161 Essex 6/30 7:30-9, CBGB's 313 Gallery 313 Bowery 6/21 6-10, Eve Packer Knitting Factory 6/21 8-10, No Rio Benefit/Open House 156 Rivington 6/24 all day, Tsaurah Litzky ABC No Rio 6/25 7-9, National Arts Club 15 Gramercy Park South 6:30-9, Wide Open Cabaret ABC No Rio 6/30 8-2, All times PM unless otherwise noted.

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