Material 2017
I’m in Iceland. Everything you’ve heard is true. It’s a beautiful fascinating place, and I had a wonderful day of exploration yesterday.
But I didn’t just come to the land of ice and snow—of the midnight sun where the hot springs blow—just to take in the scenery. I’m also here for the Material conference, which just wrapped up. It was very small, and very, very good.
Reading the description of the event, it would definitely be a tough sell trying to get your boss to send you to this. And yet I found it to be one of the most stimulating conferences I’ve attended in a while. It featured talks about wool, about art, about psychology, about sound, about meditation, about photography, about storytelling, and yes, about the web.
That sounds like a crazy mix of topics, but what was really crazy was the way it all slotted together. Brian weaved together a narrative throughout the day, drawing together strands from all of the talks and injecting his own little provocations into the mix too. Is the web like sound? Is the web like litmus paper? Is the web like the nervous system of a blue whale? (you kinda had to be there)
I know it’s a cliché to talk about a conference as being inspirational, but I found myself genuinely inspired by what I heard today. I don’t mean inspired in the self-help feel-good kind of way; I mean the talks inspired thoughts, ideas, and questions.
I think the small-scale intimacy of the event really added something. There were about fifty of us in attendance, and we all ate lunch together, which added to the coziness. I felt some of the same vibe that Brooklyn Beta and Reboot used to generate—a place for people to come together that isn’t directly connected to day-to-day work, but not entirely disconnected either; an adjacent space where seemingly unconnected disciplines get threaded together.
If this event happens again next year, I’ll be back.
