The other lunchtime a few of the team here trotted off to the Barbican Centre around the corner to take a look around their latest exhibition; the most extensive exhibition ever mounted of animation over the last 150 years, entitled Watch Me Move. The Barbican have really done a super job with this exhibition. You are fully immersed into the environment walking around an almost pitch black labyrinth of screens displaying animation from the earliest examples of time-lapse photography right up to the rich and lifelike computer-generated animations we are so used to seeing in cinemas today.

The gallery is split into seven interconnected themes: Apparitions, Characters, Superhumans, Fables, Fragments, Structures and Visions. Sadly we had only enough time to move fairly rapidly around the exhibition, but I fully intend to go back and spend more time there before it shuts on the 11th September. With over 170 works to take in, you need to make sure you’ve got plenty of  ’dwell time’. In one area, for example, they have these super little part-enclosed benches (a bit like Mork’s egg transporter) where you sit inside and the built in speakers playing the soundtrack of the animation playing on a large screen in front of you, enclosing you off from the rest of the world. You just want to curl up and watch the animations for hours. It’s bliss.

It’s remarkably fascinating to all ages I imagine, children will like the fact there are a lot of cartoons, and adults will also like the fact there are a lot of cartoons! In all seriousness, I found the exhibition a brilliant way to spend my time. An eclectic mix of the weird, the awesome and the just plain captivating – one of my personal favourites being a short animated film of a couple of guys heading out to get snacks from their local shop, where a psychedelic inspired  transformation of illustration styles warp through the timeline just drawing you in to a trance-like state with it’s simple, yet stunning beauty. I’m almost addicted to watching that time and time again. I must return and find out what it’s called!

If you have a couple of hours spare then pop down to the Barbican Centre to take a long, slow look, you won’t be disappointed. (NB: The gift shop at the end is pretty great too so be warned!)

Photo credits: Lyndon Douglas

Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery.

For those of you that don’t know, WEF is an opportunity for those who are at the head of the (board)table to thrash out their views about the state of the World and what they are hoping for in the upcoming year — a big, big deal. I overheard someone in the corridor saying; “If you’re in to politics, this is the place to be.” So no pressure then? Previous years have seen such heavy hitters as Richard Branson, Tony Blair, and even ex-president Bill Clinton attending the event hosted in the small Swiss skiing resort — such is the importance of the WEF conference. With the World economy recovering from crisis, this years WEF focused on the topics of Rethink, Redesign and Rebuild.

We were asked by our client to set up some digital brand communications within their corporate sponsored area. This took the form of a series of branded animations (two animations for each day of the conference) playing across large screens mounted along the walls so that the guests could watch, and follow, the animations as they moved through the space.

Without going into lots of information about the animations themselves, I thought I’d treat you to a video of my non-scripted ramblings via a Flip video camera that I recorded whilst I was there.

(Expect some mild expletives and some general poo-pooing of every other branding scheme…)

Click here to view the embedded video.

What did seriously impress however was this years Observation Round video. Each year we produce a ‘homemade’ video for this particular round which are often hastily mashed together at the 11th hour. Robert Ball and Tim Brown left the motley crew in awe in the pub as they played their stunning animated video featuring The Partners staff partaking in varying sporting pursuits.

Here’s the video that had us all rolling on the floor.

Just please don’t ask to see any of the photos…