Powerpoint to the People™

12/1/04 to 12/8/04

A PowerPoint Competition

Upcoming
Films
Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Past Films

The Live Competition
- Wednesday, December 8 7:30pm
Before a panel of stern judges-monologuist Josh Kornbluth, digital communications designer Eric McDougall, and artist Anne Walsh-artists and others who have responded to our call for entries will display PowerPoint presentations like you've never seen, and probably never will again, unless this catches on.
An Evening of Automated Digital Presentations
- Wednesday, December 1 7:30pm
The screening will unspool like a riotous cascade of point-of-purchase promos and flowchart folderol, guaranteed to change your view of the Information Age. Including Peter Norvig's groundbreaking version of the Gettysburg Address realized as a series of handsome talking points. Come back December 8 for the live competition!

Powerpoint to the People™

12/1/04 to 12/8/04

Congratulations to the 2004 winners:
Alva Noe and Miriam Dym, First Place
Greg Niemeyer and Monica Lam, Second Place
Francis McIlveen, Third Place

You've seen those digital presentations-in an airless boardroom, an inept speaker parrots bullet points already on view in the projected graphics. My point? This much-ridiculed form of address, generically referred to as PowerPoint after the Microsoft program that drives it, has either:

• lowered the bar for visual presentations, or
• offered up new conventions to be dismantled by restless and adventurous practitioners.

The real challenge obviously lies in bullet point number two. PowerPoint to the People™ is a two-part competition that follows artists, designers, and purveyors of the digital pitch right to the limits of the unintended. Expect to see innovative works that:

• elegantly overcome the dead weight of content, or...

Congratulations to the 2004 winners:
Alva Noe and Miriam Dym, First Place
Greg Niemeyer and Monica Lam, Second Place
Francis McIlveen, Third Place

• lowered the bar for visual presentations, or
• offered up new conventions to be dismantled by restless and adventurous practitioners.

• elegantly overcome the dead weight of content, or
• through sheer visual verve rise above the exacting limitations of presentation software.

"Let us imagine, then," says David Byrne, popmeister of the digital presentation, "that PowerPoint and its attendant softwares are actually a means to a positive emotional and philosophical end, a path towards a goal that is easy to reach and available to all." PowerPoint to the People™ is a rest stop on that egalitarian road to fulfillment.

Steve Seid

Less

Dedicated to Juan Jose Diaz Infante.

Powerpoint to the People™

12/1/04 to 12/8/04

Past Films

The Live Competition

An Evening of Automated Digital Presentations