Three Minute Happiness

James Cooper

If you said flash on the beach to most advertising folk they would probably think about Cannes and a black Amex card, this is not a post about that sort of thing - although I think Florian and I did once see Martin Brooks flash on the beach at five in the morning a few years back in Cannes. No, no. Flash on the Beach was a conference in Brighton (England - see some cool things do still happen in England) where all the top flash bods got together to talk about Flash. There has been a mini sh*tstorm coming out of it that anyone seriously interested in the future of creative communication would do well to take half an hour to read.

For starters, as I know the Brand Republic audience varies wildly from digital know-it-alls to, well, advertising people, Flash is a piece of software, it's really the main bit of software that allows digital practitioners to work their magic. It makes things move and can incorporate video, stills, data etc. It makes thing look flash! I have absolutely no idea how it works.  

The Keynote speaker at FOTB was a chap called Jonathan Harris. He's very clever, he's won lots of awards. He wrapped up the conference by basically saying, it's all well and good what we are doing but it's a bit sh*t and we need to do better. This has rather put some people's noses out of joint. If you follow this link you will see a really interesting snapshot of where future creativity is going. The two main protagonists are Jonathan himself and Joshua Davis (another very clever, awarded chap). Seeing a no-holds-barred debate between them (and a few others) is the modern equivalent of something like Francis Ford Coppola squaring up to Martin Scorcese or Monet having a pop at Van Gogh.

Before you accuse me of wildly exaggerating the importance of these people, this is really the crux of the debate. Both Harris and Davis have had their work shown in art museums, very credible museums, but Harris wonders aloud about his best work:

It doesn't matter what discipline you are in if you want to produce remarkable work these are the questions you must ask yourself.
Digital art, or 'creative' if you work in advertising, is only in it's very infancy but it's fascinating to see this debate unfurl and see the next generation of gifted artists document their feelings for future generations.